Okay, so besides the obvious black dot / band issues that Canon doesn’t seem to care much about, how else would you tweak the EOS 5D Mark II? Said DSLR has proven itself as a champion in the low-light / video space, thought there’s like, no competition at all thus far in the latter department. Are you comfortable with the grip? Is the UI friendly enough to navigate? Too light or heavy? Does it make you weep in joy each time you hold it? For those who’ve laid down the coin for this, we’re sure you’ve got a few things to say — so vent in comments below, won’t you?
We don’t have anything against the T-Rex, but… you can keep it. Whenever we enter the market for a three-wheeled vehicle, we’ll take this baby designed by New Zealander Alex Hodge. A fiberglass shell rides on an alloy chassis that connects the three wheels. For motive power there’s the heart of a Honda RC51 sportbike, and the 10,000 rpm, 120 rear-wheel-horsepower would give the thing a theoretical top speed of 145 mph. When it’s red light time, disc brakes are fitted up front and double-up in the back. Sure, you can’t buy it yet, but we’re not looking for a trike at the moment, either. And we can wait. So Alex, get to work, please…
In celebration of the new year, Platinum Games posted on its Japanese site (and subsequently on its English-language Facebook page) this card featuring characters from its announced titles (from left to right) Mad World, Bayonetta and Infinite Space. More importantly, however, is the brand new logo that replaces the now-antiquated blocky design.
Company President / CEO Tatsuya Minami is said to be giving a more in-depth explanation of the new logo sometime later, but in case you were wondering now, that gray color is known as Platinum Silver. Yeah, they’re classy like that.
Ever since Evel Knievel made jumping a motorcycle into a national phenomenon, there seems to be an endless supply of insane (and inane) stunts with which to occupy our imaginations. The latest feat was performed in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve and involved launching Robbie Maddison — the man who performed a different jump in Sin City last New Year’s Eve — over 100 feet and landing at the top of the Arc de Triomphe at the Paris hotel. Of course, what goes up, must come down, and so did Robbie. Fortunately, he managed to stick the landing but he reportedly injured his hand in the process. Watch the whole bit go down on the video — complete with the obligatory cut-shots to his rightfully concerned significant other — after the break. In related news, Robbie Knievel also made a (less impressive) Vegas jump that night, and that video can also be seen after the break.
Today, Microsoft released three new Lipsdownloadable songs that have the ability to embiggen your Lips music library all while reducing your banked Microsoft points. The three new songs range in price between 160 and 180 MS points and include music from The Supremes, Men at Work and Earth, Wind and Fire. DLC listed below, click to buy.
After such a gloomy 2008, automakers are looking anywhere they can for a ray of sunshine. One such glimmer came in the form of a preliminary report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that recalls were down 30% last year compared to 2007, and at their lowest levels since 1994.
It’s not all good, though. While automakers recalled a combined 10.2 million vehicles in 2008, the total number of recall campaigns hit a record number of 642 — a 9% jump over 2007 – and also included a 233 safety investigations last year, up from only 98 in 2007.
David Kelly, acting NHTSA administrator, said his agency is attributing the drop in recalled cars to an early warning system used to alert manufacturers to problems as quickly as possible. Early fixes in a product’s production puts fewer flawed cars on the road.
Among the top six automakers, Chrysler had the fewest recalled cars in 2008 at 360,000. That’s a huge drop from the 2.2 million it recalled in 2007. GM, on the other hand, recalled 1.9 million in 2008, up from 538,000 in 2007. Honda and Toyota both saw their recall numbers increase, while Nissan’s dropped.
Craigslist is one of my absolute favorite sites on the ‘net — it’s been around for years, but kept the same simple look and feel, perfectly fulfilling the service of classifieds without ever once going off that course. Sure, there are issues with spam, but Craig and his minions have worked overtime to make the thing work, and it works well (in fact, if you see any weightlifing dumbells for sale in Chicago, let me know, I need some).
There are quite a few iPhone apps featuring Craig and his list out there (including a few with prices on them), but one that caught our eye as a useful free app is Craigsphone, made by Next Mobile Web (they make the very useful Dial Zero app as well). As you can see from the video above, it’s all the features of Craigslist made mobile, and then some — you can see your history, post and call directly from the phone, and even use the iPhone’s location to see craigslist entries nearby (though unfortunately, the Nearby features only work in San Fransisco and Manhattan — no Chicago?). NMW claims they’re still working on the app, too — they want to “take the best local site in the world and make it truly local.” Who knows what that means, but it sounds good, right?
If you spend lot of time on Craiglist, or just want to while you’re out and about, Craigsphone seems like a good way to do it. We’re interested to see what else they’ve got planned, too.
Popping in to deliver some New Year tidings on the PlayStation Blog, Q-Games’ president Dylan Cuthbert opined on his favorite games of ought-eight … and teased that at least two new titles from his Kyoto-based studio are coming to Sony platforms in ’09.
Cuthbert predicts that this year will be a grand one for games, “what with two or three more PixelJunk titles coming out.” We’ve already seen one of them — PixelJunk Monsters for PSP — but the others? Given the number of tabled concepts Cuthbert recently showed Spike TV (skiing, fighting, etc.) we’d say a PixelJunk take on an established genre would be a shoe-in, but then there was the decidedly non-conformist — and absolutely superb — PixelJunk Eden last year. So, we can only … imagine.
If you were hoping that another no-name company would release a $400 Blu-ray player, then today is your lucky day as ezGear is very proud to share the details of its BluCobra Blu-ray Disc Player. The BluCobra — love the name btw — features 7.1 analog outputs, SACD, TrueHD, DTS-HD HR&MA and the cutting edge profile 1.1, otherwise known as Bonus View. Luckily Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic can rest easy until at least March when this beast is scheduled hits the streets. Oh, and just a little prediction, no way the BluCobra will sell for its MSRP.
Click above for image gallery of lunar rovers in action.
About the time Ford was developing the first Mustang, General Motors’ Defense Research Labs was working on something more other-worldly. Man was about to go to the moon, and they needed some transportation when they got there. GM was chosen to develop the running gear along with the tires for the three lunar rovers that would travel to the moon.
Now, more than 40 years later, NASA is on a mission to return to the moon and again needs something to cruise the craters. As we’ve reported before, NASA is developing a new rover design, but wants to improve upon the original rover’s wheels. Unfortunately, the original rovers are still on the lunar surface, and, in its infinite Cold War wisdom, NASA made sure nothing from the original design escaped the shredders.
Luckily, NASA called up one of the original rover tire designers to seek his insight. The 80-year-old engineer was more than happy to help, and even offered to bring in the original, 40-year-old lunar rover tire he had squirreled away in his closet. Made out of zinc-coated piano wire, the tire has been sitting in the retired GM employee’s closet just waiting for its day to do its patriotic duty. Or end up on eBay.
So the engineer and his 40-year-old moon tire are helping NASA develop a new transportation system for future moon-exploring astronauts. Click here to listen to the NPR story. Check out the gallery for several shots of the piano-wire-mesh tires in action on the lunar surface. Thanks for the tip, Christina!
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