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In case you are unaware, the penny-farthing is a classic bicycle that dates back to the 1800s. They are instantly identified by their overly large front wheels. For whatever reason, bicycle manufacturers at the time thought a huge front wheel was the way to go (actually there were no chain drive systems at the time, so they ran by direct drive, thus the rider needed to be directly over the center of the front wheel).

If you look at the bikeboard, it has the same aesthetic value but no valid excuses. A large bicycle front wheel and then a couple of skateboard rear reals; like a Penny-farthing tricycle. The only difference is that the bikeboard does not have any pedals, so you are going to have to go Flintstones style on this thing. Maybe I am just a jaded cynic as I rapidly approach middle-age, but this really just does seem to be an unrepentant waste of resources. I won’t be buying a bikeboard, who’s with me?

Price: $240

Red Ferret

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Posted Feb 7th 2008 10:49AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Displays
We’ve already seen plenty of oio iterations from Explay, but apparently this here “oio companion” is the real deal, and it’ll be shown off at Mobile World Congress next week. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we’re getting any solid price or release details just yet, pretty much this new render is all. The mobile nanoprojector uses hybrid laser and LED light sources, and features an “always in focus” capability, low power consumption and an “affordable price.” According to Explay, customers and carriers are currently being polled for input on the commercial rollout, so be sure to let Explay know in the comments how excellent of a pricepoint $5 would be. You can thank us later, Explay.

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There is a new webcam in town known as the V-Gear TalkCam CX1 that has just been released in the Korean market. It features an integrated microphone that uses ArcSoft’s Magic-i software to provide a wide range of video effects whenever you communicate with somebody else via the webcam. With a clip-type design that caters to virtually all flat panel displays, you can be assured that the V-Gear TalkCam CX1 also works just fine with notebooks that do not yet come with any sort of webcam. It supports a maximum resolution of 1,280 x 960.

Source: AVing

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Last week, there were a rash of anti-gadget incidents in US airports: several people were forced to remove all gadgets, wires and all, for seemingly arbitrary screening. The twist was that these people were bloggers, or otherwise able to reach an audience on the internet, and the TSA has responded through its own blog, The Evolution of Security.

Posters on this blog have had their first official impact on our operations […]

On Monday afternoon we began receiving questions about airports that were requiring ALL electronics to be removed from carry-on bags (everything, including blackberrys, iPods and even cords). This practice was also mentioned on several other blogs and left us scratching our heads.

So…we checked with our security operations team to figure out what was going on. After some calls to our airports, we learned that this exercise was set up by local TSA offices and was not part of any grand plan across the country. These practices were stopped on Monday afternoon and blackberrys, cords and iPods began to flow through checkpoints like the booze was flowing on Bourbon Street Tuesday night. (Fat Tuesday of course).

This pretty much confirms what we were all thinking. Instead of being the well oiled, co-ordinated security machine it pretends to be, the TSA no less susceptible to middle managers’ whims than your local AT&T store.

Hoory Bloggers! [TSA via BoingBoing]

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The Guardian is outraged by a pie chart (Photo taken by Engadget) used by Steve Jobs at MacWorld to illustrate the iPhone’s marketshare, calling him the "king of snake oil salesman" due to its deceptive representation of relative percentages.

We corrected the perspective, then lined it up with an accurate chart made using the same data: check our bumper graphic after the jump. Just how bad is it?

»read more from "MacWorld’s iPhone Marketshare Pie Chart: Is It Faked?"

Ford has partnered with Sprint, Microsoft and DeWalt, among others, to offer a truly tricked out truck. The 2009 F-150 and F-Series Super Duty models will come with an office inside, complete with a broadband connection, a Bluetooth printer, and connection back to base.

More fun for gadgeteers, though, is Tool Link. Tools can be RFID tagged and the truck will scan the bed to tell you what is and isn’t there, so you’ll never turn up to a job without your ATAX. Click the image to see it in its full, 7,750,000 pixel (and 2.8MB) glory, and marvel that we are one step closer to the day when we can Google our lost keys.

Press release [Yahoo Finance via BoingBoing]

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If you, like us, have been wondering whether all the fuss about the Solid State Drive in the MacBook Air was, well, just a fuss, wonder no more. Ars Technica has run benchmark tests on the new machine and found that, with the exception of random disk reading and writing, there isn’t much difference between the SSD and a regular hard drive, and in fact the SSD air did poorly on sequential writing and reading.

This is to be expected. The advantage of a solid state drive is that there are no moving parts. Whereas a mechanical drive has to keep the read/write head moving to access data, the SSD doesn’t. This should also translate into longer battery life (no moving parts, remember?) It doesn’t. Ars got the same two and a half hours from both models.

Visit the site for the full and very in depth review. There are also the results for CPU and memory tests, but as the SSD equipped Air has a faster processor, these are slightly skewed.

What does $1,300 extra really get you? [Ars]

»read more from "MacBook Meh: Ars Benchmarks SSD Air"

Latest Tech News - 6 February Lounger inspiration from Star Wars ViewPlus IVEO Hands-on Learning System Intempo BTA-01 Bluetooth adapter Tau Ceramica Diet Floor Halitosis Detector saves the day Utilize the power of the sun for extra talk time BlackBerry used to make car reservation VuPoint 35mm Film Scanner to Digitize Old Film and Slides Japan to Get Silver PS3, Greatest Hits Games DIY Voice Changer is perfect for prank calls Epson announces Stylus CX9475Fax LeapFrog announces new video game systems Kodak reinvents the pixilated wheel Design makes for space saving printer Movers & Shakers of the dining table variety Thumbnail gallery plugin by SoftSift

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The whole situation still makes me a little nervous about just how nice the shopping experience will be, but there is a slight bit of good news for CompUSA fans. Those 16 retail store locations that we mentioned the other day, they are going to be retaining the CompUSA name. Systemax, the parent company of Tiger Direct is also planning on re-branding the existing 11 Tiger Direct retail locations with the CompUSA name and use Tiger Direct only for their online sales. The deal is said to cost $30 million and is an all cash deal.

Read [Trading Markets] Via [SlashGear]

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Posted Feb 7th 2008 2:46AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. GadgetsWe hear this new phase-change memory stuff is awful special, which is why we’re hoping to get our hands on some now that Numonyx (the “pospective” company founded last year by Intel and STMicroelectronics to make the stuff), is apparently shipping “Alverstone”-codenamed prototypes. Of course, with progress comes hype: according to Ed Doller, Numonyx’s “prospective” CTO, “This is the most significant non-volatile memory advancement in 40 years.” Show us the memory!

»read more from "Numonyx (Intel and STMicroelectronics) already shipping phase-change memory samples"