Best Gadgets World

So you think that your cramped apartment just isn’t large enough to accommodate that extra home theater system you just purchased? German team Rucksack House has managed to figure out a method to expand your puny apartment size without the hassle (and cost) of moving. It is a walk-in cube that functions as an extra room, using steel cables anchored to the roof to keep it attached to the rest of the building. I wonder whether cities with extremely cramped apartments will have enough room between each other to warrant such an extension, and should everyone take up this home expansion offer, the streets will be in perpetual darkness since no light will be able to reach the bottom.

Source: American Inventor Spot

This certainly is an unusual court case, and I doubt there will be enough evidence for this Pittsburgh couple to win their case. Basically, their main argument is Google had put their house into Google’s Street View service.

Aaron and Christine Boring, who are the residents of this house have filed a lawsuit in Allegheny County’s Court of Common pleas. In this lawsuit they accused Google of “intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion.” At this point, I still don’t think Google did anything wrong, but here is where the case gets interesting. According to the residents heir street is “clearly marked with a ‘Private Road’ sign.” The Borings went so far as to say that being included in the Street View caused them “mental suffering” and it also, somehow, diminished the value of their home. In the lawsuit, they are seeking about $25,000 in damages and want to get a court order, which would make Google get rid of the images of their house they had taken.

I think Google shouldn’t have included the houses on this street especially if it was marked with a Private Road sign, or if they really wanted to, they should have checked with the residents. I also wonder how this is different from Google Maps and the satellite view, while the image is obviously not as clear, it can still be pictured, I can see suing Google to have the images removed, but $25,000 sounds crazy.

Images [Google Pictures] Via [TechCrunch]

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Posted Apr 4th 2008 10:33AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Digital CamerasRegardless of what the UN / Taser thinks, the fuzz around Clinton, Connecticut aren’t too fond of taser-like weapons being in the hands of teenagers. Case in point: a 14-year old with a certain knack for wandering around the intarwebz and filling his brain with all sorts of hacktastic methodologies managed to stumble upon directions (what, these?) for transforming a vanilla disposable camera into something “capable of zapping people with an electrical charge.” School Resource Officer Kyle Strunjo even said that the improvised weapon was “potentially capable of a 600-volt shock,” though it wasn’t actually used on anyone before it got swiped by the boys in blue. Chin up kid, you’ve got a future waiting for you yet.

[Image courtesy of DIYLive, thanks Ninad]

Nokia has finally launched its N-Gage gaming service with high hopes of revitalizing the ailing mobile gaming market. (And possibly earn a few more bucks?) Although an official announcement will be made on Monday, the N-Gage blog took one step in advance and informed the loyal N-Gage followers who were testing the product during its beta stage, that the N-Gage platform is already opened.

The N-Gage is fully compatible with Nokia’s top mobile phone series – the N95, N81 and N82. With Nokia striking a deal with major cellphone game developers such as Electronic Arts, Gameloft and Glo Mobile they should prove to be successful. Nokia hopes to have around 25-30 games available by mid-2008 and add another 25-30 during the second half of the year.

Can the N-Gage re-ignite the dying flames of mobile phone gaming? That remains to be seen.

Read [N-Gage] Via [I4U]

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If you’ve got a Windows Mobile-based device with a touch screen, and you’re terrible at texting/writing quickly, then take a look at these products from Israeli company, Dasur. First up is SlideIT which is an app that combines a keyboard, graffiti as well as predictive text. It’s best explained by taking a look at their video demo. After the jump, we’ll also look at their ThumbKey product.

While SlideIT uses a screen pen to input the text a la Palms, ThumbKey helps you to use your thumbs a la Blackberrys. Again, take a look at the video demo, but its essential advantage is in intelligently figuring out which key you meant to press by ignoring the ones that weren’t hit as much.

SlideIT goes for $40 and ThumbKey is $25. You can download trials as well.

via Mobile Gadget News.

Posted in Phones

Posted Apr 4th 2008 7:42AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: LaptopsLaptop LoJack’s number might be up, Intel’s apparently gearing up to start pushing its so-called Anti-Theft Technology for laptops. Details are still sparse, but apparently it provides boot-time lockout of unauthorized users (presumably among other things) upon occasion of theft, and is being picked up by partner companies like Lenovo, Fujitsu, Phoenix, and McAffee for release later this year. It’d be really nice if we could get some connected GPS to phone home when your laptop takes off without you, but it’s nice to know the industry’s finally starting to take this stuff on instead of leaving hapless theft victims to fend for themselves.

[Via Ars Technica]