Here’s another cool vinyl piece from Albert Art designs out of Vancouver, Canada. He’s the artist behing the Mega Man Munny that we showcased previously and he let me know that he’s finished a Baby Qee modeled after Kurt Wagner, better known as Nightcrawler from the X-Men.
Albert continues to create really cool custom vinyl art figures of some of my favorite pop-culture icons. I’ve always been a big fan of the X-Men and so I’m really digging on this piece.
Pictures after the jump Read more…
Dash automobile navigation units received a serious upgrade yesterday with the company opening up their platform to third party applications. This will allow for countless opportunities to add onto the standard waypoint and points of interest applications currently found in car navigation units. The program launches with 5 interesting and useful widgets for your navi unit:
So far, the Trapster speedtrap sharing application is the only social media widget for the Dash, but there are numerous possibilities. The Dash could help you to track friends and family and maybe even serve as a walkie-talkie when taking a caravan on a road trip. It could allow you to see reviews and recommendations on restaurants or road conditions from other users in real time.
Dash made an excellent strategic move in opening up their platform for other developers. This brings car navigation units into the larger web ecosystem to drive usage and value through the network effect. These new widgets also take pure navigational data and turn it into useful and actionable information. Should we call it social navigation?
Screenshot of Trapster on Dash after the jump. Read more…
eBoy and Kidrobot have come up with another custom Peecol figure that’s coming out today. ‘This posable 3-inch outlaw has no conscience, just a skin-tight ski mask and smoking glock.’ This is a limited production run of 600 figures, so get yours today if you want to add it to your collection.
Pictures after the jump. Read more…
In case you haven’t heard, Steven Spielberg’s new game called Boom Blox for the Wii is making waves. It has very intuitive controls, is excellent for players of any age, and is a great way to bring families together to play the Wii together. If you’re anything like me, play it once and you’re very likely to get hooked. I’m a huge fan of multiplayer casual gaming on the Wii. That and beer, but that’s a (mostly) separate story.
This morning I discovered that EA and Steven Spielberg have also released a mobile version of Boom Blox. The mobile version seems to be centered on the ball-pitching portion of the console game where you throw a ball to ricochet off the blocks for points. This means no mobile jenga-like game in the mobile version, but it still looks very fun.
Check out the screenshots after the jump. Read more…
Since Mario Kart came out for the Wii, I haven’t seen a single extra wheel controller in the stores. Sure you can play the old-fashioned way using a Wiimote and Nunchuck, but what’s the fun in that? We decided that it would be much cooler to play Mario Kart using the Guitar Hero controller for Wii that was laying around. Check out the video to watch our very own Flipp play a level by rocking out on the guitar.
We still had to press the buttons using the Wiimote, so it meant using the directional pad with your left hand while holding down the accelerator with your right hand… oh, and steering. You really have to lay the guitar down at least partially or it’s nearly impossible to go straight. You can see that in order to do tricks he just shakes his knee to jar the guitar, but it comes off looking pretty Elvis.
The best part is that he beat the level on the first attempt when we filmed it. Dude, you’re a Mario Kart rockstar! Read more…
MeetMoi is a mobile dating startup out of the NYC area that allows you to find your match on the go, wherever you are. After checking out Dating DNA a few weeks ago, both their mobile and desktop interfaces are a real breathe of fresh air. Instead of having to register at your desktop to use their mobile interface, MeetMoi allows you to perform every function directly from their mobile web interface.
The registration path is simple and doesn’t require you to go through too many screens to get an account. It also works from basically any mobile phone instead of just the iPhone. You can also enter in a status similar to Facebook or Twitter and you can change your location easily to meet people while on a business trip or vacation.
Read on for more details. Read more…
With HP and EDS looking at a $13.9 billion merger, there’s a lot of speculation as to whether or not these two behemoths can successfully integrate their businesses. Ben Worthen wrote on the Wall Street Journal blogs about the three reasons that the deal might fail. It’s true that HP’s core business has historically been hardware and EDS has been a software-independent consulting firm, however this isn’t necessarily a bad omen for the deal.
In fact, while this is quite a massive deal in terms of market cap, it’s not really a daring move in the least. Six years ago in October, IBM announced a deal to buy the consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion. IBM’s Global Services arm brought a resurgence of growth to HP’s similarly pedigreed competitor, ending years of stagnant growth and a fierce battle for hardware budget dollars.
This deal seems like an aggressive move to counter IBM’s strategic shift into the services sector. Hopefully the EDS corporate culture will be mature enough to remain focused while the companies integrate their business operation. The only potential downside in EDS that I see will be the potential fallout in the US government contracting market that may come in the next Presidential administration. Overall it seems like a well-played move, if a little behind the power curve.
