Category: Audio/Video

Walking the entire 1,200 mile length of Britain is no easy feat, but using Google Street View to "travel" the same stretch of land is just plain boring. Matthew Partridge, however, has embarked on this adventure, going pixel by pixel from Land's End to John O'Groats in ten days. Honestly, we'd rather go the actual distance than stare at a screen for 240 hours, but, hey, at least the bright line in ...

In the U.S., most vending machines provide only corn syrup confections. Vending machines in the U.K., however, may soon deliver something substantially more healthy: medicine. Sainsbury's, a U.K. supermarket chain, has already begun testing one drug delivery machine in its Essex stores. In order to use the device, customers have to use a unique ID or fingerprint, along with a special PIN ...

In celebration of 'A New Hope,' whose 35th birthday is next year, the always anniversary-conscious George Lucas will unveil all six of his beloved 'Star Wars' films on Blu-ray. Lucas, who personally announced the 2011 release plans at the recent Celebration V event, promised that the new editions would be formatted with the "highest picture and audio quality," along with extended special features. ...

The town of Dudley in West Midlands, England has just deployed a crime-fighting vehicle that's more cute than it is fearsome. According to the BBC, after a "slight increase" in the number of robberies since April, the Dudley Bobbies decided that a pedal-powered contraption in the shape of a giant, sideways apostrophe would help make civilians more protective of their valuables. The 'Digi-Bike,' as ...

We were very impressed (and only slightly disturbed) by architecture grad and filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda's 'AR Kitchen' video earlier this year. Matsuda has been exploring a possible future of augmented reality interfaces with his videos, imaging a world when AR is less a gimmick than an integrated part of daily life. Matsuda has said, "The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply ...

Thanks to a deal with Epix, Netflix's Watch Instantly catalog will soon see a windfall of new online content, consisting of both new movies and classic franchises, such as 'Star Trek' and 'James Bond.' Epix, a joint Paramount-MGM-Lionsgate network for video content, will also eventually grant access to box office winners like 'Iron Man 2' and 'Dinner for Schmucks.' Under the five-year ...

We have seen the future of DJ equipment, and it comes from Chile. According to Engadget, a guy named Rodrigo posted a video demonstration of this Token multitouch surface setup for DJs. A rear-mounted projector beams video from a computer onto the giant sheet of glass, which lets users touch and swipe across the surface of the digital control board to create different beats, sounds, effects and ...

In an effort to combat other satellite companies and cable providers, Dish Network Corp. will begin streaming live content to subscribers' smartphones and mobile devices next month, without extra charge. Currently, Dish's mobile apps only allow a subscriber to browse shows, set them to record and use their cellular device as a remote control. With the new app installed, however, a subscriber will ...

Forget 'The Social Network,' 'The Expendables,' 'Piranha 3-D' and 'Charlie St. Cloud'; the big-budget, dance-crazy, sci-fi flick 'Endhiran' will quite obviously be the best film of the year. Starring the inimitable Rajnikanth (who also happens to be India's highest paid film actor) and the former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, 'Endhiran' follows a scientist who has created a robot for his son. The ...

After about two months of invite-only beta testing, the music-streaming service Rdio has cast aside its invite-only status and opened up to paying music fans (and a 3-day free trial). Users that sign up and pay the $9.99 monthly subscription feel get Rdio access on the Web and mobile devices -- including iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. There's also a cheaper option, at $4.99 per month, that ...

Musician Arman Bohn has created his newest music video with a decidedly fun piece of technology: the Nintendo DSi. To create the video for his song "Brain Games," Bohn drew images in the DSi's 'Flipnote Studio' program, and then exported them to 'After Effects' for editing and animation. In the video, anthropomorphic letters and numbers cavort as they watch Bohn perform on a TV monitor, ...

Brazil -- land of caipirinhas, Carnival and one of the world's highest crime rates per capita -- will be a bit more like the world of 'The Running Man' starting next week. In one of the scariest advertising schemes known to us, Unilever's detergent line Omo will be placing GPS devices in select boxes of suds throughout the country. According to Advertising Age, "consumers who buy one of the ...

A new Facebook-based start-up called Cameo Stars is hoping to turn itself into the next viral craze by having celebrities wish you a happy birthday. Cameo Stars features A-list football players Reggie Bush, Tony Romo and Drew Brees -- along with the perpetually irrelevant Carmen Electra -- shot on green screen and expressing generic platitudes for you to post on your friends' Facebook pages. ...

We understand that SIGGRAPH frequently exhibits the most outre and ridiculous tech experiments -- the ones that could be useful on a larger scale and within a different context. But Takuji Narumi of Tokyo University may be the winner of the Most Insane Research award for his Meta Cookie System, which seems to serve no purpose but to advance the idea that our future lies in a simulated reality ...

We're sure you're familiar with Redbox's kiosks, which offer DVD rentals for $1, and can often be found on your way out the door of your local mega-mart. Now the company is updating its services to offer high-def Blu-ray rentals. Of course, the HD discs will set you back slightly more than the $1 DVDs, but, at $1.50, the price bump is hardly a deal breaker. Roughly half of the company's 26,000 ...