geeks

Amazing dad builds son a spaceship simulator

When it comes to make-believe, kids are pretty canny -- a simple refrigerator box can fly them to the moon. But inspired by physicists and educators Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan, one dad has gone above and beyond in getting his son into space.

Before Noah was born, Daniel Sherrouse was already planning the spaceship simulator he would build to instill in Noah a love of the stars. "When my wife told me she was pregnant, I slammed my fist down on the table and said 'Gosh darn it, my kid is going to have a better life than me!'" … Read more

ZTE announces Intel Atom-powered ZTE Geek

At the Intel Developers Forum in Beijing, China, today, ZTE debuted the ZTE Geek, a 5-inch handset featuring a 2GHz Intel 32nm Atom Z2580 processor.

The device also features an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash, and a front-facing, 1-megapixel camera. Inside, you'll find a 2,300mAh battery.

As for capacity, the Geek has 8GB of storage and 1GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and its HD touch screen has a 1,280x720-pixel resolution.

Despite its rather insipid name, I like what I'm seeing with the Geek -- on paper, at least. Just as … Read more

The 404 1,239: Where we swear we're not cops (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- In Jeff's words, April Fool's is a day for unfunny people to tell jokes. With that, I'm pretty sure this prank was posted two weeks early.

- The OPMOD/ThinkGeek Battle Mug: an elegant drink receptacle for a more civilized age.

- Boston police go undercover online to stop DIY punk shows.

- Latest Japanese schoolgirl trend: Fake Dragon Ball attacks.

- Walmart may get customers to deliver packages to online buyers.

- Sales of twin-size beds drop as Tweens demand bigger beds...for their tablets.… Read more

April Fools' gadgets: You'll wish some of these were real

April Fools' is a big day for conceptual technology products. Big tech companies get to let their hair down and come up with gadgets that would earn them ridicule and criticism if they were introduced on any day other than April 1.

We have some real doozies for 2013 when it comes to prank tech gear. ThinkGeek, as usual, has an entire lineup of weird and wonderful items. There's a Play-Doh 3D printer that forms figures out of the famous squishy clay-like material. If you enjoyed listening to Bane's garbled and growly speech during "The Dark Knight Rises," you'll want your very own pair of Bane Mask Walkie Talkies. Other fictional products from the geek retailer include an "Aliens" Chestburster-in-a-Can, a Creeper Body Pillow, and an Eye of Sauron desk lamp.… Read more

Build a better coffee mug brick by brick

Coffee in the morning is no small matter. Decisions get made while sipping the caffeinated brew, decisions that shape the day. Like an architect, we construct plans, piece by piece, layer by layer, until a form emerges. Of course, that usually doesn't involve the actual coffee cup. But then again, who is to say it cannot?

The ThinkGeek Build-On Brick Mug ($19.99) is a coffee mug designed to appeal to designers of all ages. The interactive mug invites users to fiddle with it, stacking popular parts onto their own creations. Exactly what those popular parts might be is, of course, of utmost importance; the last thing anybody wants to do is wrestle with their morning beverage.

Rest assured, the mug is compatible with Lego, PixelBlocks, Mega Bloks, Kre-O, or K'Nex Bricks. The mug itself doesn't come with any bricks; it's strictly BYOB.… Read more

Tech talk 'more confusing than a foreign language'

You might be familiar with the term "megabyte."

For some, though, it represents an emotional megadeath.

You might know what an ISP is, but some need ESP in order to explain to themselves what this actually means.

This, at least, is the conclusion of a deeply disturbing piece of research, performed in the U.K. on behalf of Carphone Warehouse's Geek Squad. … Read more

GeeksPhone reveals Firefox OS phones for developers

A small Spanish startup called GeeksPhone has started selling phones that let developers get a taste of Mozilla's new Firefox OS.

GeeksPhone announced two 3G phones for the browser-based operating system, the lower-end Keon and higher-end Peak. The phones, while geared for programmers rather than mainstream customers, make Mozilla's open-source mobile OS a lot more real, since programmers will be able to develop apps as well as to debug and advance the underlying operating system.

Firefox OS is Mozilla's ambitious attempt to build an operating system that brings more openness to the walled gardens of Apple's … Read more

Movie-accurate HAL 9000 bosses you around the house

ThinkGeek boasts that the HAL 9000 life-size replica is the "most movie-accurate HAL 9000 replica ever created." Let's hope it's only movie-accurate enough to be entertaining and not deadly.

If you're a fan of HAL 9000 and want to bring a little bit of that relentless robotic terror into your home, you can plunk down $500 for a sentient computer of your own (minus the actual sentience.) This HAL 9000 is better-behaved than the real thing. You still get the menacing red LED eye, but he won't try to kill you.… Read more

Crave Ep. 103: Dropping burrito bombs on America

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On this episode of Crave, we check out the Burrito Bomber engineered by Darwin Aerospace that literally bombs burritos into geo-tagged locations. We also get some NASA reassurance that the world may not end this month, which means we may actually get the chance to wear Lacoste's awesome polo shirts of the future. Also, dogs that drive? Yep. … Read more

USB tentacle squirms, does nothing else

The single-purpose gadget is very much alive and well. Case in point, this USB tentacle. It squirms. That's all it does.

The USB tentacle is not a hub. It won't open a beer bottle. It won't fire foam rockets at your cubicle mates. It won't charge your smartphone. It just squirms. To improve the visual impact, you might want to invest in multiple tentacles to adorn each port on your computer. … Read more