A brilliant group of people have developed an online game designed to help the environment and fight poverty in the real world by turning game rewards into real-life help for social and environmental causes: Glupod - the first Video Game to deliver direct emotional fulfillment to the player. The game, called Glupod, will debut worldwide on May 30. Glupod players will be able to provide food for a starving child in Africa, protection for a whale species going extinct or offset carbon emissions and help fight global warming. In a nutshell, Glupod gives gamers a variety of real-world causes to choose from and enables them to convert their in-game winnings into actual help for that cause. (Read the full post about ‘Online Gamers Save Real Lives’…)

Posted Feb 25th 2008 1:37PM by Donald MelansonFiled under: cellphones Last we saw Panasonic’s P905i handhset it was was bunched in between a slew of other phones NTT DoCoMo was touting, but now that the phone is finally on sale it’s getting the spotlight to itself for a little while. In case you missed it, the real stand-out feature on this one is the phone’s Viera image processing and 3.5 inch, 854 x 480 screen, which should get put to good use thanks to the ample supply of PMP features including, of course, a 1seg TV tuner. Otherwise you can expect the usual 3G capabilities, along with a 2 megapixel camera, 1GB of built-in memory, and support for the DCMX iD mobile banking service. (Read the full post about ‘NTT DoCoMo rolls out high res Panasonic P905i Viera phone’…)

A cursory glance of the latest Fords, Chevys, Toyotas and cars available from any of the other big automakers in any given year reveals little in the way of truly new or revolutionary features. A redesigned cupholder here, a different color backlight on the instrument panel there, but when you think about it, there is really not a whole lot of difference in the the basic four wheels, four doors, gas-powered car that you can buy today from those our parents, or even our grandparents drove. So I am hoping the Big Three pay attention to this little number coming out soon from RinSpeed–the sQuba. If an electric two-seater that can drive right into the water and dive to a depth of 10 meters sounds like something out of a James Bond movie, it should. (Read the full post about ‘Q Branch Would Approve: The Rinspeed sQuba’…)

Posted Feb 25th 2008 12:33PM by Joshua TopolskyFiled under: Laptops If you’ve been replying to our earlier post on Apple rumors by repeatedly typing “MacBook Pro update” across the screen, you’ll be happy to hear this latest news. AppleInsider claims they have confirmed three new Apple part numbers which are showing up in both the Best Buy and Apple inventory databases. The numbers, MA402LL/A, MA403LL/A, and MA404LL/A, have appeared on these systems with the prices of $1,999, $2,499, and $2,799 in tow — leading some (read, all) to believe that they may be those new laptops everyone’s been talking about. (Read the full post about ‘New MacBook Pro part numbers leaked?’…)

You no longer need to go to the fun fair to have a session of Whack-A-Mole, as the USB Whack It offers such convenience at your desktop. Need a coffee break? Whack the characters when they light up to get a high score in this frantic desktop game. It can be powered via USB or using batteries, but unless you work in a really old fashioned office with not a single USB port in sight, the USB Whack It ought to receive plenty of hard, loving attention from you while you cross your fingers and hope for the clock to strike 5. Are there better ways to de-stress yourself with a mere £11.95? Tags: game, wi-fi, technology, home cinema (Read the full post about ‘USB Whack It’…)

We’ve seen the Logisys Optical Finger Mouse, an ergonomic mouse that takes up no space except on your index finger, and is supposed to free you from moving your hand around unnecessarily as you switch from mouse operating to keyboard. The button is controlled with your thumb. I’m not sure how popular these are, but now usb.brando.com.hk, seller of all things USB, carries another finger mouse model, which appears to be a bit bigger than the Logisys model (and priced higher, at $38 - the Logisys model is just $19, and appears to be sold by usb.brando.com.hk also). My question is: Will this exacerbate the blackberry Thumb problem I already have and spread it to my index finger? (Read the full post about ‘USB Wireless Finger Mouse’…)

Mental Mugs - Sex Kitten Shaped Mug

Be the envy of your friends with one of these superb mugs. It has been carefully hand painted and is super quality. Just drinking out of these mugs makes you feel sexy!

Technorati Tags: Girls Goodies

Tags: digital, cameras, gadgetry, camera

If you have any kind of video collection dating back even to the 90s, then you probably have a number of VHS tapes collecting dust once you stopped using your VCR and switched to using your DVD player exclusively. Without having to go out and spend the same amount of money or more restocking your collection with DVD versions of your movies, you can obtain a hw/sw solution such as VHS to DVD 3.0 Deluxe and convert your collection to DVD yourself at the cost of about 4-6 movies. We tested out this product from Honest Technology (honestech) and found a very capable, complete solution that works without much fuss. (Read the full post about ‘Review: Honestech’s VHS to DVD 3.0 Deluxe’…)

Sanrio is creating a massively multi-player online role-playing game (mmorpg) called Hello Kitty Online Game. Applications for the BETA are now closed and those of us that applied have been asked to create a video saying why we should be chosen. So, I took a few minutes and filmed a video of myself. I imagined a game of pure unadulterated cuteness without any violence or anything scary, but apparently, there will be monsters. According to their website: “This game is not just about fighting monsters - there are many activities for players to choose from. Aside from the monster-filled adventure areas, players can dig for ore in a mine, or range the forests to pick fruit from trees. (Read the full post about ‘Hello Kitty Online Game’…)

Remember the Six Million Dollar Man TV series many years ago? That dude was fitted with all sorts of bionic stuff, and he really had it going on with bionic woman. I wonder whether they share oil instead of spit while engaged in some hot tongue action, but I digress. Six million bucks doesn’t really amount up to much these days no thanks to inflation and a rapidly falling dollar - and many people are already decked out in jewelry and other accessories that cost way more than that amount. Still, it would be nice to see humans being fitted with bionic body parts which feel just like the real thing, offering superior athletic performance minus the side effect of steroids. (Read the full post about ‘Prosthetic arm gets new fund injection’…)