Gearfuse

Only furries could create something so ridiculously mundane that it completely circles around lameness and cycles back to being totally awesome again. This RFID-enabled Arduino-driven tail apparently reacts to different mood chips, wagging if your happy or excited, so on and so forth.

The tail is also controllable with the Wii Nunchuk remote. If your dressing up as a possum for Halloween, this tail could be an invaluable addition to your costume.

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Look, I love Apple as much as the next guy does, but this is ridiculous. The press and bloggers are becoming rabid paparazzi as they demand to know every detail about Steve Jobs’ life. I mean look as this shit on Techmeme. Is this seriously the biggest news out there? That a hospital tried to keep the identity of one of its patients off the radar but couldn’t? Jesus Christ. I understand there’s a correlation between full disclosure, stockholders and Apple but this is absurd. Get over it already and let the man live his life.

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Alright. Stick with me on this one. You crazy Europeans love to created weird names for products, like The Mirror by Violet. That being said, The Mirror’ is one of the neatest gadgets I’ve seen in a long time. Hook the $60 plate up to your Mac or PC and get ready to read some RFID tags. The set includes Ztamps (glorified RFID tags) that you can stick in objects and assign actions. For instance, say you shove one inside a sandwich. When you put the sandwich on top of the The Mirror by Violet, it could open up Firefox and surf to the Scanwiches blog.

Sounds like a creative tool. I’d like to know how you’d use this cheap RFID reader. I’d probably shove some in empty CD cases so that the songs would automatically play in iTunes when activated.

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The Arduino continues to power innovation and creation well into 2009. This blender, created by Matti Niinimaki, is rigged to create beats. No smoothies here, folks, just pounding techno full of cheesy sound FX. The Beat Blender prototype reads fruit embedded with RFID tags that are dropped into it. Hitting different blending speeds (Puree, Liquify, Blend, Grind, etc.) will add different effects and filters to the music, allowing for a unique style of making new music.

Matti’s setup makes use of a combination of hardware and software, including Max/MSP, Ableton Live, an RFID reader and of course, the Arduino. What gives Matti? Max/MSP? You know Pure Data would work just as well and we’d all be able to play around with your code.

I guess when God gives you lemons, you make music.

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Children are increasingly interested in social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook. However, children under 13 don’t really have a lot of safe options for an online presence and the technical curve can be difficult for some. This is all solved with the RFID-enabled Poken.

These little toys come with big hands for high-fiving. Two kids can high five each other’s Poken and their information will be transferred to the device. Once they get home, they can use a USB cable to download their friend’s information. It’s a unique way of interaction that really brings people closer. You have to actually talk to people in real life? Now that is innovation.

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Apple’s Keynote was lackluster at best.

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  The $100,000 Tuna
• Looking for a shittier, cheaper Optimus Maximum keyboard?
• Crayon Physics Deluxe drops tomorrow. A must see!
• DIY Bonsai Village
• STEVE JOBS LIVES
• RFID and jewelry meet in the middle
• How to Twitter via IRC

Have great links you want showcased on Afternoon Linkage? E-mail us: tips AT gearfuse DOT com.

Here’s to the first links of the new year! Shiny Happy Monsters!

• You can now order Subway online and via SMS
• G-Shock figurines
• DIY Famicom goodness
• Videos of kids freaking out over Nintendo Wii
• RFID invades your dorm room
• Get inside a Minty

Have great links you want showcased on Afternoon Linkage? E-mail us: tips AT gearfuse DOT com.

Need even more proof that RFID doesn’t improve security? According to a group of hackers who bypassed an ePassport RFID authentication at an Amsterdam airport, RFID passports aren’t as secure as people think. Using software to design custom identities as well as convincing scanners to accept fabricated RFID chips, the hackers got around security without raising suspicion.

They used an image of the late Elvis Presley for their passport and still, no one said anything. The group has even made their method publicly available, so you can attempt to bypass security at your own airport. Though, I don’t recommend attempting it.  You could end up in Guantanamo Bay.

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We haven’t covered much cloaking technology and that’s a shame because it’s starting to come into its own. Stefan Enoch at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France says that established cloaking principles, such as steering microwave light around an object, could be applied to ocean waves. Because cloaking technology is still in its infancy, scientists are still working on tackling 3-D objects, but we’ve got 2-D down. This works in our favor because waves are essentially 2-D.

To put this theory to the test, researchers built a prototype. The image above is the said prototype which is tested in a wave pool. Acting like a whirlpool, the device produces forces which pull the water along the concentric corridors as a result of the waves repelling off the pillars. This causes all the water to go everywhere except the center of the cloak. Think of the possibilities.

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Girl you know it’s true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, I got links for you.

• Swype, Swype, baby
• Even stupider than Bluetooth headsets
• Wiimote a la Xbox 360
• An incredibly disappointing “Beer on a Stick”
• RFID is coming to Walgreens
• A pool table that turns into a dinner table
• Here’s a review of Rock Band 2 I participated in
• Wario is hitting up Six Flags!
• Who doesn’t love bras?
• Beetle-mania
• A nifty device to help you save on water

Have great links you want showcased on Afternoon Linkage? E-mail us: tips AT gearfuse DOT com.