Gearfuse

I always wondered why old-timey radio DJs all talked with the same inflection and same accent, yet no one these days talks the way they did. It was a very specific vocal inflection that was the signature of old-time radio and for the life of me, I could never figure out why they talked like they did.

While these days that old-timey radio voice is hard to find on any modern station, you can pretend that you have a voice for radio with this Microphone PC mod, a desktop computer made to look like an old-timey radio mic.

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This disembodied cow (sorry Muslim Hindu readers) has been stuffed with computer parts, making it one of the more bizarre case mods we have ever seen. Included is a mini ITX motherboard, 20GB hard drive, 256MB DIMM RAM, Combo Drive CD R/RW DVD and an integrated 200-watt PW120 power supply.

Milk sold separately.

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I love Hulu. Thanks to Hulu, my roommates and I were able to cancel our cable subscription and now watch all our favorite shows on Hulu, save for the HBO and Showtime stuff. Now, in an out-of-the-blue move, Hulu has released a desktop app that lets you watch shows without a web browser. But be warned! I just went to download it and don’t even own a computer fast enough to run the program. Check out these minimum requirements for Mac users:

Minimum requirements: Intel Pentium Core Duo 2.0GHz At least 2.0 GB of RAM Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger) or later 2 Mbps Internet connection Flash 9.0.124

The requirement is more or less the same for Windows users. Such a beastly app! If anyone with a brand new computer has the time to try this thing out, let us know how it is. It even has support for the Apple Remote!

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Ben Heck, master modder of all things electronic, has taken a whole new route in his latest PC case mod. It seems Ben was kicking back a few brews of crisp, cold Miller Genuine Draft beer. So crisp, that Ben drank the whole thing, got completely drunk and configured the empty cardboard box to house a PC, CD-ROM drive and all. WILD SHIT! Read up on his official blog to find out how Ben did it and how he managed to mount everything to cardboard.

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One part iMac and one part Eee PC, the Eee Top is a touchscreen PC with a 15.6-inch display that will retail next year. It features a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM and 160GB of storage. Six USB ports, WiFi, a card reader and a built-in webcam top it off, making it quite the impressive PC. Knowing Asus, it’ll be sold for a relatively inexpensive price. One of the last PCs being sold with Windows XP, I can see demand for the Eee Top come its release next year.

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While Gateway has never been known for their power house rigs, gamers and media enthusiasts will surely be interested in its latest line of desktops, the Gateway FX6710-01 and LX6200-01.

For the gamer, the FX6710-01 packs an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 CPU, ATI HD 4850 graphics, 6GB of RAM, 750GB HDD, DVD burner, memory card reader and Vista Premium all for only $1199.99. That’s not a bad price considering those specs. Now as for the media enthusiast, the LX6200-01 has an AMD Phenom X4 9400 with integrated ATI HD 3200 graphics. It’s got a built-in analog/digital TV tuner, 8GB of RAM, 750GB HDD, DVD burner, memory card reader, Vista Premium, and HDMI out. Almost identical in specs to the FX6710-01, except the LX costs only $779.99.

Which one tickles your fancy?

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The product of artist Ben Fino-Radin, “Hyperlink” is a four-piece series of needlepoint yarn sculptures that feature the ever-prominent desktop cursor. These are huge works of art too, meaning that Ben most likely spent hours looking at a pixelated hand in Photoshop for hours on end. It’s from 2006 but old things can be good too, you know.

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Desktop companions are an integral piece to everyone’s computer room feng shui. Now that doesn’t mean you need to settle for some boring chameleon that does nothing more than let his tongue loose every once and awhile.

Instead, why not try the Kung-Fu Boy? He’ll kick and chop his way into your heart all while making the appropriate sound effects, of course. A built-in sound sensor alerts the boy of unsuspecting foe for whom to chop at. It’s a shame they’re only available in Japan for $18, a price that makes the other desktop companions seem like penny pinchers.

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Digi-Key has unleashed its power house single-board computer called the Beagle Board. This developer dream board is perfect for DIY projects and ground level design work. Don’t judge it by its size either, its processor: the ARM Cortex A8, runs up to 600MHz while delivering over 1,200 MIPS (million instructions per second). It packs quite a punch for a 3″ x 3″ board.

It connects to your computer via mini-A to standard-A adapter with a high speed USB 2.0 port and even supports 1280×1024 DVI-D video output. Listen, I could go on and on about the heat this baby’s packing, but it’d be best to get one for yourself and try it out. Maybe you’ve got what it takes to make a game on it, or even better: a robot. It’s relatively cheap, too. At $149, its the least expensive, most powerful development board on the market that I’ve heard of.

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I can’t imagine a world without Windows. It seems like only yesterday I was spending hours trying to figure how to change my desktop wallpaper on Windows 3.1. Word is that Microsoft is getting a head start on their next operating system that’ll replace Windows entirely. Their new project, Midori, centers around the Internet, casting out the dependency your operating system has on a single PC. XP might have been dead, but now Windows altogether is officially dead.

Windows is unlikely to be able to cope with the pace of change in future technology and the way we use it, so Microsoft is forced to ditch the blue screen of death inducing OS in favor of something that isn’t tied tightly to a single computer’s hardware. Who cares if Vista was incomplete? It’s getting ditched regardless. Midori is their new incomplete “work in progess”.

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