richardlai's Xanga

Mine's a slow mo...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:52:51 GMT

It's Day 7 and my Movember mo has only just become visually noticeable, but the rest of the TechMo team -- as presented by Pocket-lint above -- seems to be doing just fine. Head over to Pocket-lint where they have a diary updated frequently.

Day 1 of Movember

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:45:06 GMT

And here we go... Day 1 of Movember: clean shave.

Don't forget to donate or even participate -- it's never too late!

Movember = Richard grows a moustache to help fight prostate cancer

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:21:00 GMT

What's going on, you ask? Well, I've never grown a moustache before and I know people who did Movember last year (and looked fantastic), so why not look a bit silly in the name of charity? All proceeds will go to The Prostate Cancer Charity and you know it's... a big thing for us lads. Do donate however much you want or even join us! I'm with the TechMo team and soon you'll be seeing daily updates on our 'tache status with pics. Cheerio for now!

Donation page (thanks!)

What's next...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:06:24 GMT

I'm thrilled to announce that over the next few months (at least) I will be writing for Engadget. Yes, it's been my dream job for years and I'm still shaking like a little schoolboy on his first day at school. The list of people that I have to thank is rather long (Steve Jobs included! Thanks dude.), so I'll save the embarrassment towards the end of the course. You know who you are anyway.

I'm very much looking forward to meeting the team up close. I've already been working with my London colleague, the ever-so-charming Vlad Savov, for some time. He's awesome (but don't tell him that because he'll get penisy about this).

See you on the other link, fellow readers! xxx

Stay tuned.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:29:40 GMT

Working on something big. Stay tuned.

Dynamic freshness label keeps you away from bad meat

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:22:42 GMT

We'll admit: there had been times when we decided to keep the just-expired box of meat, only to regret having eaten it later that night. Even if that wasn't the case, maybe some jerk didn't shut the fridge door properly or us being too drunk to have any common sense at all, rendering the numbers on the packaging useless. Enter the "Flesh Label" by Japanese design agency To-Genkyo: this ingenious label consists of two layers, with the bottom half under the film detecting the ammonia emitted from the meat, thus reflecting its freshness in the style of a slow-mo hourglass. When completely off, the label even blocks out the barcode to prevent the evil supermarkets from selling it to desperate college students. See the label in action after the jump.

[via TechNow and Next Nature]

CONTINUE READING...

Intel Core i7 laptops at a glance

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:06:25 GMT

Quite frankly, us laptop chums felt a little bit left out since Intel announced their almighty Core i7 desktop processors last November, and we have been stuck with the Core 2 brand for just over three long years, but that's OK, because it turns out Intel hasn't forgotten us: reviewers of the "Clarksfield" i7-920XM were over the moon after testing it on their Clevo whitebook rig, and we expect similar satisfaction from the i7-720QM and 820QM at more affordable prices. For us minions the Core i7 laptops will be shipping as soon as late October, and we've compiled a list to keep your eager minds busy until then (and we'll be updating this list too):

Alienware M15x (pre-order)
Asus M60J, G60J
Dell Studio 1747 (pre-order)
HP Envy 15
Lenovo IdeaPad (not yet announced; possibly Y550 series)
MSI GT640, GT740
Toshiba Qosmio X500

Renderings of Microsoft's Project Pink phones appear out of the mist

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:40:41 GMT

The last time we heard about Microsoft's loosely-secretive Project Pink was the FCC-esque teaser of the Turtle from 9to5mac's tweet, and it only gets juicier by the minute: Gizmodo managed to get their hands on renderings of not only one device, but of both the Turtle (above) and the Pure. While the former still looks like a dwarfed Palm Pre, the latter's round keyboard buttons and layout does remind us of the Sidekick LX, or maybe it's just an altered perception due to all the hot rumours that Sharp - the Sidekick's manufacturer - will be making these Microsoft phones. (What happened, HTC?) Like most other smartphones these days, the Project Pink phones are expected to have their own app store, and as a bonus they'll also throw in Zune services as well, but let's not get too excited until we see the real deal (which shouldn't be long now at this rate). We're also very curious as to what the wink smiley button at the bottom right of the keyboard does - maybe that'll cheer Ballmer up over these leaks. Hit the link for the pic of the Pure as well.

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Sony apologies to Nigerian government, edits PS3 ad

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:44:58 GMT

Boy, it's not like the world is now free of Nigerian scammers, so until that day comes, we can't see why the Nigerian government should take Sony's PS3 ad joke so seriously: if you recall, in the ad Sony's "Director of Rumor Confirmation" Kevin Butler denies the $299 "rumor" with the offending statement: "You can't believe everything you read on the internet, otherwise I'd be a Nigerian millionaire by now." In response to the official complaint, Sony was cool enough to change the latter part of the line to a more confusing "that's how World War I started." Yep, that'll sure let Sony keep the Nigerian customers for now. Skip along to watch the original and the edited versions of the ad.

CONTINUE READING...

Kingston Technology launches forget-me-not website, literally

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:43:35 GMT

We’ve just learned from PlayBite that Kingston, the renowned solid-state memory maker, has launched RememberKingston.com to embrace the less tech-savvy crowd by the means of tutorials, tips and tricks, and even a Facebook group. Needless to say it’s a rather eccentric name for the campaign, but we’ll bookmark it for the parents so that they can upgrade their systems without nagging us over the weekends. Now, Kingston, how about some tips on freezing memory cards in ice?

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