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XToaster360: Putting That Old Toaster to Good Use

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Got an old toaster or two that is merely collecting dust in the corner? If you are a candidate for that reality TV series The Hoarders, then you might want to put one of those toasters to good use – just like what this guy who calls himself ncarouso11 did.

Basically, he got a four-slice toaster, took out its innards, and then replaced (carefully, I bet) them with the stuff that you find inside of an Xbox360. Here’s how it looks.
xtoaster360

In case you’re wondering how you get the game CD in, here’s the answer.
xtoaster360_2

Here’s a video of the toaster slash Xbox360 in action in case you need more convincing that it is for real.

You have to admit, there is something to be said about the boxy thing with glowing blue lights coming out of it. It may not be as sleek and sexy as the Xbox360, but not everyone can say that they own something like this and actually play games on it, can they?

If you can’t be bothered to create your own XToaster360, or you simply do not have the skill to do so, then prepare a couple of hundred dollars (US) and bid on this cool mod on eBay. The starting bid is $150 and as of this writing, there are 6 days 12 hours left to bid. If you win, you get the following:

  • XToaster360
  • Power cable/brick
  • AV cable
  • Ethernet cable
  • Xbox360 Controller
  • Xbox360 Headset
  • (Only has 256MB internal memory card but can easily be improved with the use of a thumb drive)

Gorillaz’s The Fall Recorded Entirely on the iPad

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gorillazI don’t know about you, but the way I see it, the iPad is mainly to be used for playing that awesome game called Flight Control HD. (Try it once, and I’ll bet my bottom dollar that you will not want to stop landing those planes!) It also is a great e-book reader, and of course, one can’t forget the angry birds and the irritating green pigs.

If you were the band Gorillaz, though, you’d find something a little more productive to do on the iPad – such as record an entire album! The British group has never been on any of my playlists, but I am inclined to try out their new album simply because of this fact. Dubbed “The Fall”, the album was created simply by utilizing some iPad applications – a plethora of which is available. Some of these applications are Speak It!, SoundyThingie, Mugician, and Solo Synth.

Before you write this one off, watch the video of the first track in the album. You just might become a Gorillaz convert if you do!

Here’s another cool thing – the entire album can be downloaded for free at the Gorillaz’s web site. As long as you sign up for the newsletter, you can get your hands on this one of a kind production. Next year, the CD will go on sale, but why wait for that?

Technology: The Cheater’s Bane

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CheatingCheating (the kind that students do when taking tests) has existed for ages – perhaps the very day that man started to exist – and it seems that as time goes by, the methods used for this unscrupulous activity just gets more creative. Blame whatever you want for that, but technology does play a part.

Unsurprisingly, technology is also becoming a bane for cheaters. There is actually a company that specializes in technology that catches cheats. Caveon Test Security has been in operation for several years now and uses statistical anomalies to determine if students have been cheating. The algorithm that they use is not exactly public, but neither is it a secret.

As a matter of fact, using statistics as the basis for catching cheats is an age old trick – Caveon only makes it more advanced and accurate. The basic idea is that their algorithm checks for patterns that show up if test takers have been copying from each other (high number of the same incorrect answers). It also checks for illogical patterns such as people getting correct answers for harder questions and getting easy questions incorrectly.

It is easy to see that while those ideas do make sense, it may not be foolproof. Critics are actually pointing out that the methods used by Caveon may not be that accurate – and they may very well be right. Then again, it might be better than allowing cheating to go unchecked.

What do you think of Caveon’s premise? Is it logical or does it put too much faith in technology?

Photo via Instructables

Facebook Killing the Christmas Card

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christmascard
We have to face it – the popularity of the traditional way of greeting people during Christmas has slowly been declining over the years. You may say I am stating the obvious, but if you think about it, Facebook might not be the main thing to blame. Some guys at Mintel International actually points out that the decline in Christmas card sales started way back in 2005. Today, though, experts are pointing fingers at social media sites – not just Facebook, mind you.

One of the purposes of Christmas cards is to do some catching up, and with people being more connected on a daily basis these days, the need for the former is fast become non-existent. Think Facebook status updates – at least once a day for most people. Think tweets – definitely more than once a day for those who are on Twitter. Then there’s e-mail, instant messenger, text messaging, e-cards, and so on. All of these things are so accessible and do not take up much time. Compare that to having to purchase Christmas cards, writing notes (manually!), and posting them.

With the mindset and fast-paced lifestyle that people have these days, it is not such a surprise that Christmas card sales are way down, is it?

Enter Facebook card app Fun Cards. To be honest, I haven’t used this app even though they have been up since 2007. Christmas 2010 is not here yet, but 8 million cards have been sent so far.

Things do seem ominous for the Christmas card, don’t they? How about you? Are you going the Facebook card route or are you going to try for something more tangible?

Photo via SMU

Google: The Body Is a Wonderland

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John Mayer may have become popular thanks to his bubblegum tongue-filled lyrics (I still don’t get what that’s supposed to mean, by the way), but Google is stepping things up a notch in this wonderland-body thingamajig. Google’s Body Browser was launched last week and is slated to be another of those Google creations that will keep you playing around for hours – well, maybe minutes, depending on the intensity of your interest in the human anatomy.

First thing you ought to know – you need a web browser with WebGL support. Google will try to make it easy for you and give you a link to download the new Google Chrome Beta (you have to admire the plugging). I didn’t have any problems making the application work on the first try, but it seems that in the early hours of its release, some people were not able to make it work.

Once you have the new Chrome Beta, just visit the Body Browser page, and you will see something like this.
Body Browser
The default 3D image is a fully clad female, which you can manipulate to learn more about the human body. You can peel layer after layer off – not clothing but skin, muscles, and so on. You can also rotate the body and make it smaller or larger, depending on your preferences.

I think it’s a pretty cool education tool, but squeamish person that I am, I didn’t last 10 minutes playing around with the 3D model. I am pretty sure lots of other people will find more use for the product, though.

Wikipedia a la Cubana

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EcuRed

Here’s another wiki that has made the news in the recent days. While WikiLeaks has definitely garnered a large following around the world, there are other wiki sites that are worth talking about as well. Just the other night, my friends and I were talking about Cuba – the way of life there, tourism, etc. I didn’t think I would be writing about a Wikipedia-style web site focusing on this Caribbean island.

The web site is called EcuRed, and can be accessed at http://www.ecured.cu/.

It is basically an online encyclopedia which aims to “spread knowledge from a decolonizing, objective, and truthful point of view.” Unsurprisingly, the site received a massive amount of traffic, and due to this, it went down earlier this week. It’s been up since then, though, and visitors can read the articles – all 19,752 of them.

The whole site is in Spanish and is dependent on a government-run network. There are about 600 computer centers involved in the project as well as more than 1000 content developers. I do not speak or read Spanish, but thanks to Google Chrome’s translation feature, I was able to browse the web site.

If you are Cuban or have a love for this Caribbean isle, here are things you ought to know before joining the wiki fray:

  • Écuras is optimized for best viewing in the browser Mozilla Firefox , you can download by clicking here . We also put at your disposal a spell checker that integrates with Firefox to verify your spelling, install it by clicking here .
  • If you have connectivity problems downloading the offline editor .
  • It is imperative that before you begin, read What is Écuras .
  • Learn to appoint either an article with the title Conventions .
  • You can ask questions and provide knowledge on the corner of the FAQ .
  • There are models of articles that offer guidance on the structure of a particular item.
  • Look at this list of recommended templates .

That list was translated automatically so there might be some grammatical inconsistencies, but you get the picture.  What’s important, I think, is that it is a huge step towards Cuba’s opening up to the world.  Something to be excited about, don’t you think?