Barnes & Noble eBook

When Amazon debuted their Kindle at the end of 2007, I was excited that the long awaited e-ink technology would finally be available for mass consumption. But honestly, I had no desire to pony up $399 retail price Amazon was asking for (not to mention it sold out in 5 hours of being available). The technology behind the device was still brand new and far from being consumer friendly. It’s been two years, and only now is the real ebook crazy starting to catch on.

Barnes & Noble is taking a turn now with an ebook reader of their own. Expected to be announced next week, it will feature a black-and-white e-ink display along with a color multi-touch display below it, much like that on the iPhone in your pocket. The first screen is a 6-inch 800*600 pixel display, standard to most readers available today. The second screen is meant to be used to navigate through your collection of books, as well as offer an area to buy more. At 480*144, this 150dpi screen will be just as wide as the display above it.

Gizmodo, who originally received the sneak peek, also offered some additional information:

What’s interesting is that B&N will sell the books it also publishes (yes, remember, they are also a publisher and not just a store) at a deep discount compared to print editions. And the device will have some sort of access to all books scanned by the Google Books project; probably books that are out of print.

The name of the gadget, which I cannot reveal and may have changed anyhow, is freaking terrible. I hope they change it before it ships. Oh and yeah, it runs Android. (via Gizmodo)

Retro GamerDrive Hack by Joven

These days thumb drives come in every flavor imaginable. You have the classic Humping Dog USB drive to the more bizarre Sushi Disks. They’re all good and fun, but the innovation has seemed to stop at “What else can we stick it in?” That’s what she said.

They all start off with the standard memory chip and a USB dongle. But Joven from Hawaii has stepped beyond this barrier of creativity and designed the Retro GamerDrive. Meshing security with the infamous Konami Code, the Retro GamerDrive requires the user to enter said code into the controller to trigger a relay within, applying power to the memory chip, and thus allowed the information to be accessed.

Check out the full project at Joven’s site: Retro GamerDrive.

The “Future” Burger King

One of my favorite shows when I was growing up was Doug. It had great characters and fun plots that were usually pretty relatable to your average youngster. The one thing that always stood out about it for me was the mesh of a future world in a present day environment. Cartoons of the past always dealt with time periods in extremes. For example, we had the Flinstones to cover the stone age, and the Jetsons to cover the space age. But with Doug, I was able to envision a not to distant future with cars that somewhat resembled today’s Toyota Prius, and the Honker Burger which will soon look like…Burger King?

That’s right. Burger King is renovating 12,000 of it’s locations worldwide to create contemporary, edgy, futuristic look. The new design, called 20/20, will feature rotating red flame chandeliers, TV-screen menus, industrial-inspired corrugated metal and brick walls. 60 stores in Miami have already undergone the makeover to test market the design.

I personally like the new design, if purely for the touch screen menus. Although thinking about the greasy food and young kids…I’d be wary of the cleanliness over the years.