By Andrew Liszewski

Even though I decided to save this post for today, believe it or not this isn’t an April Fools’ joke. Thought up by product designer Nadine Jarvis the Carbon Copy Pencil is made from the ashes left over from the cremation process and apparently the average body will produce enough ash to create about 240 pencils. The idea is actually part of a larger research project that looks to challenge our usual post-mortern traditions and provide alternatives that are more beneficial to grieving friends and family.

I have been designing urns that lengthen death ceremony to give more time to come to terms with loss. My motivation for this project was my interest in the death and decomposition of materials and how the degradation of materials could be used to aid the grieving process.

From what I can tell no actual pencils have been made from human remains as of yet and I’m pretty sure this option won’t be available from funeral homes any time soon. That is of course until our graphite supplies run out and we’re all forced to use those odd ‘Soylent Pencils’ instead.

[ Carbon Copy Pencil ] VIA [ Cribcandy ]

Unusual

HANNOVER, Germany (AVING Special Report on 'CeBIT 2007') -- Sanyo presented its 7M compact digital camera ?Xacti S70? during CeBIT 2007.

< AVING Special Report Team for ?CeBIT 2007?: Publisher and Editor, Min Choi, Kevin Choi, Caleb Ma, Jason Lee, Rose Kim, Esther Yoon, Samuel Kim, Abe Shim, Benjamin Oh >

HANNOVER, Germany (AVING Special Report on 'CeBIT 2007') -- Sanyo presented its 7.1M compact digital camera ?Xacti S7? during CeBit 2007, features good grip.

< AVING Special Report Team for ?CeBIT 2007?: Publisher and Editor, Min Choi, Kevin Choi, Caleb Ma, Jason Lee, Rose Kim, Esther Yoon, Samuel Kim, Abe Shim, Benjamin Oh >

HANNOVER, Germany (AVING Special Report on 'CeBIT 2007') -- Samsung Electronics presented its 7.2M portable multimedia digital camera ''VLUU i7'' during CeBIT 2007, which adopts 3-inch touchscreen interface and swiveling LCD. It supports camcorder, PMP, MP3P, text viewer, portable data storage, and voice recorder functionality.

< AVING Special Report Team for ?CeBIT 2007?: Publisher and Editor, Min Choi, Kevin Choi, Caleb Ma, Jason Lee, Rose Kim, Esther Yoon, Samuel Kim, Abe Shim, Benjamin Oh >

HANNOVER, Germany (AVING Special Report on 'CeBIT 2007') -- Sanyo presented its 7.1M slim digital camera ?Xacti E7? during CeBIT 2007.

Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Motorola, Bell Mobility, Windows Mobile, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA

What's a surefire way to revive a smartphone when it starts to get a little long in the tooth? Why, pull a Nokia: bundle it with some relevant accessories and rebrand it as a "Music Edition," of course! To be perfectly clear, this here Q is the same old Q we know and love; Bell's simply given it a new face by throwing in a 2GB miniSD card, stereo 'phones, and a $25 (CDN, we're assuming) gift card redeemable through the MSN Music Store. Get it by signing up for a three-year contract on a voice / data combo plan -- if you dare -- for $130.

[Thanks, Terry]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Have you got dynamic digits?  Are your fingers faster than the proverbial speeding bullet?  Then get your sweet ass down to Los Angeles, baby, because they’re about to pit the quickest texters against each other in a fight for a $10,000 prize and place in the speed-messaging final in NYC on April 21st. 

Before you get too cocky, you’ll have to turn that T9 off and refrain from using any ridiculous abbreviations or shorthand.  So far 150 have signed up and organisers LG are expecting more to turn up on the day.

To all those competing: gd lck!

R u rdy 4 wrlds fastest txt msg? [Reuters]

© 2007 SlashGear, Posted by Chris Davies on Sat, March 31st. | Permalink | No comment

Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under LG, SMS.

Filed under: Handsets, Peripherals, Nokia, Others, Samsung, ATT-Cingular, Symbian, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS

A few goodies are listed in the latest price sheet we've had passed to us -- dated April 1 to April 7 -- and while we always need to be cautiously skeptical with these sorts of things, we're pleased with what we're seeing on here. On the data side of things, both the Sierra Wireless 875u and Option GT MAX Express have appeared, giving mobile warriors without PC Card slots a couple solid options for getting bits and bytes hauled down; they'll both be available for $300 before rebates. Turning our attention to handsets, Samsung steals the spotlight here with two models that are piquing our interest. First up is the A717, a phone with Ultra Edition roots that we first spotted at CES, bringing HSDPA in a ridiculously thin flip package for $240 before rebates. Next is the more mysterious A437; we know virtually nothing about it, but at $420 before rebates, it's gotta be something cool (word on the street is that it might be a North American rendition of the D900 slider). In other news, the Nokia N75 is still listed for $420, but it's any guess when exactly it'll be showing up. Have faith, Symbianites!

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Oh sweet Lucille Ball I want these toys!  Take the awesome coolness of Transformers, add in everybody’s favourite foot covering - that’s right, I’m talking about shoes - and you end up with something that really should be on my shelf.  Available in two variants, Nike Convoy and Black Megatron, the only disappointment is that you can’t actually put your feet into them.

Read the rest of Robots in foot-fetish disguise

© 2007 SlashGear, Posted by Chris Davies on Sat, March 31st. | Permalink | No comment

Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under toys.

By Andrew Liszewski

Besides the cool inverted LCD display and the overall slick styling the Nixon Lodown Ti appears to be particularly suited for the surfing community. The watch comes pre-programmed with tide chart data for 200 beaches covering the next 15 years which is prominently displayed on the watch face via a large graph.

I really have no idea what specific beaches the Lodown has data for but it’s safe to assume they’re probably all surfing hotspots. The watch is made from titanium with hardened mineral crystal, is waterproof to 100 meters and includes dual time functions, an alarm, a countdown timer, a wave counter and a chronograph.

It’s currently available directly from Nixon for about $200 which is pretty reasonable.

[ Nixon Lodown Ti ] VIA [ Uber-Review ]

Outdoors, Sports, Watches