John Sisler

Spoilers Ahead!

After long weeks of dancing his heart out, propped up on his busted up legs by only his resolve, courage and legions of SMS-voting geeks, Steve “ThunderToes” Wozniac is booted from Dancing With the Stars.

For some, he was hard to watch dancing. OK, maybe for most. But not to me.

To me he was a giant (but rapidly decreasing in weight, mind you) bundle of circuit board, segway riding, love bouncing around with the enthusiasm of a child on two barely-functioning legs. The man who could out design professional mainframe builders in his early teens found dancing impossible, but here he was trying, bucking what fate handed him (genius, riches) for what nearly everyone else took for granted (having fewer than two left feet). Woz is a deep geek—ours—with the accompanying social awkwardness. And he lost, and lost perhaps more badly than any contestant in the history of the show. But I don’t think anyone else faced such overwhelming odds. And who can resist cheering for the underdog?

Lets see if we can get Woz on Survivor or American Gladiators. [Newsday]

*Sorry for spoiling the ending, ladies and dudes. I figured it was not so much a “spoiler” as a “save-you-from-having-to-watch-bad-TV-ler”.

Today Clearwire yanked the cloth off of its rumored Clear Spot portable WiMax-to-Wi-Fi hotspot, a shiny little battery-powered device that lets you bestow real 4G bandwidth upon anyone in Wi-Fi range.

The $140 thing fits in your pocket, runs for four hours on a lithium-ion battery, connects up to 8 laptops via Wi-Fi, and works like a charm when you’re in a decent WiMax coverage area. (You still need to connect a WiMax modem, which costs $50 and requires a data plan.)

I tested it on the outskirts of Portland, at a Burgerville right off of I-5 in Vancouver, WA, essentially becoming a totally unwired, totally portable wireless hotspot for anybody with a computer or smartphone in the vicinity. Anyone can see the hotspot itself, as it has a standard Wi-Fi SSID, but once on, you have to enter a password, like you do in hotels or airports where the Wi-Fi network itself is technically public.

I can’t make enough of the experience, and how much it could change businesses, sales forces or mobile bloggin’ teams like Gizmodo. You don’t even have to be plugged in, you can just all hop on and work as usual for up to four hours, more if you can find an electric socket. And with WiMax, you’re not nearly as limited as you are with 3G—though there are some constraints, you at least have access to a network that, in certain coverage areas, bestows blistering broadband speeds similar those from today’s wired cable modems.

One big constraint, of course, is that WiMax from Sprint/Clearwire is currently limited to Baltimore and Portland, OR, but is growing this year and next to many cities.

There is also an internal limit to how much WiMax bandwidth you can harness. Since the Clear Spot uses the same Motorola WiMax USB modem that Clearwire sells for its standard WiMax service, I could test how well the bandwidth was passed through.

• What I got when connecting an HP Pavilion dv4 Windows laptop to WiMax: Around 7Mbps
• What I got when connecting the same modem to the Clear Spot, then connected MacBook Pro via Wi-Fi: 3-4Mbps

That does certainly represent a bottleneck, and there’s a reason for it: The wireless hotspot itself—which you might have seen under the brand Cradlepoint for a year or more—was designed for 3G, for whom 3Mbps downstream is a frickin’ miracle. It has a gimped USB port that throttles bandwidth over 5Mbps.

Though that’s a flaw, it’s not a big deal when you consider most Clearwire WiMax plans will be sold with a 4Mbps cap.

Beyond the hardware bottleneck, my other complaints are relatively minor:
• There’s no Ethernet port, so this can’t fundamentally replace home broadband.
• In areas of low coverage, you get an error message saying the modem was not found, which is inaccurate.
• There’s no good way to read WiMax signal strength on the device itself.

The good news for patient people is that, according to Scott Richardson, Clearwire’s chief strategy officer, the company is exploring selling an unfettered WiMax account, so you’d get an experience closer to the one I got in my uncapped testing. Also, Scott tells me there will be another portable WiMax-to-Wi-Fi hotspot device available—probably in the fall—that’s even smaller, and that wouldn’t be restricted by the USB bottleneck.

This is one of those products that’s totally niche but totally cool. Like, even if there are many people who are interested in getting WiMax, or better yet, a combo EVDO/WiMax modem from Sprint, I am not anybody would, at that point, also feel the need to share it with others. Maybe it’s good for bringing your work-supplied modem home, or maybe it’s a good way to split the cost of wireless modem service between a team of people who are always working together, on separate devices.

Regardless of all these scenarios, the fact is, it’s a truly new experience, and hopefully something we see more of in the future. I would say this is one of hell of a reason for Big Cable to be shaking in its boots—that is, if only Comcast wasn’t already part owner in Clearwire. [Clearwire Clear Spot release]

Though it reminds us of the ill-fated enormously expensive V-22 Osprey, we’ll give the Hotelicopter a fair shake and file it under “Believe It When We See It.” Set to make its maiden voyage this summer, the Hotelicopter is an 18-room flying hotel “designed,” the website states, “with the sophisticated, affluent traveler in mind.”

So what can you expect? Well, all of the usual from a five-star hotel, even if it is a flying one: Soundproofed rooms, queen-sized bed, mini-bar, wireless Internet service — even room service available an hour after takeoff. There’s also a full massage parlor and salon, a ping pong table and — how could it not have one? — a tea lounge. Sophisticated, indeed.

The company says the Hotelicopter is modeled after an old Soviet design:

The Hotelicopter is modeled on the Soviet-made Mil V-12, of which there were only two prototypes ever made. The Mil V-12 took its first flight in Russia in 1968 and was awarded numerous world records, which it still holds today… The Hotelicopter Company purchased one of these prototypes from the Mikhail Leontyevich Mil helicopter plant in Panki-Tomilino, Russia in 2004…

Check out more of the Hotelicopter in the gallery down below, or click Continue to see a video of this ridiculousness in action.

This is just a normal toilet, sure. It doesn’t do anything fancy when it flushes, there are no LED lights built in and it’s not particularly eco-friendly. But that’s not the point. This toilet has a picture of a plane dropping bombs on it. Get it??

If you’ve been looking for that certain object for your home to show everyone just how hilarious you are, specifically with toilet humor, then I can’t think of anything better than this. I mean, dropping bombs! Oh, that’s rich! I’m so hilarious!

Via 7 Gadgets

Take a look at Creativi*tea, a design concept for a clever tea kettle that changes color as the water heats within, thanks to thermochromic paint.

The two-quart kettle has a ceramic base to retain heat, a stainless steel body to heat up fast, and a soft-rubber handle that insulates its handhold from the heat.

Gorgeous artwork thus far. If Sarina can keep the cost down on this handsome creation, this design could make the leap from concept to reality.

For those of us who want to watch the grass grow on our spring vacations, that lazy pursuit just took on a whole new meaning. This Timelapse Garden Video Camera can watch the grass grow for you, and after a few days you’ll have fascinating high-resolution (1,280 x 1,024) video for playback on your computer.

Sure, you can do this with a digital camera — some models can even do it without a fancy attachment — but who wants to leave a delicate digi-cam out in the rain for months at a time? This one’s weatherproof and has a battery that’ll let it run for four months, stuffing 18,000 frames on its 2GB removable flash drive.

Flowers and gardens are all fair game for this time machine, but think of its other uses. How about setting it up in an inconspicuous location at a construction site? Clouds billowing by, or traffic on a busy street? Or shooting out your window for a year for a four-seasons video? Choose from six shooting intervals, from one pic every five seconds, to one every 24 hours. It’s $159.95 worth of astonishment.

Oh Gizmo, via Hammacher Schlemmer

Earlier this month we featured top-end watchmaker Ulysse Nardin’s self-winding cellphone. As intriguing and steampunky as the phone may have looked from the one promo picture featured, the full set of photos barely do the phone — expected to put a dent in the sales of high-end mobile company Vertu — justice. Named the Chairman, the phone’s somewhat prosaic candybar design is offset by a slew of different colors and trims — all of them discreetly masculine, of course, but this is a Man’s Mobile.

There’s a touchscreen display and a cute little button that mimics the winder from the Swiss company’s watches as well as a discreet fingerprint reader — just in case a serf gets his sticky little paws on His Master’s Cell by mistake. Add to that a 5-megapixel camera, wireless and various e-mail and Internet applications, plus a guarantee for any internal and external repairs (should you drop it in your champagne bath by mistake), and you’re a very happy rich man. The Chairman is scheduled to be available towards the end of 2009, but Ulysse Nardin still haven’t given us the last laugh by revealing the price. Shame.

Swedish dog trainer Nina Ottosson has turned product designer for a series of toys she claims will educate your pet as well as improving his or her brainpower. As the owner of a crazy dog called Mr. Jones — believe me, crazy doesn’t really do him justice — I wondered if Ms Ottosson’s Dog Brick toy would, indeed, be the thing that gets Jones a scholarship to Harvard or MIT, paving the way for a Nobel Prize in, say, a decade’s time. I’m not pushy, by the way; I just think he’s a genius with the potential to really be something.

Made of plastic, the Dog Brick hides treats beneath bone-shaped domes, with additional sliding compartments. The idea is that the dog sniffs the food beneath the bricks and then works out how to get them out. Design blog Yanko tested the $50 toy out on one of the writer’s dogs, who got the idea PDQ, so round of applause there. Jones, I fear, would have lasted about 30 seconds before he decided on another course of action. Then it would have been off to the garage where I keep my drill before, protective goggles on, he would have gone in the hard way. You can see how Miko, the Yanko dog, gets on after the jump.

Nina Ottosson, via Yanko Design

Moneual is joining the ranks of recession-defying companies by releasing what is perhaps the most expensive computer in Korea called the 701 Jewelry. Retailing at roughly $30,000, the device is covered in 3,554 Swarovski jewels, and housed in gold and brass panels.

Despite the fancy exterior, the cylindrical computer actually boasts some cool tech offering a 7-inch multimedia touchscreen display, ATI Radeon HD 4000 for HD video playback, a 500 gigabyte harddrive, internal speakers, a remote control, DVD-R, multimedia card reader, a wireless keyboard and mouse, Intel Core 2 Duo, and runs on Windows Vista. If you are an economic optimist, and you’ve got the extra greenbacks, it will be hard to resist this bit of digital eye candy.

Via Aving

As companies look for every possible way to save money, more office workers than ever are being asked to telecommute, doing their work from a computer at home. Not having to drag your rear end into an office each day might sound appealing at first, but many telecommuters find that there are many distractions at home, from noisy pets to the kids arriving home after school, that make getting any work done a challenge.

By providing a space specifically designed for work that’s completely separated from the house, the OfficePOD is designed to shut out the distractions of home. With high quality materials and a luxury feel, the idea is that this will become be a place workers want to be in, even though it’s just outside the back door.

Of course, another way to get some peace would be to stick your little noisemakers in their own isolated environment.

British based OfficePOD will start leasing units in the UK next year for about $7100 per year.

OfficePOD, via Born RIch