ronny.haryan.to » Gadgets

Opera Coming to Wii

ronny — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 22:51:46 +0000

Think of the possibilites: Flash-based games + Wiimote, YouTube, movie trailers (hmm, quicktime?).

When I got home last night, I noticed that my Wii disc slot was blinking blue light, apparently there’s a message from Nintendo letting me know that the weather channel is now available, so I let it update itself from the Internet and 5 minutes later I was browsing the weather channel. The globe interface is really slick.

Wiiiiiiiii

ronny — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 23:23:34 +0000

Finally got my Wii. It’s really a load of fun! Just see my friends boxing away… (please excuse the poor quality of the photos, they’re taken from my crappy mobile phone.)

Creative Watches

ronny — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:53:14 +0000

Insanely creative. Wouldn’t mind getting one of these.

Digital Wayang

ronny — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 01:26:49 +0000

Now everyone can be a digital dalang at home and direct a digital wayang kulit show. A researcher from the Korea National University of Arts created a digital version of the wayang kulit show by allowing the dalang (the puppeteer) to easily control silhouette characters on the screen using their hands without the actual wayang kulit itself. The dalang wears prepared color chips and move their hands inside a small box with curtains just like the stage.

It’s an interesting achievement, but watching a digital show is probably not as good as watching the real thing, in my opinion. I remember having had to wait until way past midnight to watch a wayang show on TV when I was a kid. I may not be the biggest fan of wayang, but I think wayang shows should be shown on TV more often and in better timeslots, replacing all the reality TV shows and all those other crap on Indonesian TV these days.

(via we make money not art)

Electric Mosquito Racket

ronny — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 11:48:12 +0000

Oh my God! This thing has been around for years in Indonesia (and most Asian countries I assume), and they just caught up with it now?! These electric mosquito rackets are really a lifesaver, by the way, speaking from the perspective of someone who has experienced living in a tropical country where the number of mosquitos seems uncountable and keeps growing every day, no matter what time of the year it is. The species that lives and breeds in Indonesia is equipped with bionic eyes and supermosquito speed, unlike their cousins in Canada which are bigger but much dumber and slower. The mosquitos in Indonesia are especially cunning and well trained to maneuver human attacks, normally in the form of hand grab swoosh, hand clappings which makes a loud noise but no kill, or using any kind of large but usually thin and round or square object like a book, sapu lidi, or body pillow. All these usual kinds of attack are no good, unless you’re Flash. I can hear the mosquitos laughing while avoiding these attacks with great ease.

I love these electric rackets! Not a lot of effort is needed to use this racket. Just swing the racket while pressing the button. I always zap them 99% of the time. It gave me a certain satisfaction each time because these mosquitos are unbelieveably annoying. These rackets are relatively inexpensive and easy to get in Indonesia. I haven’t tried them with flies yet. I might get one of these electric rackets here in Sydney if I can find them in Chinatown because apparently it’s illegal to just bring them in to Australia without special permission from the government. The flies here in the summer are crazy, you wouldn’t believe it.

Update: OK, here’s something new that BoingBoing informed us, research showed that when the bugs exploded after being zapped, the bacterias and what not inside their guts are spread into the air and causing potentially more harm than the bugs themselves. It’s probably not such a good idea to use these rackets or other bug-electrocution devices that cause the bugs to explode after all.

30-inch Apple Cinema Display

ronny — Sat, 21 May 2005 06:48:00 +0000

I just visited a local AppleCentre shop here in Sydney at Broadway today with my friend Jul because he wanted to buy an iPod Mini. I was trying my best not to drool over the keyboards and the displays, but it was really tough, you know. They have (almost) all of the usual suspects in the shop: Powerbook G4, iBook G4, iMac G5, eMac, iSight, PowerMac G5, yada yada yada, and–always–a cute Asian girl behind the counter. The first thing I noticed when entering the store, however, was a QuickTime movie in a window (not fullscreen) projected on a huge canvas screen as a second display to a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD display connected to a half-transparent-cased dual-CPU PowerMac G5. And the cute girl, of course.

I immediately played around with the G5 and the 30″ display. It was running Mac OS X Tiger, so I got a chance to play around with that and Dashboard, too. I wanted to try the iSight camera sitting on top of the 30-inch display but I don’t know which application to open other than iChat, and I couldn’t find anything in the menu that can show the video from the camera.

Now I know what I want for my Christmas present. A 30-inch Apple Cinema Display. This baby’s optimum resolution is 2560×1600 pixels and it probably takes almost the same space as my bulky 19-inch CRT monitor, just perfect for my desk, although I might have to sit a bit farther back. The display was bright and crisp like nothing else I’ve ever seen before. Just the 30-inch size alone was enough to amaze anyone.

The AU $4,899 price tag, however, is way too high for my wallet at the moment, but I reckon I’ll be getting one of these in the future. Maybe there are better models out by the time I can afford this, but you know what they say about there being no good day to buy any computer or techie gadgets because there’s always a better, less expensive model waiting in the corner the following day, so maybe I could be getting something better then, we’ll see. I should probably buy a Powerbook G4 or a PowerMac G5 first, though.

Here’s the full tech specs for the Apple Cinema displays.

Oh, and my friend didn’t get his iPod Mini because it was out of stock, and the shop staff didn’t know when the next shipment is coming, it could be anytime between next week and next year. What the…?? My friend was a bit pissed off about it I think because it took him so long to think about buying, but when he actually decided to buy it, it’s not available. Looks like he’s buying it from eBay.