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Feh on red meat and booze — who can’t live without those for a day or two. Hardcore Jesus types are suggesting that those who want to make a meaningful sacrifice for Lent need to look at their Blackberries, iPod and MySpace habits.

”My friends are talking about giving up their cell phone or not using Facebook or MySpace because they compulsively check their profiles,” one Pennsylvania college student said in a survey of pre-Easter sacrifice plans.

A reminder lest you take this thing too far, however: God likes blogs, newsreaders and Digg.

Lent in the wired age: No iPod, no MySpace [The Morning Call]

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Posted Feb 7th 2008 2:42PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable VideoThe Archos 405 got a little heftier this afternoon, with a capacity bump to 30GB. Archos went old-school in getting to that size, using a hard drive instead of flash — but the upside is that drives are cheap, which means the 30GB 405 is just €199 ($293). European customers can apparently score this at the end of the month, but there’s no word on a North American release yet.

[Via ArchosLounge]

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T-Mobile has a new update available for their Shadow. This update comes as a nice surprise as it adds some new features and enhancements instead of just being a security update. New items will include:

• Support for audio postcards.
• Free music and album wallpaper from the Dave Matthews Band and Avril Lavigne.
• Free Ringtones from movies to include Top Gun, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and School Of Rock.
• Free wallpaper selection made just for the Shadow’s display.
• Enhanced myFaves and menu graphics.
• Improved text entry experience.

While the free music and wallpaper selection may not be for everyones individual tastes, the myFaves and text entry improvements should make it a worthwhile download.

Read [Shadow Update]

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We have a sneaking feeling that law enforcement officers might not have the same understanding of technology as you, Gadget Lab reader. This hilarious case from blogger Rottin’ in Denmark tells a story of the astounding ineptitude of Danish police when confronted by 1. The internet, 2. An iMac and 3. WiFi. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the cops had come a-knockin’ to investigate computer crime.

According to the blog post, the Police made a dawn house call to investigate a suspicious credit card transaction made over the writer’s open WiFi network.

Police [Doughface]: We traced the transaction back to the wireless network in this apartment.

Rottin in Denmark [Me]: But we have an open wireless connection. Its unsecured.

Doughface: The internet doesn’t work that way.

It gets worse.

Doughface: What were you doing the night of November 15?

Me: Fine, lemme check my e-mails. I was probably at a concert or something.
I sat down, opened my e-mail account and scrolled through to November, looking for invitations, confirmation e-mails, whatever.

Doughface: [audible gasp] If that computers only two weeks old, how are you checking your e-mails from November?! [Makes gotcha face.]

Me: Wait. What?! These are on the internet. They aren’t on my computer.

Doughface: You just said it was two weeks old, but those e-mails say November! [Gotcha Face intensifies to David Caruso Face]

Me: Internet!

Doughface: If its only two weeks old…

Me: Internet.

The last, and most embarrassing part, is when the police demand the computer part of an old first generation iMac, thinking that the colored bubble on the desk is just the monitor. Go to the site to read the full transcript. It’s too full of expletives to post here. It’s also the funniest thing I have read this week.

How the team at ‘CSI: Denmark’ stole my computer [Rottin’ in Denmark via Mac Observer]

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Designer Florian Kräutli has come up with new idea for curtains, they have built in magnets so that you can position and structure them in various ways and they actually look pretty cool.

A curtain which you can shape to any form”, magnets embedded in the curtain fabric allow the user to shape the curtain innumerable ways, both open and closed.

More info about the magnetic curtains idea over at Florian Kräutli found via Moco Loco via Core 77.

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Star Wars - Yoda Dashboard Driver

Attach to your cars dashboard or on your desk, then press the button for the 5 inch Yoda figure to loudly and forcefully express your feelings. Speaks 10 classic Yoda phrases! The Yoda Dashboard Driver has an authentic movie dialogue speech such as: “Reach out, sense the force around you”, “Hard to see the dark side is”, “May the force be with you” and much more.   The figure is fitted with a velcro attachment and stick one half to a surface such as a car dashboard. Switch on the motion sensor for Yoda to activate from your car’s vibrations.   If you are stuck for words to respond, let Yoda do it for you with it’s powerful speaker sound. The Yoda Dashboard Driver Figure is a must for a Star Wars fan. Yoda Dashboard Driver features: ? One Yoda Dashboard Driver ? Officially licenced by Lucasfilm ltd ? Says classic phrases from the movie ? Velcro attachment to dashboard ? Motion activated sensor ? 6 inch tall figure ? Includes batteries ? Powerful speaker sound ? Attractive window box ? Suitable for age 6 years and up ? Size: Yoda Dashboard Driver Figure H 12.5cm x W 7.3cm  

Technorati Tags: Toys 4 Boys

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Light Wedge Mini - your helper in necessary moments.Feb 07, 2008
If you are a thief or just a nice student, if your hobby is reading or you just often have to read something in darkness, then this article is for you.

A little, compact and rather useful gadget was invented. It is called Light Wedge Mini. It is portable light for reading. Actually, the device was created some time ago, but now it was perfected. The main advantage of the Light Wedge is its size, because it is the most suitable for such gadget.

If you like reading books and it is time to go to bed at the most interesting moment, this small gadget will help you to solve this problem. Then, it can be very useful for you in a trip. It will be easier for you to see all the details and names on a map, for example. I can continue speaking about a lot of other situations where this gadget might help you. But I want to mention that your eyes won’t really like this gadget if you use it for a long time.

Anyway, even taking into account all the advantages of the Light Wedge, it is harmful to strain your eyes. So, don’t make excessive use of this gadget

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Posted Feb 7th 2008 5:42AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
There was a time not too long ago when Microsoft and Toshina seemed poised to make the Gigabeat a household name. That all changed when Microsoft killed PMC and then blazed a manufacturing trail of its own with the second generation Zune. Nevertheless, Toshiba trudges on with enhancements to their Gigabeat U-, V-, and T-series of audio and video players. The ¥34,800 V81 doubles the flash to 8GB while tweaking the 1Seg recording capabilities. The ¥15,800 U407 and U408 are just 4GB updates to their 1GB/2GB sibs while sporting an enhanced GUI. The ¥29,800 T802 (pictured) then, is just a T401 with double the flash (8GB) and new deal to make the wildly popular (in Japan) GyaO video service available for download from NTT hotspots around Japan. Right, the Japanese rough-equivalent of the domestic iPod, Starbucks, T-Mobile, and iTunes mashup. Well, at least you’ve got your HD DVD business to fall back on Toshiba. Oh… right.

[Via Akihabara News]

Read — T802
Read — V81
Read — U407/U408

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Fairground Candy Grabber
Warning: the Candy Grabber is highly addictive. It works much like the amusement game of old. You fill it with sweets, insert a coin, and try and pick up the items using the three joysticks and mechanical claw before the fairground music stops. Not easy we assure you.

See price

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Posted Feb 7th 2008 2:09AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
The achilles heel of RC racers has always been the battery. A few minutes of play after hours of charging is no way to waste the sacred years of youth — we have video games for that. Now this race fans, the H2GO racer fueled by hydrogen cartridges from Horizon Fuel Cell. Produced by Corgi International, the clean running H2GO is designed by the slightly mad, Red White Barron of design — Luigi Colani — and ships with a water refueling station, solar panel, and remote control. Details are otherwise frustratingly scarce. Though we can assume that the car features water-activated HydroPak Mini prototype cells and will easily cost a couple of Benjamins by the time it goes production. Unfortunately, that would be sometime in late 2008 or 2009 based on Horizon Fuel Cell’s earlier estimates of commercial fuel cell availability. Oh, the agony.