Despite it’s evil-sounding, doom-inspiring name, the Hamster Shredder from Tom Ballhatchet may prove to be one of the most ingenious energy-saving, fraud-combatting, quirky little gadgets around. The concept, which is to be showed off publicly in Salone Del Mobile next week, from April 18 - 23, looks set to teach hamsters a lesson, once and for all. Whilst you’re enjoying a cuppa, your hamster is exercising, shredding your old bank documents for you, whilst making itself a nice little pen. Hamster gotta run, if hamster wanna poop. Nevertheless, I can’t help envissioning some poor mangled hamster trapped in the roof of it’s cage… via Engadget.

Featured Sites: Gadgets | Gadget Types

San Jose, California: Commemorating 30 years of delivering products and technology to the embedded computing market, Intel Corporation today introduced the Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series with extended life cycle support, the first to bring Intel architecture-based quad-core performance to the embedded segment.

Intel marked the launch here today with the unveiling of an Intel-themed embedded technology-based motorcycle by Orange County Choppers. The custom-built motorcycle boasts a Dual V-Twin engine pumping out 250 horsepower and equipped with GPS and fingerprint recognition, launched simultaneously in the Internet-based virtual world of Second Life, celebrates 30 years of Intel’s innovation and technology leadership in advancing embedded computing.

Orange County Choppers’ Paul Teutul Senior: “As Intel celebrates 30 years of innovation, we’ve created the most powerful and technologically advanced bike we’ve ever made to showcase the many ways the world benefits from Intel embedded technology,” said “In fact, we were amazed to discover how much Intel technology we have in our own shop. Beyond the Intel- powered PCs and servers, we have Intel processors embedded in many of the machines and devices that help us with every build.”

Intel’s VP & General Manager Doug Davis: “The breakthrough performance and power efficiency that characterize the industry’s first quad-core processors for embedded are as unmistakable as the raw power of the four cylinders of the Intel Chopper’s quad engine. This 250-horsepower chopper – designed using quad-core Intel computers – is more than just a mechanical powerhouse; it’s also a marvel of embedded technology with an ultra-mobile PC powering fingerprint recognition for security and a digital dashboard with ignition control, digital gauges, cameras that replace rear-view mirrors, integrated audio and video systems, GPS navigation and wireless connectivity.”

Intel engaged with Black Diamond Advanced Technology, a leader in the development of ultra-mobile computing systems, to integrate the motorcycle’s computerized controls and features that protect the computing system from moisture, dirt, shock and vibration and offer a computerized dashboard capable of being detached and used as a mobile PC.

Article written by Anthony Carbone - Zi Media.

The Wordpress Admin interface can be a real pain at times, and darn slow too. Not to mention a lean, mean bandwidth hog. I’ve put together this quick simple list that will not only beautify your whole administrative experience, but also improve your workflow efficieny and total control over your blog’s administration. Most of the images below can be upsized, so click for a bigger view.

1. Beautfiy - Tiger Admin

Tiger Admin is a custom made, clean-built, highly customizable Wordpress Admin theme. Packaged as a plugin, simply upload the file as usual into your Wordpress plugins directory and go to the in-dashboard menu, then hit ‘activate’. Clear your cache and refresh the page to see your new, completely revamped, XHTML compliant, CSS2 admin interface. I’ve had very few problems and issues with the theme, however in Internet Explorer, due to the browser’s nasty habit of not being quite ‘with the net’, the plugin will have no effect whatsoever and will simply show the default admin layout. This is because of Microsoft’s lack of support of CSS2, though in future updates, this is due to be fixed. In the meantime, download Firefox.

2. Streamline - Drop Down Menus

Tired of the usual clutter & pain of having to click back and forth between sidebar buttons in the Wordpress Admin interface? Drop Down Menus is for you. Fully compatible with Tiger Admin, when a top-bar or sidebar link is hovered over, a full set of secondary page links will also be displayed. Save time, bandwidth and trouble by downloading now.

3. Monitor - Audit Trail

Monitoring a large group blog can be a right pain, as can be finding out who made that crucial edit and accidently deleted last month’s archives. That’s why Audit Trail exists though. By monitoring all activity that goes on in your blog and allowing you to access it within a secure database, never again will you have trouble monitoring your user’s activities. From precise dates and times to exact pages visited, and actions taken, Audit Trail has you covered. Ever lost a whole post due to an accidental refresh? This plugin also allows you to restore a post to a previous version at any time… How cool is that?

4. Server Setup - Diagnosis

This plugin creates a new dashboard sub-tab. In this, a whole host of useful server settings are displayed. From the version of Wordpress you’re using, Server OS, PHP version, MySQL version, Server Software, Domain IP, Database Settings and Webserver Document Roots to the ways in which yoru server chooses to handle incoming traffic, treat MySQL Storage Engines and more, if you’re looking for an all-in-one server admin tool, this nifty plugin integrates right in with Wordpress. If your software is out of date, or settings insecure, often Diagnosis will notify you that you could do with an update, or tweaking of permissions. If you’re serious about your blog, this is for you.

By no means am I saying that these four brilliant plugins are the only plugins you need for your dashboard, heck no! What I am stressing though, is that from a total novice’s point of view, this is an ideal way to start modifying your cashboard to make it both more user friendly/centric, faster, more clean and easier to navigate. Let’s face it… Nothing is perfect. That’s what a community is for though, right?

Like the article? Digg it!

This hilarious Steve Jobs/George Bush parody is so darn hilarious that even if it’s not 100% tech news/ranting child related, I couldn’t not post this. Just check it out…

Of course, even behind the very funny video, a serious message lies. Back to the funnyness of the situation, check this comment I noticed below the video.

Repost this 6 times and you will
see the taco bell dog run across
your screen. If you repost this 8 times Ronald McDonald comes out and
attacks the taco bell dog.

It is really funny and it works!!
You have to try it!!

Gee… This one’s a classic!

Today, it seems that there’s no one thing that I really want to write about, so here’s an informal, general list of links & things that I think you guys might like.

- Social Media… The cover taken off. (This cracked me up for about 5 minutes whilst my PC was frozen thanks to some Vista-incompatible software!)

- Silent USB Linux powered machines have hit Europe, smashing onto the arena at only €280. (Go me! I just found the euro-key on my new keyboard! Alt Gr + 4. I knew it was something like that…)

- Viacom have sued YouTube/Google $1billion for ‘unauthorized use of clips’. Seems slightly excessive to me… While I’m here, I’d like to announce that I’m suing Digg $10billion for crashing my servers. (Note to lawyerbots, that was indeed, a feeble joke. No need to smite me!)

- Having seen John Chow’s post on checking whether China is banning you blog, I decided to check it out for myself. Guess what? Turns out China have blocked me & my site. I’m not the only one though… Turns out that free-speech & wikis don’t cut the chase for the Chinese government.

- The root of all evil, John Chow is at it again… Promotional Pens maker 1234Pens, have partnered with John to give away a Nintendo Wii! *drewl* - I wanna Wii.

NOTE: The hover text over the Slashdot picture is meant to be something of an irony. Afterall ‘linking to other people’ is exactly what I’m doing now…

The friendly guys over at Wing Products agreed to send me one of their latest and greatest inventions, cordgo. Ultra light-weight, super portable and highly customisable, the cordgo aims to remove the daily hassle of tangled cords, cluttered wires and annoying straggly leads which are scattered everywhere I look.

So how does this work?

The device is very simple, truth be told. Even for a complete dunce like me, I managed to work it out in a matter of seconds and can now use the cordgo in style! Simply push firmly with your thumb on the back panel clipper, and slide down. The face panel willl then slip off to reveal the gadget’s insides. Grab a wire, and loop in around the spindle inside the casing of the cordgo. Then simply pop the face back into the unit, and off you go! You can set the cord length for different positions, or even for storage, without having to mess around and get yourself tangled up.

Sounds simple enough?

It is… I managed to do all of the above with just one hand, whilst jogging round my local park. It really is that simple. To lengthen or shorten the cord, simply rotate your thumb in a circular motion around the front face-plate of your cordgo. I’ve been using the device for three-days now, daily, commuting in and out of Manchester, and I’ve now found myself unable to leave the house without this spiffy little gadget. What do I use it for most? I’d have to say that as an audiophile, it’s been my headphones mostly. Unfortunately though, the cordgo only fits cords up to 3mm in diameter. Whilst this is usually more than enough for most devices, I’ve found the odd gadget or two which hasn’t fitted, which has been rather annoying, at times.

Surprises?

It’s really incredible, how light the cordgo actually is! Something as light as this would usually break rather easily though, or so I thought, so I put the cordgo to the test.

The Drop Test

- 1 meter high. A bit of bouncing, but the cordgo has remained sealed and unscratched.
- 2 meters high. Some more bouncing, though no effect again.
- 3 meters high. Some spinning, alot of bouncing, and a bit of rolling around, but the cordgo remains unscathed & sealed.
- 4 meters high. No effect, though my poor MP3 player is looking a little sorry for itself!
- 5 meters high. The cordgo wins… Not even a scratch!

The Throw Test

- 1 meter away. Busted! A full force whack on a metal door did the trick, and the cordgo came loose. The two faces separated, but no scratches could found on the exterior.

All-in-all, for something like this, it’s pretty impressive! Let’s face it, who really is going to drop their gadget from five meters high anyway?

Final Conclusions

Whether you’re an urban communter, or out in the countryside doing the odd spot of gardening, the cordgo is a must-have if you’re mess conscious and wish to eliminate wires and clutter immediately. Cordgo is ideal for anyone who is on the move, and makes the whole definition that really is ‘portable’ come to life. Don’t me let down my annoying cables, let cordgo sort it out! In my opinion, it’s hard to go wrong with something this simple, and Wing Products seem to have fulfilled all the ‘right’ categories so far.

My favourite feature? The re-usable cordgo face plate decal stickers. Whether you want a lion, a bird, a panda or a dragon, many different stickers are included with each purchase.

Pricing
$9.95 each, but for a limited time only, there’s a ‘Buy-one Get-one Free!’ offer going. That and the decals… You’ll never know till you try cordgo, how much of a life-saver it really is! Head on over and pick one up now.

Featured Sites: Cheap Gadgets | Robotmag Gaming and Gadgets

Fridges with TVs, fridges with PCs, fridges that are fully decked out media centers, and those just so whacky that they deserved a mention, have all been seen here at Techzi, and we think that the NFridge just about fits into the ‘weird enough’ category to get it’s own featured spot.

The NFridge doesn’t draw away entirely from the classic fridge design, but it emphasizes more upon individual compartments for certain types of food. Whether each compartment will have it’s own unique control panel, to change the temperature of one section to that of less than another for example, remains to still be seen, but this modular refrigerator concept certainly shows alot of promise!

Each compartment being stackable and completely movable, it’s a wonder how the little boxes stay cool. That, my friends, is thanks to magnetic refrigeration technology. Whatever that is. Sourced from Technabob.

Oh and Nate, hope you have a rocking birthday today!

Featured Sites: Plasma Television

In a blatant attempt to copy John Chow, Techzi is throwing it’s very own re-launch competition! There’s already a great piece of gear which you can get your hands on, with at least one confirmed other on it’s way! So how can you win one of these spiffy prizes?

Simple! Just join our MyBlogLog communtiy! Where can you do this? Right here of course! The Techzi MyBlogLog Community already has over 60 members, and we’re throwing this competition in the hope of increasing that number further. If you’re interested in expensive gadgets, a thriving community & the latest technology news, you know this is the one for you. Winners will be announced on April 1st. “What if I’m already a member?” Great! You’ll be automatically entered into the prize drawing! Winners will be selected randomly, and the judge’s descision is final. In the event that a winner becomes unavailable, a new winner will be randomly selected.

If you have any questions or queries, or simply want to do some flaming, e-mail us at Competition@Techzi.net, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible! I won’t be writing many, if any updates today though as it’s my Birthday, so make me proud and enter. This is just the beginning!

Featured Sites: Cheap Gadget Shops

Breaking news has just come in. All Blue-Ray & HD-DVD titles have now officially, been cracked! Stuff like this must be doing wonders for all of the major Hollywood companies, already skeptical about which format to back.

Thanks to the great hackers at the Doom9 forums, it’s not even been two months since discovering a way to extract the HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc “volume keys” to decrypt AACS DRM on individual films, and we’re already getting reports that the proffesional DRM hacker ‘arnezami’ has found the so-called “processing key” that are being used to decrypt all of the DRM that is being used on the next-gen formats. Simply put, this means that instead of requiring keys for each individual HD film, this single processing key can be used to unlock, decrypt, and backup every HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc film released to dare. No doubt that this will change soon, but all current titles on the shelves are 100% copyable. No individual codes needed! Just all-for-one, and one-for-all! According to DRM hacker arnezami, the now internationally infamous finder of the codes, “nothing was actually hacked, cracked or even reverse engineered.” So in other words, this means that all arnezami needed to do, was to keep a little list in his memory, or on a post-it-note, see which numbers changed, and voila! The key appeared. Or so Engadget make out. If, it’s kind of a wonder that nobody beat these kick-ass hackers to the job anyway…

Featured Sites: LCD Televisions | Robotics, Computing, Gaming

5000 bricks, so little time. The new Lego Millennium Falcon promises to be the biggest consumer Lego model yet, weighing in at an impressive 32″ long! The Lego mini-figure scale-model replica promises to pack the geeky punch that Lego Star Wars fans world wide have been dreaming of, and costs a hefty $500, leaving possible buyers left clinging on by flesh and bone on the bang-per-buck ratio. Many argue that such an extravagant model is worth it, but is it? Let’s calculate the costs here… It works out to 10 cent a brick, which all-in-all, isn’t that bad.

If you have no life, are a dedicated fan, have a hole in your pocket or are looking for that little something extra this Christmas, the Falcon is for you! For those of you living in the UK like myself, you’ll find that it will set you back £350… ($700). Rather unfair I feel… At the end of they day, the Ultimate Collector’s Edition Millennium Falcon is still one hell of a cracker. Check it out now at the Official Lego Store.

Sourced from CrunchGear.