#77

This has just reminded me that I did some copy last year for a “smart” backpack. It was controllable by the straps.

Not going to link to the product for obvious reasons.

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#78

So it had loads of buttons on the straps for doing stuff like making phone calls?

#79

It was pretty ambitious, but ultimately relied on being connected to a phone. To the credit of the designers, it had a huge battery life, which the phone could siphon. It was a nice backpack too, loads of pockets. Lots of swipe sensors on the straps to turn volume up/down, answer calls and stuff.

Just utterly impractical in real life.

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#80

Weird how more people don’t use edge now seeing as its basically just chrome with better privacy options these days

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#81

I did a bunch of work a couple of years ago for a water industry magazine (SO GLAM) and loads of it was about IoT sensors and how they were going to revolutionise water monitoring etc. Reckon that’s a good application. Smart kettles/fridges/ovens/doorbells can fuck off, though I actually do use the timer on my wasing machine thank you for coming to TEDx Cardiff

#82

My mental image was of these tbh, keyrings with stickers on that help kids remember steps for doing things, or checklists of what they should bring to or from school.

#83

Basically this, but for people who buy moleskin planners and drink craft ale.

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#84

I imagine the £5 plastic keyrings are of more practical use to their target audience of children’s SEN support and dementia patients.

#85

And almost certainly a better use of £5.

#86

Really really wouldn’t want to try to go through security in an airport with one of those if timing was tight!

#87

Edge is just chrome without the bit that lets Google spy on you.

If you’re already on Windows might as well stick to one American Corp looking through your meme collection.

#88

Haha definitely not!

Without giving too much away, I think the original idea was for cyclists (couriers in particular) to be able to safely interact on the move.

I’m not, and have never been a cycle courier, but I would’ve thought that stopping to answer a call would be the safest way to interact.

The actual design of the backpack was like Nathan Barley had been paid to hold a focus group for millennials, spent the money on sniff and made it up. Rustic futuristic.

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#89

Reminds me of this thing

which if you keep scrolling down has animated gifs of each of the features. It’s like someone noted all the little things that irritate you when flying and going through security but this is not a normal jacket you’d wear otherwise, it’s just a sort of crazy collection of gadgetry and ideas that end up being a complete mess. Even if you flew with one you’d still be faffing around with all the bits and have a jacket that’s about 3 times bulkier and more annoying that anything else you’d wear.

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#90

And yet, it still doesn’t have a pocket for yer Broon and a pocket for yer tabs

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#91

I veeerrrry vaguely remember this.
Did you know the snes also had a dialup modem and a banking system I. Japan. Bizarre!

In a similar vein to thr workboy.
Ever seen the gamecube keyboard controller?

I think only 1 game (Phantasy Star Online) supported it. I still kinda want one tbh.

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#92

I’m imagining some sort of Mavis Beacon game where you have to switch very fast between typing sentences and shooting things

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#93

I played a virtual boy with Wario land game in superpotato in Akihabara.
Been playing some on emulator recently too.
I was so tempted to buy VirtualBoy in Japan and take one home but its expensive. Hard to fix any issues and impossible to run any hacks etc on due to low uptake. Maybe once I hack my Switch in time I’ll use the labo vr with the VirtualBoy emulator in retroarch :grinning:

Still tempted tho :joy:

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#94

It was a mmorpg and usually had a list of phrases to interact with others when you used the usual gamecube pad.
If you had this beast you could do the gameplay bits as usual with the gamecube pad but with a full size keyboard in the middle you could type whatever (Curse words?) you wanted. :grinning:

The game was rare and needed people to buy the gamecube modem at a time people barely had dialup and then this controller was nicer still. :joy:

Edit: and only released in Japan.

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#95

Think it had typing of the dead remake from the dremcast, but might have imagined that.

#96

Recall when I got into DVDs in 99/2000 I found a UK forum where you could find out if a given release was worth spending £25 on or whatever. One of the regulars there turned out to have no computer at all, he did all his browsing via his DreamCast and keyboard. I’m sure he was still using it around 2003. Nuts.

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