When I first heard abut the Tesla 100% electric powered car my inner voice said 2010, if ever.  Then I met the founder Martin Eberhard at the TED conference and heard about how they are engineering and producing this thing with a totally different mind set than Detroit which was inspiring.   He also had secured some amazing funding from one of the fathers of the PayPal success. Martin seemed to have it all figured out including some clever market positioning on the initial model, the Roadster, where it will compete with super high performance vehicles where price, convenient service, etc. is much less of an issue than with a commuter car.  So, with that, I bumped my estimate up to 2009.  Then I read in the Mercury News that the car was delayed for the "third time" to Q1 2008 which is a win in my cynical mind.  I am pretty sure that there that there will not be a fourth time as they have already gone thru all the normal excuses and changed CEO’s.  Still if they can ship 100 cars in the first half of 2008 I think that is a huge accomplishment.  Also that is $10MM in revenues as the cars cost $100,000!  (The second 100 cars will be the bigger accomplishment as there are not that many billionaire tech CEO’s.)

Here is their recent promo video.  This piece is good evidence they need to fire their PR agency.  Who the hell chooses a graffiti laden inner city location for a photo shoot on a $100,000 car?  They must have mixed up the Taser video shoot and Tesla.  Ah, marketers.  They should let Martin do that job.

Picture source: Serious Wheels

About a year ago the Victor Division of JVC announced they had invented a dodecahedral speaker where the entire 12-sided surface emits sound such that the listener is barely aware of the speaker location. Now they have teamed up with CopenMilan a Danish/Italian design firm that has taken those ugly engineering breadboards and created a work of art. I can’t wait to see these in person and and try them out. No word on the cost.

Source: Yanko Design
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This alarm clock rolls around and makes sounds like R2-D2. It sounds pretty annoying, but thats exactly the point, it should get you out of bed pretty quick. It’s hard to tell if this clock is a droid with a built in alarm clock or a alarm clock with droid abilities. The clock will roll its way off your desk and hide if you don’t wake up. You can hit snooze once before it starts to run away and hide. Thankfully you can disable his wheels if you don’t want it to run away. This very interesting alarm clock requires 4 AAA batteries which should last 6 to 8 months. You can own Clocky for $49.99. Check out the video below. Source: Digg, Nanda
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This bike is for non-cyclists, as weird as that sounds. The Trek Lime Automated Bike is an electric powered bike with an automatic transmission on the rear hub thats powered by a generator on the front hub. The 3 speed automatic Trek Lime also has a trunk-like feature, the seat opens up for some storage space ( I cant imagine it would be much though). This unique bike retails for $580. Source Gadget Lab, Oh Gizmo
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If you don’t mind looking a little weird and you use your laptop in the sun often, this in the thing for you. The Sunshade is an ultra lightweight high density polyethylene that attaches to the back of your laptop screen. It unfolds in seconds to hide your screen for sun glare. It fits on laptops with screen sizes from 10-17 inches. Genius idea, weird looking product. Source: Oh Gizmo
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Hillcrest Labs has developed a unique controller for electronic devices called "The Loop". The Loop features a lightweight organic design and has two buttons with a scroll wheel, much like a computer mouse. The remote was developed so the user can hold the remote at any angle relative to screen and the pointer will still be there. For example it will move up on the screen, if your moving it up, whether you are holding the controller upside down, upright regularly, sideways or on angles. Hillcrest did a demonstration with this on an Intel VIIV reference computer hooked up to a HDTV. Check out the video below. Source: PCMAG, Gizmodo
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For all you vinyl collectors out there, this is the thing for you. This gadget is incredibly simple, yet amazing. You put the VW Van on the record and it drives around the record, playing it. There’s a speaker located on top of the van where the music comes out of. The best part is the van only requires a 9v battery. The only downside to the ultimate hippy gadget is it only plays 33 RPM records. The van is available in green, blue, yellow and pink and retails for $121.77. Source: HTFR
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JVC Japan has invented a way to turn your bathtub into a spa..well sorta. This buoy shaped gadget is actually a floating MP3 Player that sends out ripples in the water that sync up with the music like a 3D equalizer. The MP3 player includes an LED screen that wraps around the device, has 256MB of internal memory, and can play MP3, WMA and WMA(DRM) files. It comes preloaded with some soothing smooth jazz songs, and you can upload songs onto it using a standard USB cable. The Floating MP3 player is available in the US for $170. Source: Gadget Labs
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The OmniZero.4 bot has amazing abilities such as climbing a latter, cracking eggs and it can even jump rope. This bot took the gold in the ROBO-ONE 11 competion, and we can see why. This robot has some crazy abilities, so watch out, soon a robot might be able to beat you at hopscotch. Watch the video below to see this robot in action.
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A few months back we posted an article about Dell’s new multimedia Goliath, the XPS M2010. Featuring a 20.1 inch screen, an Intel Dual Core processor, up to 4 GB RAM and up 240GB storage on dual hard drives this portable media center enables you to take your desktop anywhere. Below is a video demonstration of the M2010. Via Fosfor
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