burned

Gadget report from Yuri's Night at NASA

There was an amazing party last Friday at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., celebrating the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, which was made by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin. While CNET News.com has already penned a great article on the event, I thought I'd add my two cents on some of the cool gadgets I spotted at the party.

Peter Foucault's drawing robots drew a steady crowd the entire night. These two little robots had Sharpie pens mounted on them and were contained within what looked like a little robot boxing ring. Only … Read more

Make yourself into stew with a wood-burning hot tub

One step removed from the bubbling cauldron popularized by witches and cannibals, the Portable Wood-Burning Hot Tub is a must for anyone with sore muscles and $6,000 to spare.

The 200-gallon polyester tub heats water through a coil system, using burning wood to heat up the water. The water temperature hits 104 degrees in two and a half hours. There are no jets, but water circulates through the tub through the miracle of convection.

With a 60-inch diameter and a weight of 165 pounds, the tub is only "portable" if you are very strong and have long … Read more

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

If you're anything like half the country, your World of Warcraft account has been sitting fallow. Stuck at level sixty, you have been waiting for more content to be given to you, like a starving person waiting for a scrap of food. Blizzard finally answered your pleas with the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion pack. With two new playable races, and a multitude of new quests, this is every fans dream come true.

World of Housecraft: Greatest apartment listing ever

Were I in San Francisco, I would proudly share a roof with these deranged nerds. In what is possibly the greatest listing Craigslist has ever seen, three roommates are looking for one more to share their rent by inviting gamers to join "World of Housecraft." $738 per month in SOMA is a pretty good price, and the apartment description makes it even harder to pass up:

"Descend into the World of Housecraft and join three mighty heroes in a world of myth, magic, and limitless adventure. Four rooms of wireless cable Internet, Xbox 360, and an epic … Read more

On fire for The Burning Crusade

We had our company holiday party at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts last week. As we mingled, I noticed how a lot of my peers from GameSpot were not there. What we found out later is that the night we had our company party was the night after the launch of World of Warcraft expansion pack, The Burning Crusade. For the love of the game, these folks actually missed our annual holiday party so that they could play this awesome game the day it came out and be able to talk about it with coworkers and friends the … Read more

Blizzard gearing up for WoW expansion release

Just a reminder that Blizzard Entertainment will be releasing "World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade" on January 16 in North America and Europe. The expansion pack for WoW will be available for about $40, with a special collector's edition for $70. Auctions of the collector's editions on eBay have already began to solicit bids of up to $200 at last look.

Blizzard will be extending its technical support hours and staying open for two consecutive Saturdays in order to accommodate possible issues or questions that may arise from installation of "The Burning Crusade," the … Read more

Help for the sunburned and clueless

A sun-bathing device that tells you when you're fried to a crisp? Please.

Sure, Minox's "Suntimer" has sensors that indicate UV intensity. So does something else--it's called skin. And yes, sunbathers can "program their skin type and the protection factor of sunscreen in use for accurate readings," as MobileWhack says. We have an alternative suggestion, shade.

Those who insist on getting one of these may need help figuring something else out: The strap could leave some unsightly tan lines. There's also this thing called melanoma, but that's probably information overload for … Read more

Burn for free, but with toolbar bundle

This CD and DVD burner works as advertised, but the bundled toolbar it installs reduces its appeal. Burn4Free CD & DVD lets you burn audio discs or write data to CDs and DVDs by dropping audio or data files into the main window.

The button-heavy main window has a somewhat awkward look, but it's easy enough to understand. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the multitude of controls, you can switch to the more streamlined Easy mode. Be aware that the app attempts to install the NavExcel toolbar, which changes the way IE behaves when you mistype a URL … Read more