Crave

Wi-Fi paint? Bust warmer? Face slimming mask? Bandai telling women how to understand men? Why, that's just crazy talk! The Gadgettes are back in the saddle again, and this time, they ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

EPISODE 122

My new toy! The Nespresso Essenza Automatic Espresso and Coffeemakers with Nespresso Aeroccino Milk Frother!

Perfect Pod Maker

Made-in-Japan Wi-Fi blocking paint

British Airways to allow in-flight texting

Computer newbs kick QWERTY to the curb

Thanko’s new plug-in bust warmer… whatever next?

Bandai helps women understand men

Japanese face slimmer will definitely not work as advertised

This might be unneighborly, since it'd mean that your nosy neighbors can't piggyback off your wireless connection anymore.

But for the price of a can of house paint, this may very well be one of the most cost-effective ways to secure your office wireless network against hackers and freeloaders, particularly in a time of thrift.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have blended paint with aluminium iron oxide, which has been found to resonate at the same frequencies used by Wi-Fi, thus canceling out any electromagnetic waves in that frequency. It sounds like really cool Minority Report stuff.

Of course, it's only bound to attract the attention of every hacker out there who can't resist a challenge. And it reduces your chances of receiving love notes like this.

(Via Crave Asia)

This week brings us a brand-new Mega Man game sticking true to its 8-bit roots and a classic Dodge Ball game from the NES era.

WiiWare

• Mega Man 9 (Capcom, 1,000 Wii points): Mega Man 9 is truly an homage to the original classic 8-bit series. Even though the game is brand new with unique stages and bosses, the game has the traditional graphics and gameplay from that of the NES classic franchise.
  
• PLÄTTCHEN twist 'n' paint (Bplus, 1,000 Wii points): PLÄTTCHEN twist 'n' paint is a self-described puzzle-shooter that requires you to paint certain tiles in a row to advance to the next level. The game offers up to 300 levels and a maximum of eight simultaneous players.
  

Virtual Console

• Super Dodge Ball (1989, NES, 500 Wii points): Super Dodge Ball lets you take control of the USA Dodgeball team in a race for world title as you travel the globe attempting to knock each team out of the tournament. A classic to anyone who remembers the NES era, this game is sure to bring back some face-pegging memories.
  
• Vectorman (1995, Sega Genesis, 800 Wii points): Vectorman is a classic platformer that has you complete various worlds and levels ultimately destroying WarHead, an evil robot overlord. Upgrade your weapons with power-ups and save Earth in this futuristic Sega Genesis game.
  

What games do you think are missing from the Wii Virtual Console? Sound off here!

The G37 coupe, soon to be joined by a convertible model

(Credit: Nissan Motor Co.)

Infiniti announced some new additions to its G lineup this Wednesday. The 2009 G37 Convertible will be based on the current G37 Coupe and will feature a three-piece automatic retracting hardtop. Infiniti also states that it will be upgrading the audio and HVAC systems to compensate for this new exposure to the elements, but did not supply details as to how.

Infiniti's 330 horsepower, 3.7 liter V6 would be also be transforming the G35 sedan into a meaner G37 sport sedan. Joining the G37 coupe and convertible, all models will receive as options Infiniti's new 7-speed automatic transmission, offering downshift rev-matching. The ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive system will also be an option in G37x sedan and coupe trim.

Regardless of configuration all new Gs will get Infiniti's self healing paint as a standard feature. The Infiniti G37 convertible will debut at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show in November, while the sedan will be introduced mid-2009.

Paint.NET provides a free way to create high-quality greeting cards.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you think you've got it tough on Valentine's Day, consider your poor, humble Download.com editor. My wife's birthday is on Valentine's Day! Luckily, we've been together long enough that I don't have to impress her with dozens of roses, buckets of chocolates, and the rest of the conventional commercial holiday paraphernalia. However, a homemade card is always a great way to demonstrate my love.

Creating your own Valentine's Day cards with commercial design software like Adobe Photoshop or CorelDRAW will provide you with a wide array of options for tweaking your images, text, and other graphical elements. Those programs also offer instructional assistance and templates to help you through the process. But if you're willing to use a little elbow grease and your imagination, you can create a fantastic Valentine's Day card using free design software.

For this tutorial, I'm going to use Paint.NET, a top-rated download that offers many of the important features that you'll find in commercial image editors. GIMP is another great free program that actually offers a bit more power in terms of third-party plug-ins and online tutorials, but I find that Paint.NET is an easier program for new users to learn.

Also, I'm going to create a basic Valentine's Day card that includes an image with overlaid text and the date on the front, and some graphic elements and romantic sentiments on the inside. If you're the artistic sort and can create your own graphics, more power to you. One good free app for doing so is the vector-illustration software Inkscape. I'm artistically incompetent, so I tend to focus on using cool pictures and injecting some wit into my text.

First, install and launch the Paint.NET application. A new document should already be waiting for you, but if not, create your own by selecting File -> New or hit Ctrl-N. By default, your workspace will be 800x600 pixels, set at a resolution of 96 pixels/inch. Feel free to play around with the dimensions and resolution, but the default settings will let you create a reasonably high-quality card without having to worry about the borders of your page.

Before even selecting an image, we're going to divide your project in half, for a traditional folded card. Unlike Photoshop, Paint.NET doesn't seem to have "guide" lines that you can use to mark specific measurements in your project. What I do instead is create a one-pixel black line down the middle of the page.

Information about your cursor position sits in the lower right corner.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Click the Rectangle Select tool in the Tools dialog, and move the cursor to the very middle of the top of the 800x600 project by watching the cursor location in the bottom right corner of the Paint.NET interface. When it reads "400, 0" you're there. Now click and drag your cursor down to the bottom of the page and move it one pixel to the right, or to "401, 600." Select black as your foreground color using the Colors dialog (if it's not visible, hit F8), then select Edit -> Fill Selection. Now you've got a black line down the middle of your page that will represent the fold mark of your card.

Next, choose the image that you want to use for the front of your card. Luckily for me, my wife is an excellent photographer who is a power Flickr user, so I've got thousands of images with which I can work. Save your selected digital image to your computer if it's not already on your machine, and then open it in Paint.NET. You should now have two files open, your blank card (with a black line down the middle), and the image for the front of your card.

After opening your selected image in Paint.NET, you may need to crop and resize it to fit onto one half of a standard 11-by-8.5-inch piece of paper. In my example, I've cropped my image to 330x392 pixels, which allows about 2 inches of white space on the top of the card, and a little more than an inch on the right border. I'll cut off that extra paper when I'm done, leaving me with a lovely card that's about 4x6. At the default resolution settings, you've got about a maximum height of 600 pixels and a maximum width of 430 pixels before your image will become too large to fit on half a sheet of standard paper. Crop to Selection is the first option in the Image menu, and Resize is right underneath it.

Thumbnails in the upper right corner of Paint.NET help you navigate between open images.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

When your image is at an appropriate size and shape for your card, select the whole thing by using Edit -> Select All or hitting Ctrl-A. Copy it to your clipboard with Ctrl-C, then switch to your card project. Paint.NET displays thumbnails of your open documents in the upper-right corner of the interface, making it easy to navigate between them.

Now create a new "layer" in your card project. A layer is a discrete part of an image that can be moved, edited, or tweaked without affecting the rest of the image. All the layers for an image will be displayed in a Layers dialog. If you don't see it, hit F7 to make it appear. To create a new layer, select Layers -> Add New Layer, or hit Ctrl+Shift+N. In that new "Layer 2" you've created, paste your copied image onto your blank card.

We need to position your image so that it sits directly to the right of the black line running through the middle of the page. Select the Move Selected Pixels tool from the Tools dialog (hit F5 if you don't see it). It's the darkened cursor with a plus sign at the top of the left column. You can also select it with the keyboard shortcut "M." Then use your move to drag and drop that layer directly to the right of your black fold line. The arrow keys also move your selection pixel by pixel for fine tuning its location. Use Ctrl-+ to zoom in for a closer, more precise view.

The image for the front of your card is in the right spot. Now we need some text. I usually add the date in the upper right corner (or wherever is appropriate) for historical reference, and then write a big "Happy Valentine's Day" ("Happy Birthday" in my case) or other clever phrase in big letters on top of the photo. In this example, I've added "February 14, 2007" at the top and the short-but-sweet "I do!" at the bottom.

For maximum flexibility and editability, I recommend creating a layer for each text element you want to add to the front of the card. After creating the new layer, select the text tool from the Tools dialog. It's represented by the letter "A." (You can also just hit "T" if you're into keyboard shortcuts.) Position your cursor where you want to add the text, click, and type. It's that simple.

A secondary text menu at the top of the Paint.NET interface lets you select the font, size, effects, and orientation of your words. One nice aspect of Paint.NET is that the font drop-down shows how each font looks, so you don't have to keep applying them to see. Once you've decided on the content and appearance of your text, select the Move Selected Pixels tool (M) again to position the text exactly where you want it on the card.

Adding a drop shadow to your text helps it show up on the card.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

One quick aside: a semifancy trick for making your text pop on the front of the card is to apply a drop shadow, and there are a variety of methods for doing so. In my case, I've created one layer of text with "I do!" in black, and then other layer on top of that with "I do!" in white. I positioned the two text elements exactly so that the black background text disappeared below the white. Then I used the arrow keys with the Move Selected Pixels tool to set off the black text from the white text by 2 pixels to the right and 2 pixels down. Super snazzy.

Also, if you're looking for some fancy new fonts, I highly recommend the Web site dafont.com. Just download the font you want (if it's free), extract it using a program like WinRAR, open up your Fonts controls from the Windows Control Panel, select File -> Install New Font, and then navigate to the extracted file on your local drive to add it to Paint.NET and all your other applicable Windows programs.

Who's that handsome guy?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Hooray--you're halfway through! (No one said love was easy.) Save your current project as a Paint.NET (PDN) document, so that you can edit any part of the document. Saving it as a JPG or other "flattened" format will remove your ability to edit specific layers.

What I would do now is print the front of your card to see if you're satisfied with the appearance. If not, go back and fix whatever's bothering you. If it looks good, it's time to move on to the inside.

I'm going to assume that you're using a single-sided printer (color obviously looks better), so we'll need to eventually print the inside of the card on the back of the paper upon which you printed the front. That will give you a nice, foldable card, but it's essential to line up the inside contents of the card with the front.

First, save your current front-card Paint.NET document with a new name, such as "cardback.pdn." This will let you create a new document without affecting your existing one. Now create a new layer, and select the entire area represented by the front image of the card, using the Rectangle Select tool (keyboard shortcut "S"). Choose light gray as your foreground color from the Colors menu, and Fill Selection, just like we did when we make the black folding line.

Now you've got the exact area for the inside of your card demarcated by that layer of light grey, so you can delete all of the other layers from the front of the card by selecting them in the Layers dialog and hitting the "X" mark.

Flipping images vertically and horizontally is a quick way to make corner pieces.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Next, create new layers for the additional graphic elements and text that you want to use on the inside. In my example, I've taken a selection of a picture of my wife's wedding bouquet and used Image -> Flip Horizontal and Image -> Flip Vertical to create four cornerpieces. I've kept each of them in their own layer in order to position them independently. If you're looking for some clip art to include in the inside (or front) of your card, Pat's Web Graphics has a lousy site design but a great collection of relevant images.

After adding the flowers in the corners, I added text to the middle of the page using the same procedure that we used on the front of the card--create a new layer, select the text tool, type it in, and tweak the appearance and location. In my example, I've spared you the romantic mush and used a generic "Romantic sentiments go here!" placeholder.

Once the images and text for the inside of the card are complete, you can delete that layer of light gray that we created to mark the card's area. You'll also want to delete the folding line from your background layer. Select the entirely area of the background layer using Ctrl-A, then simply hit "Delete" button to clear its contents.

Now it's time to print the final card. Take the piece of paper upon which you printed the front of a card, turn it upside down and reinsert it into your printer. Print the inside of your card on the back of that paper and then fold the entire piece of paper along the black guideline on the front. Use scissors (or better, a paper cutter) to cut along the lines of your card, discarding the blank extra space along the top, bottom, and right of the card.

Voila! You've got your own homemade Valentine's Day card. It didn't take that long, did it?

Did this tutorial work for you? (You can thank me after Valentine's Day.) What other software or tricks do you use to create your own customized greeting cards? Tell me about it in the comments.

Hooked up to a PC, the Odo looks like a postmodern potted plant.

(Credit: Impress Japan)

Sony's prototype, wind-up Odo digital camera is among the gadgets attracting attention at Tokyo's largest green products fair this week. We're spying from afar at Eco-Products 2007, which includes more than 500 exhibitors.

The Odo looks like a giant, plastic toy sprout when plugged into a planter-shaped base to transfer images to a computer. The camera takes 15 seconds to recharge, either by rolling the charger wheel with fingers or running it over surface. Sony's Spin N Snap takes still photos while the Crank N Capture shoots video.

Other future-forward products attracting attention at the fair include solar LED lights from Sharp and environmentally friendly X-ray equipment from Toshiba. Rice, used for materials coatings in Japan for centuries, is the key ingredient in nontoxic paint from Kinuka that's supposedly safe enough to lick.

Japan East Railways is demonstrating a ticketing system that harnesses electrical power from the vibration of human feet as they pass through the gate.

Penguins animate this household energy monitor.

(Credit: Impress Japan)

And there are audio speakers that use bamboo-based fabrics, many energy-efficient appliances, home power-monitoring software featuring cartoon penguins, as well as a slew of biodegradable toys and bioplastic cell phone cases.

People at the fair can count their carbons and learn how to go on a CO2 diet with help from a government-sponsored campaign that began in 2004.

(Via Japan for Sustainability, Impress Japan)

(Credit: Haltadefinizione)

As we in the U.S. prepare to stuff ourselves silly with turkey and fixin's on Thanksgiving, here's a neat view of another famous meal from the past: Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper. The map approach allows you to zoom in to tremendous detail and pan around, so close can you get in fact that cracks in the paint appear like roads in a landscape. View it here.

Update 9/6/07: Okay, I got the version names confused--two years ago the "X" in the product name meant "10," then was switched to mean "X." As a result, I miscalculated the product cycle. Corel actually shipped a new version last year. So please ignore my attempt at a clever lead-in.

It's been three years since Corel acquired Jasc Software, and about two years since its last major release of Paint Shop Pro; that's a couple of lifetimes in the consumer software market. Today Corel finally announced and shipped a new version, Paint Shop Pro Photo X2. It offers a handful of oddly random new features that I suspect won't wow the program's existing fan base, and that doesn't really provide a compelling alternative to competitors such as Adobe Photoshop Elements or even Corel's own PhotoImpact 12.

In addition to the new tools enumerated in the accompanying slideshow--Express Lab, a gray interface skin, HDR Photo Merge and Visible Watermarking--designed for photographers, Corel adds some work-flow tools targeted at the more business-oriented crowd. These include a Save for Office and Copy Special, which allows you to resize images at save and copy; Crop as New Image for dealing with batch scans; and dynamic language switching.

Features aside, however, I found PSPX2's interface annoyingly sluggish. File operations, such as loading and saving, were fine, but screen redraws for operations like effects previews aren't as snappy as I like. (Performance didn't make the list of enhancements for this version.)

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is available now for $99 (full version) or $59 (upgrade).