This one’s a bit off topic but nonetheless important and interesting for all us internet addicts enthusiasts. Ever wondered how you’d connect to the internet in the case of disaster? Zombie apocalypse? Capitalist meltdown? You’re most likely not going to be saving lives, fighting thugs or hunting for food. Face it, you’ll be the local geek so you might as well help out.

The latest issue of Make magazine has details on putting together a Network Relief Kit to provide internet connectivity in the most extreme of situations. The total setup costs around $3,500 USD and bandwidth costs are pretty expensive at $3 to $6 per Megabyte of data transferred. You’re most likely not going to be buying this any time soon but doesn’t the fact that you now know how to visit Dark Diamond from inside your zombie quarantine zone make you feel a lot better?

[MAKE / Via Boing Boing]

Recently some very influential voices in the tech world have been denouncing the death of the desktop PC and, by association, PC gaming. Their claims are not unfounded, Desktop sales went down 23% last year and while a decline is no surprise in the current economic climate; a fall of nearly a quarter of sales is an astounding blow to the market.

I believe rumors of the desktop PCs death have been greatly exaggerated. While laptops are every more popular, cheaper and powerful, most of their innovation still comes from that happening in the Desktop field. On the contrary I propose that the Desktop is not dying but evolving. I’d even venture to say that the only part of the Desktop that’s changing is the Desk part.

Our PC’s are taking the role of hubs and media centers, the best storage, fastest processors and better graphics are all on the PC. With the impending rise of virtualization our PCs will become even more important as they will become the backbone to your local computer. Your very own cloud, if you will.

Will laptops and netbooks continue their rise? Without a doubt, but in the very near future you are going to see many of the capabilities of those devices relying on those of your hub PC. So if you were thinking of shelling out for a high end laptop think again. Laptops depreciate twice as fast as desktops and are many times harder to upgrade. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that we’ll be seeing the resurgence of desktops within 5 years. And PC gaming dead? Don’t even get me started! But we’ll save that for another day. Over and out.

There’s probably already an anime or manga for every after-school club Japanese schools have already. Except maybe for the sys admin club, that is, until now! Enter Ubunchu, a school comedy about a sys admin club and their adventures in choosing an OS for their new quad-core machine.

Oh snap! SexyGame 2.0 is out already?!

Its been translated into English by some Ubuntu supporters and distributed as a PDF file for your enjoyment. It’s deliciously geeky, technically accurate, and a perfect example of utopist literature, as everyone knows it’s impossible to get OS fanboys to agree on anything!

[Ubunchu]

Finally, a Virtual Reality device that claims to be the real deal! Academics from the York and Warwick universities are developing a VR device so effective, they’re dropping the whole Virtual Reality concept, its not good enough. They are calling this Real Virtuality (which is just stupid considering that says ‘wow it looks really fake’).

The device, which could very easily be adapted to game technology, transmits taste, temperature, sound, smell and vision. The enormous helmet-like-device contains a high resolution display, state of the art headphones, a ventilation system for temperature and tubes that go in your mouth and nose to transmit taste and smell. It better feel as real as it says because, when you’re looking like this:

Virtual Reality is all you’ll have left.

[DM]

Japan’s not wasting any time in making the mecha dream a reality. Every minute not developing mechanized suits is a minute less of giant mecha battles, and I think we can all agree that’s a tragedy.

This time around the Japanese have released a fully functional exoskeleton  that gives its wearer superhuman strength. Disguised as a tool to help tired and aging farmers the strength to pull out radishes from the ground, its true purpose is more likely ripping off the robotic heads of its mechanized enemies. If we could only find some Gundanium around here.

[Japan Probe]

Here’s the new EV-X7 electric motorcycle, which will be launched in japan soon next year for about $1600 USD. Buy… why does it seem familiar? I wonder…

A real puzzler huh?

Kaneda doesn’t look very amused, I still want one though.

[Japan Probe]

I could post a video of some official big wig at Apple showing off the iPod Touch at a Keynote conference. But why the hell would I go and do that when there’s a video of a cute Japanese girl showing it off on national Japanese television!?

The iPod Touch is pretty much the iPhone without the phone. But it’s still the sexiest looking media player I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame that same sexiness wasn’t extended to the new iPod Nano. It looks like the deformed younger brother of the iPod. I’m sure the features are hot, but as looks go: it’s fugly.

The iPod Touch is released worldwide on September 28. Expect to hear stories of how somebody got mugged within a week of the release and how some kid (who clearly isn’t getting any pussy whatsoever) spent 1000 hours of his life hacking the phone to emulate video games.

Two anime industry software developers in Japan have teamed up to create a new voice synthesis software that can realistically create character dialogue. Namely Animo and Celsys (the guys behind the trippy patterns used in Gankutsuou), just announced this venture which will very likely become the apple of discord in the industry.

On one side it can reduce one of the greatest expenses in anime creation, no not the underpaid artists drawing without sleep to meet deadlines, but the voice acting. It could effectively open up the industry for the hundreds of independent creative groups in Japan. It could also become a great tool for video games such as interactive novels (of which Hentai games are a usually a branch of) and other dialogue-heave genres.

On the other hand its not likely that, however successful this software will be, it will never manage to capture the small nuances and inflections of an actual voice actor. Personally? I’m all for it! This is a critical advancement specially in the gaming field and we’ve got to start somewhere. So long as it sounds more realistic than my answering machine I’m sold.

[ANN]

This guy really had a good idea when he linked his KORG Kaos Pad 3 with his DS Lite with a copy of Electroplankton. Recording Elektro-songs and mixing, altering them with his touch-screen big fella.

I’d definitely go to a Rave if the DJ used that!

[Thanks Picha]

Although Firefox is spread like.. well, fire in America and Europe by blinded Zealots that would maim and kill little babies for their browser of choice; Mozilla is facing a tough crowd with the japanese market. They organize little events where they give away CDs and random swag but the Japanese just aren’t buying it.

Well it seems Mozilla finally found the magic formula to Japanese marketing and, like Canon, they decided the answer to all their problems was Cosplay.

When those CDs and swag are handed by a group of maids then there is no choice but to ditch your stuff for firefox. Is there something that Cosplay wont sell? Milk? Oh I can just see it, full fat milk promoted by a big breasted girl in a skintight cow suit. Ok it stops here!

[Tokyo Times]