Adgadget: Fantasy fembots market male products

Ariel Waldman contributes Adgadget, a column about the intersection of advertising and technology.

Technologically better equipped than booth babes, fantasy fembots seem to be popping up everywhere in ad campaigns these days. Alcohol seems to be popular with the fembots -- they're employed in ads from both Heineken and Svedka -- but Philips is utilizing them in a campaign for an electric razor as well.

It's pretty easy to be creeped out by the influx of ready-to-serve robots -- and not just because these fembots could be the beginnings of the Singularity in disguise. (C'mon, what more suitable "smarter-than-human brain-computer-interface" would be better to take over the human race than one that offered kegs and clean shaves as a "gift from the Greeks"? And who better to be behind the downfall of society than advertisers?) Misogynist undertones run rampant throughout all the ads, so it's no shock that feminine cyborgs are used exclusively in advertising targeting young males -- they tap right into stock fantasies of complete feminine subservience.

Continue reading Adgadget: Fantasy fembots market male products

 

Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

[via] Engadget

BenQ intros the DC-X735 ultra-slim camera

Filed under: Digital Cameras

BenQ has been firing on all cylinders lately, dropping more projectors, cameras, and Intel-based MIDs then you can shake a stick at (trust us, we've tried to shake a variety of sticks at them). Joining the fold today is the DC-X735 compact digital camera, a sleek little shooter which looks conspicuously similar to the company's recently release T800. Regardless, the 7.2-megapixel camera does it up with a 2.5-inch LCD display, 3 x zoom (4 x on the digital side), ISO to 6400 (in Movie Mode), MPEG4 video recording, and an SDHC slot for up to 4GBs of storage. The camera comes in "Vixen-red" or "Midnight-black" paint jobs, so you can match it to your handbag (provided your color schemes are based on The Masquerade), and will be available this month for an indeterminate amount of cold, hard cash.

[Via PhotographyBLOG]

 

[via] Engadget

Strange but true: Evander Holyfield releases Real Deal Grill

Filed under: Household

Truth really is stranger than fiction: not only has one former heavyweight champion managed to make a lucrative post-boxing career hawking electric cooking appliances, but now yet another former champ is throwing his proverbial apron into the ring with the release of Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Grill. The press release doesn't actually mention what makes the $99 CirTran-built grill any better than Mr. Foreman's product, but that doesn't stop the former Tyson snack from taunting "don't you think the latest grill is supposed to be the best grill?" Holyfield (or whomever scripted his lines) goes on to advise that "you must connect with a product like you connect with a punch...it's a real knockout of a product, and I am committed to making The Real Deal Grill a true champion." Good luck with that, Evander, but as Hank Hill might say, they're still selling your grill in housewares dude.

Update: Once again, The Onion proves eerily prescient (kinda) -- thanks Arthur B!

[Via AP]

 

[via] Engadget

Toshiba launches a fresh crop of Satellite laptops

Filed under: Laptops

Toshiba, a company known to drop a wild assortment of products on the market in rapid succession, has once again clogged the press-release pipeline with a slew of new Satellite laptop configurations (on the P205, M205, A205, and U305) sure to make even the pickiest of buyers happy. Included for your pleasure is a breakdown of the new models, replete with all the specs you've come to know and love, plus a 30-life Easter Egg involving a complicated sequence of button presses. No, wait... it's just the specs. Browse on after the break and sink your teeth into the juicy details.

[via] Engadget

CCTV finally put to good use: filmmaking

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

What's better than sticking it to the man with your anti-consumerism, pro-recycling commercial? Why, filming it with "video sniffin'," the practice of tuning in wirelessly to public and private security camera footage and recording it for fun and profit. The movie was sponsored by Mediashed, who also produced a movie involving free-running in a shopping movie using similar CCTV filming techniques. Of course, Mediashed takes the rebellion edge off a bit by asking permission to use the footage, but we like the quasi-optimistic stance of having a good time with all that CCTV in England, instead the standard vandalism or mugging forms of dissent. Videos are after the break.

[Via WMMNA]

Continue reading CCTV finally put to good use: filmmaking

 

[via] Engadget

Filed under: Home Entertainment

We got to spend a bit of time with Vudu's eponymously named set-top box earlier this month at CEDIA, but those still trying to justify that $399 price tag now have a bit more info to help inform their decision, with a number of reviews of the device now cropping up online. Among the first to churn out a full review were the folks at Laptop Magazine, who seem to have found quite a bit to like in the device, despite some fairly serious limitations. They were especially impressed by the Vudu's "surprisingly good" video quality, which they say "makes you forget you're watching a movie downloaded over the Web." Leading those aforementioned limitations is the fact that those all those movies are "trapped on the Vudu box," meaning you can't offload them onto a portable media or stream them over a network connection. That also proved to be one CNET's big gripes with the device, who also lamented the lack of built-in WiFi, and the somewhat limited 24-hour viewing period for downloaded movies. Those also looking for an unboxing of the device can find that and more in Paul Stamatiou's review, which even goes so far as to rip the device apart for a peek inside. As for how the Vudu works, he too seems to have been fairly impressed by the general user experience, although the movie pricing structure proved to be a major stumbling block for him, as was the device's inability to export movies to a PC.

[via] Engadget

A note to both Apple and iPhone customers on the v1.1.1 update

Filed under: Cellphones, Features

We're in a unique position here at Engadget, serving the technology community, while simultaneously interacting with and trying to make sense of the moves of the companies our readership patronizes. Apple's latest iPhone firmware, as you've probably heard, locks out third party applications, consequently preventing owners from using their device on networks other than AT&T -- so it's easy to see why this is being viewed as a hostile act, with thousands ready to storm the Cupertino castle in order to get their hacked iPhones back the pre-v1.1.1 status quo. Make no mistake about it, whether you care about the iPhone or not, this 150MB software update is uniquely controversial and causing a rift -- if not an outright adversarial relationship -- between Apple and untold thousands of its core customers, who've used Engadget comments, blogs, and any other sounding board at their disposal. So, may we have a word with both parties?

Continue reading A note to both Apple and iPhone customers on the v1.1.1 update

 

Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

[via] Engadget