Slashdot Mirror

Some of these, especailly the "Aki", ranks among the all time greats of things fashioned by repeatedly being beaten by the stupid stick.

There were mood rings; and, one of my favs, pet rocks (I keep mine in my shoe). Then there was/is the virtual pet.

Stupid though they be ya gotta admire the chutzpa to market this stuff. Somewhere in a virtual heaven Willy Loman is smiling down on Nokia.

Some of these, especailly the "Aki", ranks among the all time greats of things fashioned by repeatedly being beaten by the stupid stick.

There were mood rings; and, one of my favs, pet rocks (I keep mine in my shoe). Then there was/is the virtual pet.

Stupid though they be ya gotta admire the chutzpa to market this stuff. Somewhere in a virtual heaven Willy Loman is smiling down on Nokia.

they had the opportunity to bring back the "egg craze" and blew it :( !!!

"We said, we can do this, but the gyroscope technology--we didn't think people could afford it."

Rad2Go : Segway = I-Cybie : Abio

I guess there's a market for knock-off gucci watches, so why not knock-off Segways? But still, I think it's in very bad taste. I hope they get laughed off the stage.

Isn't this the same as the Tamagotchi electronic pets that you have to feed at certain times and sleeps based on internal clock. Also those robotic pets (AIBO, etc) that have similar behaviors.

Did you read the entire article? Is the cbsnews.com site sending different copies of the article at different times? Or did you just choose to ignore part of it? In the article it says:

Researchers are mindful that creating too rapid a flicker could trigger seizures in some people.

Just because a "disruptive flicker" is "unseen by the human eye" (probably should be "not perceived"), doesn't mean it won't affect the brain. I don't claim to fully understand how the signal in the optic nerve works or how the brain interpets it, but strange flicker patterns probably cause weird dropouts and spikes in the signal from the eyes to the brain. That can't be good. Did you ever hear about the stories of the kids who had seizures because of watching a Japanese cartoon? CNN story. More here

BTW, in the US, the FDA makes pharmaceutical companies test drugs for ten years to make sure there are no serious health problems. Do you really think the MPAA will go by such standards? They probably rape and murder children for their own entertainment. Why would they care?

I bet these things will be showing up for kids under the Christmas tree (or insert festival of your choice). I get a catalog called "Lifestyle Fascination" which rivals Hammacher Schlemmer for gadget psychosis. Sharper Image is strictly farm league.

The incredible thing is, this stuff really does sell. Really. Someone liked this stuff enough to post this article. And here I'd thought we'd hit the price/value nadir back in the 70's with disco and the Pet Rock.

This reminds me of the guy who claimed ownership of the moon and is selling land on it...people think that they can make an e-business by selling the equivalent of a pet rock, only without giving the purchasar/registrar/commandar/landownar/whatevar any tangible thing...unless you want to count an acre of the moon that you can't really own anyway.

I hope that this e-commerce trend ends soon. The current domain name system, nobody-owns-the-moon-"ownership"-program, etc all work fine. I wish companies had learned their lessons back during the dotcom crash - to make money, you have to sell something that is real and/or is good enough to replace what your consumer has already got.

And hamsters?!
And Fish?!
And female zebras in heat?!

I have my pet rock hit the keys. I just hope they never throw it in jail.