When Orange Bear goes to bed this Christmas Eve night, he plans on counting reindeer to help him fall asleep.
“Actually, they won’t help me go to sleep at all. I just use them to visualize a positive outcome. Reindeer mean Santa Claus; Santa Claus means presents; and presents mean toys! Toys, toys, toys!”
“I just visualize the toys,” says Phil the Owl.
Will Orange Bear be replaced?
From the Wired Gadget Lab:
MIT’s Huggable robot, even in its current uncompleted state, is a technical marvel of communications and data accumulation.
The bear is lined with over 1500 sensors for direct data transmission, has cameras for eyes, a microphone field in the ears, and has an internal wireless PC. The ear mics give the robot ’sound localization’ so it can directly interact with people in space, but the visual context from the cameras is even more impressive.
blue light beckoning
whoosh air turns to quicksilver
white plastic dream
Phil the Owl likes mice. No, not that kind of mice. (Well, he likes those, too. But let’s talk about computer mice, please.)
As a matter of fact, the lowly but ubiquitous mouse is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this week. (In a related milestone just last week, Logitech’s one billionth mouse rolled off the assembly line.)
And although Phil touts the future of touch screens, webcams, Wiimotes, and other exotic, as-yet-revealed input devices—”I’ll only have to flutter a wing, and voilà!”—he still likes the mouse.
“Phil, I have a hunch you’re the same way with mice as you are with headphones,” says Mr. Crumpet. “Never quite satisfied.”
“Pshaw.”
“All right, I need a mouse. What’s a good one?”
“How about the cordless Logitech MX 1100? It looks like a spaceship and scrolls through web pages at hyper-speed. And it’s got a laser.”
“That’ll do.”
“Well…they could’ve made a Bluetooth version, and ultimately I think I prefer a symmetrical design over an ergonomic one. Oh, and it could use a charging dock…”
When Phil the Owl’s in the air, he likes headphones that cut out the background noise. Easier said than done. He’s very, very picky, and he’s tested many, many pairs of headphones:
“I want them to cut out noise, but I prefer passive attenuation to active. The sound must be pure. And the cord can’t be too long because it’ll get in the way of my wings flapping, and then I might yank it. And I have a big head, so the headband needs to be flexible and big enough to fit, but not too bulky because that’ll just add to the wind resistance. And I’d like them to have a reasonable amount of bass without sounding too mushy…”
“OK, who brought up headphones?” sighs Orange Bear as he buries his face in his paws.
“And the ear pads need to be replaceable. The cord, too. I should be able to rotate the cups, and come to think of it, a drawstring pouch would be nice to protect the headphones from the elements when not in use. And I don’t like it when they’re too tight, too light, and too bright. And…”
(Phil would probably recommend visiting Head-Fi.org for all things headphones-related, but he’s a little distracted…with headphones.)
Phil the Owl’s old short-wave radio has been collecting dust ever since he started fiddling around with his fancy new Grace wireless internet radio.
“Thousands of radio stations from all over the world!* And it can stream music from your computer, even the ingenious Pandora radio web site.”
“Pandora, what’s that?” asks Milton Mole.
“It’s a site that’ll play music according to your specific tastes.”
“Ooh.” Milton, the professed analog aficionado, is intrigued.
“Now, where was I? Ah, yes, did you see how it’s all shiny and has lots of little buttons and knobs? Look at it!”
* (Phil says he’s particularly excited to listen to German radio as he claims to still have relatives in the Black Forest. But he doesn’t know a word of German. Well, except for the family name “Eule.”)
Phil the Owl can relate to that TV ad where the, ahem, vertically challenged Napoleon navigates through the winding streets of Paris entirely with the aid of a windshield-mounted Garmin GPS device.
Now Phil just needs to figure out a way to reach the gas and brake pedals.
“How the jealous mock,” sniffs Phil.
Unless you’re willing to pay crazy prices, it’s not likely you’ll be able to land your mitts on an Amazon Kindle before Christmas, but Phil the Owl says, “No matter. ‘Tis better to wait for Version 2.0. You have seen Version 2.0, haven’t you? Look at it!”
“The form factor is sleeker, more elegant, and—and—and I must have it!” (Looks like Phil will have to wait; the Kindle 2 is not expected to be introduced until sometime next year.)
“Oh, Phil, you and your high-tech book things,” chuckles Mr. Crumpet. “By the way, what books have you read recently?”
“What books? Well, um, hmm, too many to tell, really. They’re all starting to blend together. Let me check my Reader, and I’ll get back to you on that.”
“Take your time.”
Having finally relented to his incessant pleas, Mr. Crumpet and Orange Bear are allowing Phil the Owl to share with readers this Christmas season some of his favorite electronic toys (present and future).
Phil takes a deep breath and steps forward.
“Dear readers, these days we all need to carry around a USB flash drive or two or three. Or four. Going to and fro, from work to home, from home to work, we live a wired life. Where would we be without these little lifesavers, transporting our precious files and passwords, photos and music, secret plans and–”
Orange Bear coughs. “Phil.”
“For a few pennies more, you can have a USB flash drive that you’ll be proud to display on your office desk. One that announces your brilliant taste to the world. One that you’d also be happy to give as a gift to a friend.”
“What friends?”
“Ha! Then I guess you haven’t met my newest friend. Yes, meet Owsley Owlbert, the MIMOBOT USB flash drive. And he has other friends at the MIMOBOT store, like the C-3PO flash drive and the Domo-kun flash drives, all in various size capacities.”
“Phil, please stop.”
“And don’t forget, you can even get Owsley a key-ring hoodie. Look!”
“You can’t stop, can you?”
Could Orange Bear resist building his own Muppet? Well, of course not. What kind of question is that?
Famed toy chain FAO Schwartz lets any boy or girl (or bear) custom design their very own Muppet — kooky Muppet eyes and all — in the Muppet Whatnot Workshop.
“Orange Bear,” gulps Mr. Crumpet, “you did see the price tag on those things, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t cost a penny to design one on the website,” says Orange Bear.
And so, without further ado, Dr. Orange Bear’s frightful creation:
Russia has the largest population of bears in the world.