ORIGINALLY AIRED: 10/18/2004

Useless USB Products, Volvo Gravity Car, Comic Book Faves

Episode #2664

The guys started the show by filling us in on their weekend activities: First, Alex bought the digital SLR camera that he’d been eyeing for a while, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel. “It was only $899,” Alex explained. “That’s a thousand bucks!” Kevin noted in wonder. Nevertheless, the Digital Rebel offers 6.3 megapixels, compatibility with dozens of Canon lenses, and full manual control. Meanwhile, Kevin attended Team America: World Police and pronounced it “awesome.”

Even more exciting, a pair of Sony robots visited the set to show us their moves. While the latest Aibo dog robot was impressive, the new Qrio prototype truly rocked the house. Equipped with 38 motors, three gyros, and three processors, it’s the most advanced Sony toy robot yet. “I would like perform a dance,” the excitable Qrio announced, and proceeded to get down live on the air. Sarah noted that she wouldn’t mind dancing with Qrio since she can’t convince Kevin to dance with her. “I spent the first 18 years of my life in front of a keyboard – I can’t dance,” Kevin protested.

Lupo from Lansdowne, VA called with a question about hot TiVo upgrades – namely the heat created by upgrading the hard drive to a 7200 rpm unit. Is this something he should worry about?

Kevin began by noting the many photos of Alex on the wall behind Lupo: “Let’s hear it for Alex’s first stalker!” After the audience's applause died down, Kevin and Alex agreed that the 7200 rpm drives don’t offer much advantage over the cooler 5400 rpm drives such as the Maxtor QuickView, which is built specifically for PVRs. So why not just stick with a 5400 drive and not worry? Alex added that TiVo-upgrader weaknees.com actually sells a fan which can be added to the hard drive brackets they sell.


Doug Frasher, a senior strategic designer at Volvo, brought the Volvo Gravity Car to The Screen Savers studio to show off its cutting-edge soapbox-derby technology.

“When we first heard of the Volvo Gravity Car, we kind of expected it to float,” said a wistful Alex.

“That’s a common misconception,” replied Doug, explaining that the car actually utilizes gravity by rolling downhill rather than by defying it. It was built to compete against the creations of other manufacturers such as Porsche and General Motors in the 2004 Extreme Gravity Competition in Irvine, California – a charitable event raising money for America Works for Kids. Weighing in at 35 pounds and covered in a Kevlar/carbon fiber weave, the Volvo design differed from the other soapbox derby cars in putting the driver in a head-first, prone position.

“The first prerequisite is you have to be able to do a push-up,” Doug noted, as he guided Alex into the vehicle. Alex sounded unsure of the craft’s safety, but Doug assured him that once it got running, the Gravity Car became very stable – though with your nose inches from the front wheel, 20 mph feels more like 200 mph.

Go here to read our Two Minute interview with Doug.


Here are some bargains that are true despite being too good:

World of WarCraft for PC
Preorder this upcoming game at Walmart.com, and it’s only $29.82

Maxtor 200GB HD
Order this hard drive at Officedepot.com, type in the coupon code 73418862, and get 200 gigabytes for $80.

Velocity DVD+R
Grab 100 DVD+Rs for but $29.99 at Amazon.com.


Whose life would not be brightened by the happy USB products listed below? Apparently, Alex’s, since he didn’t much like any of the following quirky things you can plug into your USB connector:

USB i-Duck
Solid Alliance - $50

USB Air Purifier
Nanotechnology - $20
www.thinkgeek.com

USB Mini Aquarium
Addlogix - $20

USB Christmas Tree
Addlogix - $15

USB Massage Ball
Addlogix - $8
www.usbeverything.com

USB Beverage Warmer
Addlogix - $16


Kevin and Alex went out to see what’s new in comics, grabbing some the top-selling new titles. They came up with four that they really liked:

Wanted
topcow.com

The Powers
jinxworld.com

Kabuki
worldfamouscomics.com

We3
crackcomicks.com


Another part of Google’s plan for world domination was released recently: Google for your desktop. “This is the Google interface that we all know and love, but it searches your desktop instead,” said Sarah. It’s totally customizable and can search all types of documents – and it’s free!


Sodaplay.com
Halfbakery.com