Anyone Else Blow on Busted Hardware Like It's an NES Cartridge? [Just Me?]

By Andrew Tarantola Oct 14, 2011 4:20 PM 10,725 91

You know the trick. When the game wouldn't load properly, you would take it out, blow in the open end to dislodge dust, grit, peanut butter, or what-have-you from the electrical contacts, then put it back in and hope that it worked (or repeated as necessary).

I personally used the T-shirt variation whereby you stretch the front of your shirt over the open end of the cartridge, then blow through it—the shirt captures the dust and prevents you from spitting into the game as you blow.

Thing is, I still do it. Like, regularly. Any time my gadgets act up—boom, I've got the battery out and am blowing like a Nor'Easter into my electronics. Anybody else still do this too?

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Who Doesn't Want to Play With Android Apps on Windows? Anyone? [Apps]

By Gary Cutlack - gi... Oct 11, 2011 6:20 AM 9,561 21

Bluestacks has launched an alpha test version of its App Player software, which integrates Android support right into Windows. You can have Android apps on your desktop right now, for free. Any takers? Anyone at all?

We are currently playing Bebbled at 1680x1050 resolution, which is easily one of the more pointless activities we've indulged in this year, but there you go. Installing the 117MB PC app creates a Windows Gadget on your desktop, which pops out into a listing of available Android apps.

There's no Android Market support within the App Player software itself, but Bluestacks has provided its own Apps Channel as part of the desktop App Player. This opens a web browser with a very limited selection (31 at the moment) of additional apps and games to install to PC.

However, the company has also launched an accompanying app it calls Cloud Connect on the Android Market, which sits on your mobile and lets you send apps to your PC from your phone, using a PIN number to verify connections. That way you can seamlessly send every app currently on your phone to PC.

And it totally works, very well. Now we just need to think of a mobile app we actually want to use on a desktop PC. It shouldn't be this hard, thinking of one? [Bluestacks]

Our newest offspring Gizmodo UK is gobbling up the news in a different timezone, so check them out if you need another Giz fix. Related Stories

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This Machine Lets Anyone Draw In Perfect Perspective [Video]

Perhaps it's because I love to draw, but I find this weird mechanical contraption absolutely fascinating. It allows anyone to draw in perfect perspective, matching the field of human vision.

Invented by artists Ryan and Trevor Oakes, Vision uses a technique "which splits the ocular system allowing them to create views that match the field of view of human vision." The result is an easy way to draw a scene with total accuracy, in which every point in the paper is at the same distance from the artist.

For anyone screaming "trickster!" well, yes, it's a trick—a very clever one. Old masters also used different machines, like the camera obscura, to capture scenes in a really accurate way. [OakesOakes via This Is Colossal]

You can keep up with Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Related Stories

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