Kickstarter: Gerry Anderson’s Gemini Force One

Note: This post is a Sticky until Monday. Scroll down one for new posts.

I rarely pimp Kickstarters. There are just too many and bringing up one after another creates fatigue and resentment in people.

So this is just the second Kickstarter I’ve ever mentioned. The first was for writer Eddie Wright — and that went through. I hope this one will too.

Because it’s very special.

I grew up on the TV series of Gerry Anderson. I have tons of blog posts about his work (here and an earlier blog and my first blog).

More than any other person in my life, he shaped my idea of what the future could be like.

How Legacy Compatibility Cripples

Say hello to the hideous new USB 3.0 cable your new smartphone or tablet will come with

That’s just … wow.

Did Apple get things right with lightening? When they first showed it off, I thought it was the stupidest thing in the world to do, to introduce a new proprietary connection. But now I’m convinced Apple’s people saw this new microUSB connector and cried tears of blood.

Sometimes it’s best to just throw away the damned past!

Quote Of The Day

Memento mori. (Or, how Worldcon’s youth problem will resolve.)

You are offering a room full of vintage first-edition hardbacks to a group of people who read books on their phones.

Italics in original.

Related:

Why Your “Collectibles” Are Worthless

Xiaomi Announces Phone, TV

Xiaomi is of interest to me only because of their upcoming rumored tablet, which might be an iPad Mini clone. Or not. The rumors are still all over the map.

Today in China they introduced a phone that is, ahem, inspired by the Lumia series of the now Microsoft-swallowed Nokia.

There’s no single source of good information. It’s spread across several sites.

Chinese iPad Mini Clone Notes #12

It’s been a while between these Notes posts because there hasn’t been anything worthy of creating a new post. Even now. I’m not keen on what will be in here but do it so people will know.

For all those looking for an eight-inch tablet that isn’t necessarily an iPad Mini clone, Alcatel — which threatened to release an eight-inch tablet at the last CES but never did — has a new one called the Evo8 [Google English and Google English].

It’s not exactly pretty but it has a true Smart Cover, with an LED built-in that displays an icon for incoming Notifications via 3G. Unfortunately, this has an unknown dual-core CPU, running at 1.6GHz, and a miserly 4GBs of storage. We have to wait for AnTuTu scores and full specs to see if this is worth any money at all. See the posts for embedded videos which I’m not including here.