When I first saw Eyefinity demoed, I thought “that’s pretty awesome, but aren’t you going to have to pull some shenanigans to get that many monitors hooked up? I mean, daisy-chaining monitors isn’t science of the rockets or anything, but it does mean certain restrictions need to be observed, and certain accessories bought.

But what if your graphics card had as many outputs as you had monitors? Or, say, a lot more?

That’s what this particular ATI Radeon 5870 is doing. Can you say six DisplayPorts?

Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of virtual currencies. They certainly have their place, but usually they’re just an obstacle between you and the object you want. Why do I have to buy points if points are just your version of dollars?

There are exceptions: here in Seattle there are a couple alternate currencies being traded for goods and services which work on a different level from dollars — and GamersGate, the direct-download games site, appears to have something of a good deal in their blue coins.

This is an interesting little futurist tease of a movie that’s “a fast paced preview of a larger effort — I’m guessing where they fill in the gap at the end. The idea is that computing right now is at one of those thresholds where we can’t quite grasp the idea of the “next generation.”

Watch. It’s only three minutes long, and hey, you might learn something.

Yes. It is finished. We can shut down NASA, DARPA, all the arts and sciences, and stop trying now. The pinnacle of human achievement has been reached. Robot vacuums have been hacked to play the parts in a real-life game of Pac-Man.

Video inside.

When someone says “portable,” what do you think? I think “fits in a bag or pocket,” but some people would go the “portable” generator route and say “is not physically fixed in position.” That seems to be the “portable” that the creators of the SNEGENES had in mind when they said their device was so. Now, I don’t want to detract from the obvious glory of what has been created here: a (technically) handheld device that will play cartridges from NES, SNES, and Genesis — but really, that thing is about as portable as my bathtub.

Watching this video, it doesn’t seem very much more than a demo for a rather anonymous-looking little touchscreen device, a PMP prototype maybe. Then you find out that the whole thing is running an 8-bit processor with 4KB of RAM. Touchscreen tricks like scrolling momentum are implemented perfectly well, and there appears to be little or no lag. Pac-Man runs at 60fps, which is more than I can say for the version on my G1.

Sometimes, the medium is the message. In this case, the medium is Rubiks Cubes. The message is that there’s an Irish guy named John Quigley who has too much free time. I mean, I suppose you could say the same of many artists, but this is some seriously time-consuming stuff. And while it’s impressive, it seems rather… algorithmic, doesn’t it? I notice there are no original compositions.

It’s not that we want to rush Nintendo in the creation of their next opus, but it might have been nice to have it in 2010. Perhaps the biggest of the “big three” Nintendo franchise games in the works (along with Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M) is “tracking” for 2010 but Nintendo isn’t committed to the year. I’m guessing they’re not going to push for a holiday 2010 release, but may have preorders available then so they can get in on the season.

I amaze myself sometimes. You see, I have so much power as a writer on this invincible and influential blog that sometimes I can change an entire industry with but a word.

Case in point: apparently my recent post on Eee’s decision to change the touchscreen to resistive on their Eee Keyboardwas so crushing that they’ve altered their entire business plan and delayed the device to accommodate it. O Mighty Blogger! Thou humblest the world!

You may recall our incredulity when SteelSeries announced their 15-button MMO Mouse. Not one to be passed by, Razer shortly thereafter came out with the 17-button Naga, which we’ll be reviewing soon. But unknown to them, a small team was working in obscurity to create an 18-button mouse… with an analog stick for your thumb, to boot.

Fifty years ago, guessing what the future would look like was particularly in vogue, and all those fantastic retro-futuristic drawings were born. I remember seeing somewhere the concept for an automatic car parking machine with robots taking your car and stuffing it somewhere in a big warehouse. “That’s ridiculous,” I thought, “When we have the technology to do something like that, we won’t still be driving cars!” Well, I was wrong. Of course it’s not for cars, and of course it’s in Japan, but this automatic bike storage system is definitely a little piece of the future.

Thinking of buying a Logitech keyboard or mouse? Now would be a good time. You can get the opulent G19 keyboard for $150 (technically, big savings), a G9x for $75, a G500 for $45, or a Performance MX for $75. And everything’s got free shipping!

Yeah, that leak did a number on the official “release moment” of Olympus’ new micro four-thirds camera. All the stats are there, but I forbore from weighing in on the thing. I’m cautious but bullish about the M4/3 phenomenon; they’re legit to be sure, but this first generation isn’t going to break any sales records. They’re too expensive and too limited at the moment — but that’s how DSLRs were back in the day, and now everyone wants one.

I suspect the non-SLR interchangeable-lens camera (AKA the EVIL system) will replace the point and shoot, and the phone or PMP will fill that snapshot role. But until they get that price down it’s not going to happen.

The Japanese, I am told, really love their stationery. Pens, pencils, erasers, special paper, cases for everything — one trip to Muji, my favorite store, will confirm this. Unfortunately, stationeriphilia in the US is more of a high-class “my pen is made out of solid gold” affair. So when JetPens, an etailer for Japanese pens and miscellany, offered to send a couple of their favorite things, I accepted gladly. There’s so much stuff there that I just had them select a few things at random — and this is what I got.

Beetle-tip highlighters? Auto-rotating mechanical pencils? It’s a whole other world over there.

If I had one of these things, I’d never get any work done. Unless I was a rally driver, in which case I’ll I’d be doing was work, work, work. Unfortunately (in this case at least) I’m just a blogger, so I don’t won’t be getting paid for zooming around the mountains in a cross between a tricked-out Subaru and a snowtank. Yes, I know there’s no such thing as a snowtank, but you know what I’m talking about.

Living in Seattle, you see a lot of fixed-gear road bikes. Why that is, I leave the reader to determine, since we have more than our share of hills and rough roads. I suppose the simplicity of the bike is part of the attraction (also: hipsterism). J. Ruiter, a designer in Michigan, decided that it wasn’t quite simple enough, though, and has removed pretty much everything from the bike except the absolutely necessary frame bits, handlebars, seat, and pedals. The last item is attached directly to the axle of the rear wheel, which makes it look rather uncomfortable.

I admire the idea, but you’ve got a couple problems here.