Back in the year 2005 SNL gave the Internet one of the most viral videos to date. Chis Parnell and Andy Samberg performed “Lazy Sunday”, a hip-hop mashup of sorts about two guys getting up and hitting the theater to see the newly released film The Chronicles of Narnia. Nearly 5 years later they performed this skit live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, totally awesome.

You know it really gets me burned up when a company like Fujitsu goes and try’s to pull a fast-one on the very people that buy their products and put food on their table. Let me break it down for you here and bring you up to speed on my disappointment.

Fujitsu makes an extremely excellent scanner called the ScanSnap S510. They’ve sold them for years and have superb OCR capabilities, front and back scanning, full color, extremely fast, etc… Anyhow, our offices have nearly 10 of these scanners which is a significant investment if you take into consider that these scanners sell between $400 - $600 depending on where you buy them from. After a few of our employees decided to make the switch to Mac OS we looked into a compatible software release for our existing hardware. Turn out Fujitsu doesn’t support the Mac OS with their S510 model, however they do sell a ScanSnap S510M model which is “Mac OS Compatible”. After quite a bit of research I come to find that the difference between the two models is ….. the color of the plastic used, THAT IS IT!

So what software comes with the Mac OS X version? you may ask.. (as I did). In the USA it turns out that the supported hardware does not include their S510 model (shocked?). To make this a bit more interesting it turns out that the S510M in Japan DOES INCLUDE the necessary driver. Fujitsu didn’t even change the color of the plastic for the Japanese market. After discovering this revelation I decided to combine the two packages and release one English and Japanese installer that would include support both languages and both models. In addition to the ScanSnap Manager I’ve also included working versions of the Scan2Folder, Scan2Mail & Scan2Print bundles. This installer (DMG) is now available for download below.

I hope you enjoy and I hope that Fujitsu learns a lesson about how to treat their customers, don’t treat us like we’re stupid, thanks

ScanSnap S510/S510M

Download.

It seems that Andrew Bell ang Google have joined forces to create Series01 Android Collectibles. The Series 01 includes 12 different designs in blind-boxed cases of 16. A whole case will nearly include full set. Be on the lookout for some super rare editions. Each vinyl Android figure stands about 3” tall and features a rotating head and arms. Series 01 will be available later this month, collect them all!

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From the fellows that brought you Chromium, the open-source browser project that aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all users to experience the web built from the Google Chrome browser source code and brought you Chromium OS, the operating system built on Google’s Chrome OS are now in the midst of developing a touch user interface (UI) for Chromium OS. Similar to the form factor of Apple’s newly release iPad this UI looks to bring you some very enticing controls to your fingertips. Take a look at the video below to see what I’m talking about.

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As the Arduino DIY hardware becomes more and more popular a group called Skewworks has developed a very impressive Operating System for the Arduino that come with an exciting UI for launching applications, easy access to microSD storage, and graphics routines that make creation of apps and games much more simple. All this can be yours for the very “professional” price of $10… I’ve already ordered my copy

Take a look at the Pyxis promotional video below.

Watch in FULL SCREEN only, you will be sure to enjoy it this way.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

This marvelous masterpiece of computer gernerated film was written, illustrated, modeled, and edited by a single man, Alex Roman. A captivating exploration of some of the most interesting architectural designs made to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.

A partial “making of” video can be found here, definitely worth taking a look.

Parrot has developed quite the amazing quadcopter called the AR.Drone using technologies such as multiple high-speed cameras, 4 blades for stabilization, small computer, DDR RAM, Wi-Fi, accelerometers and gyroscopes. But one of the most interesting revelations to this product is the fact that it is comepletely OPEN (as in open-source). The AR.Drone has been released with software for control from an iPhone or iPod Touch that will allow the user to fly and view through one of the quadcopters cameras from your Apple device using your built in accelerometers. The source code for this software has also been release free and openly to the development community. Here’s hoping for some to port this over to Android …. Video from Engadget after the break.

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Well the holidays are upon us and the year of the Ox (cow) is coming to a close. Where did the year go? YISTA has been stagnant at best as all of our editors have moved on to the next episode of their lives. However we will not let this deterrent sway our enthusiasm for technology and the encompassing news. The year of the Tiger (2010) will give rise to the fierce standards that YISTA once had in its heyday (2006-2008).

And so I am putting out the call to all those whom too have the the lust for technology, gadgets and analogous news to send us an email with your contact information and together we can rule the YISTA.COM domain!

And so from YISTA, I wish you all:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS & A GADGET FILLED NEW YEAR

CES s just a few weeks away!

The Japanese show off their flying carpet trick in zero gravity.

For more Zero G tricks read on for the full unedited video.
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Rob from the always-entertaining-but-hard-to-describe science/prank/DIY/investigative journalism site Cockeyed.com had the brilliant idea of making an Amazon Kindling– a wireless wooden e-book (which uses no electricity….), and we were pleased to help out. You can read his writeup here. You can buy your own on eBay too.