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Macenstein's August Mac Chick Lauren Reeves, meet JesusPhone. JesusPhone, stop taking photos down her cleavage. Readers, jump to see the rest of Lauren.
The guy on top of that egg is artist Duke Riley. And the egg is in fact a Revolutionary War-era submarine replica made mostly of plywood, fiberglass and lead. And the police is pissed off because they thought he was a terrorist trying to sink the Queen Mary II at Pier 41 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Maybe with a chisel. Or throwing paint balloons at it, I don't know. [NYT]
What have your lithium-ion batteries done for you lately? Forget powering those handheld gadgets, the king of lithium-ion batteries is sitting in the heart of the Zero X electric motorcycle. Named for its lack of emissions and noise, the 120-pound Zero X still pumps out 20 horsepower and tops out at around 50 miles per hour. A single charge of the battery will take you 40 miles, but the battery packs can be hotswapped in mere seconds and fully recharge in about three hours. Though the engine is roughly equivalent to that of a 250cc gasoline-powered bike, the lightweight electric motor makes the Zero X accelerate much faster. If it's too fast for you, plug the bike's brain into your PC via the USB port to access the bike's virtual control panel.
Now, now, don't get too excited. Creator Joe Grand designed it to be hacked. Still, 10 minutes is a pretty respectable time for the soldering, reprogramming and reflashing job done by Dave Bullock, Wired's photographer at the event. The badge features an LED display with scrolling text, and it even has an easter egg (typing in 31337 outputs "$kingpin$", the board maker's handle.) [Wired, but beautiful photos from Dave]
Crate announced a new portable guitar amp that has a USB outlet for direct computer recording. The Crate Profiler 5 seems useful for those who want to quickly record a riff without taking the time (or spending the money) to hook up a mixer or interface box. The 5 watt amp features digital effects processing and can run off 6 AA batteries or AC power. It is shipping now with a $159.99 price tag.
[Crate via PC World]
In today's episode of "extremely dangerous yet infinitely entertaining things to do with flammables," we have perhaps the biggest matchstick ever created being lit by a brave/moronic individual. It was made by attaching 15,000 matches to the end of a 4x4 piece of lumber, complete with ping pong balls for shaping and spray paint for realism. But come on, what do you care about what's in it? You want to see the end results, which can be found in the video above. Enjoy, and, as usual, don't try this home unless you want your obituary being mocked on the Giz. Instructions for your creative retardicide can be found at Instructables. [Instructables]
Some horrible inventor has taken two things that should never be mixed — dogs and fanny packs — and mutated them into one terrible invention.
Earlier this week you may have seen the uber audiophile earbuds that cost $1150. If you're into good sound but not into selling a kidney to get it, try the newest member of iSkin's Cerulean family, the X1 in-ear buds. These in-canal buds come with three different ear pad sizes to comfortably fit most ears. The single 9mm driver in each ear boasts a neodymium earth magnet which iSkin says allows the X1s to rock a solid bass line with "sparkling" highs and a solid mid-range. White or black for a mere $100. [iSkin's Cerulean X1s via Electronista]
Michelle Madigan, Dateline NBC's DefCon mole, armed with hidden camera, was trying to sneak in as a programmer and tape hackers admitting to illegal activity. Instead, DefCon's NBC mole uncovered the plot.
Anyone else remember this ad for the Super Nintendo from the early '90s? It features Paul Rudd, better known as the "Boner Jams" guy from 40 Year Old Virgin, or the dude they jammed in on the last season of Friends, or the guy from Knocked Up, or the guy you've seen in a bunch of parts all over the place. He jams the cartridge in much harder than the manual indicates is proper, but plays the hell out of a bunch of games as his buddies all watch behind a chain-link fence. Oh, how we envied Paul Rudd. [Game Videos via Joystiq]
Swedish gadget blog Fosfor got their hands on the svelte O2 Cocoon phone, and were gracious enough to produce an unboxing gallery. Not only is the phone simple and elegant, but so is its packaging. We're big fans of this newcomer, from its clean lines to the incorporation of a hidden LED display. Hopefully this will spur some better design into the industry. [Fosfor]
Signalmap is a neat webapp that lets you punch in your ZIP code and your cellphone provider and see how the reception is where you live. Not only can you use it to gauge where the best place is to make your call, you can compare the four big providers so you can see which one is best suited for you (based on your home and work location). Of course, the signals are all user-contributed, so there's no guarantee that providers themselves haven't gone and flooded the site with slightly higher than usual signal ratings. [Signalmap]
AU: Any Google Maps coders out there up for the challenge of making this happen in Oz? I would love to have a resource like this to turn to! My one concern, though, is that I can have very different signal strengths within a few feet of my desk...
Readers keep sending their photos to the No-Prize iPhone Fake Transparency Picture Reader Contest. The weekend is here, so why not use the opportunity to create your own and send them? Maybe one of you cooking on the grill? Or in a bikini showing your belly button —specially if you are Gizmodo's only female editor? Interested? Read the rules after the jump.
AU: I've posted this as more than brief this time because they've opened up entries to pretty much any cameraphone you like. Go have some fun!
In the realm of horrible Simpsons knockoff toys, this Homer Simpson Robosapien has to be one of the worst ever. Shall we count the things wrong with it? First, it's not even the real Homer's voice. Second, well, it's a piece of crap. Watch the video to see Shiny Shiny struggle to get the thing to work. [Shiny Shiny]
Not only is the iPhone getting its third-party cherry popped, the Helio Ocean is now running third-party apps now as well. The first proof of concept app is Opera Mini, the small-ish browser from Opera that lets even lousy phones... Read More »
That's what is reported to be a 40D, the successor to Canon's 30D prosumer flagship. The highlights of improvement appear to be a live view LCD, boosting the MP rating from 8.2 to 12 or 13, and Small RAW image format. Sounds fanciful, especially as we've heard all sorts of other numbers out there for MP ratings in the past. Either way, I love the 30D, so am excited for the successor. And I can't wait for the official news, whatever specs that will bring. [Northlight Images]
Monster Cable, which we've thoroughly tested in our own hands, have announced if you purchase one of their C4L—which have the price of $99 for 1 meter—you get the guarantee that the cable will meet or exceed all HDMI performance requirements for the next five years. We'd still recommend you get a cheap cable that meets today's specs and when 4K res over HDMI comes, you upgrade to another cheap cable. [Electronic House]
Unlike this CEO desk, which just looks like it's made out of LEGO but actually isn't, this LEGO desk consists only of 35,000 pieces of LEGO bricks. Some details:
AU: And let's not ignore that grandfather clock over his shoulder! That colour scheme tells me that's also a LEGO construction. Nice.
Dell is totally latching on to what is sure to be the wave of the future with their new project: a tablet. Yep, the Wang Computers Dell Latitude XT tablet looks to really grab the exploding tablet market by the horns, featuring the sorts of specs that'll make tablets as popular as UMPCs, if not more popular than UMPCs. Hang onto your hats.
Straight from the mouth of Jim Meyer, Sirius' President of Operations and Sales, comes this quasi-announcement of the Sirius Stiletto 2 and Sportster SP5: We are preparing for the launch of some new after-market products, including a new wearable... Read More »
The Gadget: Belkin's iPhone headphone adapter, which lets you use any set of headphones that don't normally fit into the iPhone's recessed headphone jack.
The verdict: Works exactly as advertised. Fits all headphones with no audible sound quality loss.
The catch:
Google Code is hosting the first third-party native application ever for the iPhone. A real full-fledged iPhone application with a graphic user interface and its own icon in the iPhone home screen. Yes, this is not a Web 2.0 app but the real thing, as you can see in the picture and in the video demonstration after the jump.
Designer Felix de Pass has figured out how to make a lighting filament out of different-colored materials and sculpt them into the shape of a flower. Attaching the bulb to a flexible support that plugs directly into the wall, the result is PlugLight, a charming decorative light that ends up being a pleasant little decoration.
Such may be the fate of incandescent bulbs, taking their place alongside other lighting schemes of days gone by such as candles, as soon as LEDs and fluorescent lamps take over the world. [Felix Pass, via Yanko Design]
You remember Toto, don't you? Not the dog but the toilet company in Japan that makes those Neorest toilets with the "washlet" under the lid. Now it's taken that butt-spraying goodness a step further with its Neorest Hybrid Series toilets, which use less water than any other, just 5.5 liters (1.45 gallons) per flush. It's also jumping into a new hatbox-shaped design that mimics Kohler's "Purist" hatbox toilet (1.6 gallons per flush) that's been available for a couple of years.
Toto has been in a competition with Matsushita in Japan to make the most efficient toilet, where Matsushita had a 5.7 liter-per-flush toilet released late last year, but now Toto roars back with this Neorest Hybrid Series. The company didn't announce pricing just yet, but if this one is in line with Toto's other Neorest toilets, it will probably start around $4000. [Far East Gizmos]
Modder John entered this Optimus Prime case mod into the Extreme Tech case mod contest, and well, it's probably the best Transformers-based case mod we've seen yet. It's six feet ten inches tall, transforms into a smaller desktop mode, has a seven-inch LCD on its body, two windows on its chest (like the actual Optimus prime), Autobot symbols, and even has storage compartments on the legs to hold your mouse and keyboard and other junk. Autobots, transform and level grind. [Extreme Tech]
This might look like something humans would set up if they were settling on a harsh planet such as Mars, but it's actually something humans set up to settle a radio station in the harsh country of Poland. Yeah, it's the headquarters of Krakow-based Rmf Fm, and if you think the outside looks neat, wait until you see the inside. When the GizmodoHQ Megaplex is finally completed, it'll look something like this.
[DeputyDog via Spulch]
Meizu's CEO let everyone know (via a forum posting, no less) that their first Meizu M8 MiniOne version will be the 8GB mode, and it will ship at about $400. That's a $70 increase from the previous price data, but is much better than the totally off figures we saw last month. Good news, other models with 3G/3.5G support will come in the second phase of releases.
The Logitech MX Air Rechargeable Cordless Mouse ships today, and we've been testing it, taking it into the home theater and onto the desktop. You can move it around in 3D space, gesturing your way to screen navigation. But it's frustrating at times, and it takes a while to get the hang of it. Be sure you can return it, because some people will intensely dislike this mouse. Jump for our assessment of its pluses and minuses.
"One cannot live while the other survives."
- J.K. Rowling
It's been what feels like three years in the making, but the final fight in our iPod Dock Battlemodo begins now. The $150 Griffin Amplifi is our budget contender, going face to face against the posh $350 Altec Lansing IMV712. And with that long of a model number, you know it's gotta be good.
But only one will leave this ring coffee table alive.
Here's the Official Apple iPhone Fixing Tool with attached instructions. Apparently you will get one back if you ever need to send your iPhone to AppleCare. Clearly, someone at Apple's design group has been watching too much MacGyver. [Thanks Matt!]
The "Super Tiny Micro SD Card Reader" gets about as small as physically possible to read Micro SD and and T-Flash media, while still connecting to a normal USB 2.0 port. At a mere 25.5 x 12 x 4.5 mm, the reader is dwarfed by keys—I mean, just look at that picture—unless Brando is using the old "big key trick" again.
When we first told you about the Essential Wall Dimmer from International Fashion Machines, we were wondering if its carpet-like conductive switch felt like a Brillo pad. The company sent us a demo unit, and we can now definitively tell you that it feels soft as silk, just like a fine piece of carpet. The $99 switch works well, and is extremely easy to turn on and off. We only noticed one slight downside to these pretty wall switches.
Granted, there is no magical way to tell whether or not you are one of the alleged 30% of Xbox 360 owners who will suffer the red rings of death. But there is an easy way to check if your unit shipped with the new heatsink Microsoft has added to later units—a feature that we're guessing gives you a much higher chance of survival.
As promised, here's our second gallery of Google Streetview camera car sightings from across the United States. The fleet of Chevy Cobalts (and others) is invading the U.S., fanning out across the country while they take their 360° pictures that will end up in Google's vast photo database of every highway and byway. Check out the gallery of cars below, where each is labeled with its location, and then take the jump after the gallery and see a US map with pushpins inserted, showing you where each of the Google Streetview camera cars has been spotted thus far.
We talked about the initiative a while ago, but Nissan is working on a new car with a slew of features to stop those who've drank a bit too much from getting behind the wheel. Instead of Breathalyzer proper, the car uses more user-passive indicators.
Odor sensors will detect the smell of booze permeating from your body, while the shifter will detect perspiration levels. If you fail the drunken tests, it will be difficult to start your car. (Note: These settings actually need to be tweaked, since they can detect as little as one beer on a driver.)
If you're looking to spoil your kid rotten, here's a $13,300 replica of an Audi Auto Union Type C roadster, a perfect 1:2 scale copy of the classic Grand Prix race car. Your kid will be relatively safe inside, too, because there is no engine—it's a car that only goes fast as the little tyke can pump its pedals. This is not just any stupid kiddy car, though, it's built to the same standards of a fine full-sized automobile. One more beauty shot, after the jump.
The Senate Commerce Committee has approved legislation that would enjoin the FCC to oversee the development of a "super V-chip" that would block content on cellphones, TVs, the internet—anywhere tender young eyes could land upon "inappropriate" content. Unfortunately for its proponents, the Child Safe Viewing Act's initiative will probably bomb even harder than the 1996 Telecommunications Act's V-chip provision—sure there's a V-chip in all of our TVs, but who actually uses them? Hell, when was the last time you even thought about it until just now?
