Saturday, August 25, 2007
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Uncrating a 103-inch Panasonic Plasma (Gallery)
11:30AM Wilson Rothman | You don’t unbox a 103-inch plasma, you uncrate it. Today, during our sortie to Secaucus, I got a chance to wander deep into the caverns of Panasonic HQ to the highly secure Big Service locker, see where they stash the 103-inch TVs. I got to check out one from the back—a rare treat, since when they are on tour, they are mounted with only the fronts visible. This may be the very first public look at the 103’s rear end. galleryPost('Panasonic103Uncrating', 12, 'Panasonic 103 Uncrating'); At $70,000 a pop, these are toys for the likes of Mark Cuban and Phil Jackson. But for one day, it was a toy for Giz staffers too. Stay tuned for more hands-on, plus the videos, next week. More »
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UCSD Engineers Build Highest Resolution Display in the World
10:36AM Gizmodo US Edition | Imagine how good Jessica Alba would look on a display 100 times the quality of an HDTV? Engineers at the University of California in San Diego have built the world’s highest-resolution computer display which, at 220 mega-pixels, is 100 more higher than a high definition TV. The 55-panel display is linked through a fiber optic Ethernet cable to a 50-panel high-resolution display in UC Irvine (the previous mega-pixel record-holder at 200) to form the “Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Space” or HIPerSpace or just, “the nerdiest name ever.” The displays are available to teams of scientists and engineers working in the Earth sciences, biomedical engineering, genomics, climate prediction, brain imaging and, yes, going for the easy joke here — porn. The high-resolution displays allow the researchers to take in the broad view of images as well as the detailed inner-workings — something we can’t wait to do with our favorite celebrity’s face. [InformationWeek] More »
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According to CNET, the LG-U990 phone will …
10:02AM Gizmodo US Edition | According to CNET, the LG-U990 phone will have the ability to upload videos directly to YouTube and allow YouTube videos to be viewed directly on the handset. Still no price but we’re probably willing to kill for it. [Crave] More »
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Scientists Consider Mining Delicious Helium-3 on Moon For Fusion Power on Earth
9:44AM Gizmodo US Edition | After sucking our planet dry of any useful resources, we turn our eyes upward to the skies and search for another beautiful planet to rape. Scientists are hoping to mine helium-3 (He3) gas from the lunar surface — a gas that’s rare here on Earth but is like a veritable Starbucks on the Moon. The gas is considered to be perfect for radiation-free nuclear fusion but, say other, smarter scientists, is probably completely ridiculous to start mining anytime soon. Our current experience with the experimental He3 reactor here on Earth requires 1 kilowatt of power to generate 1 milliwatt of electricity. Which, if anyone is counting, is not at all worth it. So, aside from it taking a few decades before we figure out how exactly to use He3, and then taking a few more decades to actually build an He3 mining facility on the moon, and then having us, the Human Race, survive that long — well, chances are slim, is what we’re saying. Still, science is cool, huh? [Treehugger via SciFi] More »
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Tesla Electric Sports Car Wins INDEX Award To Confirm Sexiness
9:24AM Gizmodo US Edition | It’s a good day for people who love things that go really, really fast. Our favorite super electric car — the Tesla Roadster — has won an INDEX prize for being so damn cool. The INDEX prizes are the world’s most lucrative design awards, given every two years for five categories — body, home, work, play and community — awarding winners 100,000 euros each (which is something like three million in US dollars.). Other winners included the Tongue Sucker — a cheap first-aid device that sucks the tongue into its maws and opens up a breathing passage for anyone who may be seizuring in your general area — and the Solar Bottle, a device that optimizes a method of disinfecting water using sunlight and plastic bottles. Life saving technology aside, we’d like to salute the Tesla Roadster and admit we’re a little attracted to it. [Reuters] More »
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Microsoft’s Windshield HUD Has Lots of Info, Hopefully Never Crashes
9:10AM Jason Chen | This Microsoft patent describes a heads up user interface on windshields that shows useful information for the driver right where the eyes are. The patent takes information from phones, car stereos, your GPS, maps, weather, temperature, email, car instruments and probably the Zune, and places it your eyeline. Much more useful than taking a big ass table with you into the car. [Patent via Slashdot via Crave] More »
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Another Dell Laptop Catches Fire a Year After All the Rest
8:50AM Jason Chen | Some man in Ohio had his Dell laptop catch fire yesterday. That’s weird, thought Gizmodo, since Dell offered replacement batteries for all the combustible versions of their batteries last year. What’s this guy doing with a laptop on fire? And why’s he making demands that Dell pay for the damages to his house and the HAZMAT bill? Any lawyers care to weigh in on whether Dell has any responsibility here? [Consumer Affairs] More »
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Crazy-Assed Idea to Shoot People with Drug-Filled Paintballs
8:30AM Addy Dugdale | Our Dear Leaders are always looking for new ways of quelling unrest in nonviolent—at least, notoverly violent—ways. (Let’s face it, smacking someone over the head with a truncheon, and causing the blood to flow doesn’t look great on news bulletins, does it?) The latest idea emanating from the Pentagon, according to a report by the Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project, is psychotropic paintballs. Bring ‘em on! More »
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Unconfirmed: Nintendo Discontinues DS Browser?
8:10AM Jason Chen | This is unconfirmed for now, but some forum poster at Neogaf claims that Nintendo is going to discontinue the DS Lite web browser. Seeing as you had to pay $29 for a web browser that wasn’t even that great, we can understand why. [Amazon via Neogaf via DS Fanboy] More »
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