If you have $1.5 million spare change you can buy this Titan 1 nuclear missile base on eBay today. Located in central Washington, the 57-acre Larsen Air Force Base Titan ICBM launching complex 1A —complete with 16 underground buildings including three 160-feet missile silos— is ready for your post-Cold-War Jack-Bauer-induced delusional paranoia, War Games reenactments and family protection against drone wars. Awesome full specs and photographic interior tour right after the jump.
Sling Media, the company that brought you the Slingbox and SlingPlayer software, has been bought by EchoStar. The corporation, which owns the DISH pay-TV network, has valued Sling Media at $380 million, and the sale should take place before the end of the year. Full press release is below.
AU: A change in management could, hopefully, mean a fresh expansion of the device into new territories. Well, we don’t get these boxes now, so any angle I can think of for a possible local launch sounds good to me. -SB
Mac users love giant local storage drives, and Iomega knows it, designing the UltraMax Mac Pro-inspired baby HDD towers to accompany the heaviest machinery out of Cupertino. The latest edition is the one on the far left, the single-drive UltraMax Desktop Hard Drive, with one eSATA, two FireWire 800, one FireWire 400 and one USB 2.0 port. The 750GB costs just $319.95; the 500GB costs $219.95. There’s also a dual-interface 500GB UltraMax Desktop Hard Drive with just regular FireWire and USB 2.0 for $189.95. The lot will be available in October.
Sebastian Ritzler, a design student in Germany, has created a feature-laden rolling white cane called the Mygo that will make the blind scoff at us eyesies. The Mygo uses a sensor-camera combo to measure the ground below it and give the user real time feedback via a wireless headset. The cane also ends in a small wheel that uses a steering engine that helps the user steer by providing feedback through the grip.
The Mygo is height-adjustable, tough, and waterproof — in case you’re a blind swimmer — and runs on a lithium-ion battery that will keep it going for around 6 hours. It has yet to go into production but Ritzler is aiming to make it an affordable innovation, something in the $200 range, which, if it works as advertised, is a damn good deal. [BusinessWeek via Wired]
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AU: WARNING: The end of this video will be very much considered a spoiler for Halo 3. Whether it is or not? It’s complicated (like any good story) and I don’t want to say. And yes, I’ve finished the game (I review games for a newspaper). Trust me, though, this vid will only re-upset those of you who were upset by Brian’s first ‘unbagging’ video. I don’t hate Halo / MS fanboys as much as Brian seems to, so I’m being nice and trying to save you a nasty shock. -SB
The other day, I posted a video showing some cool Halo 3 swag Microsoft sent me as part of the press kit. Despite me putting the word “Incredible” in the headline, people thought my video reflected a lack of appreciation for the gear, and I was called many names for it, and even received a death threat. I had no idea that Halo 3 fans were even more passionate than Apple fans. I realise now my video may have been seen as disrespectful, so I want to apologise here, and give you a second video with more detail of the Halo 3 swag unbagging, although its pretty similar to last week’s, for those who weren’t offended in the first place. Halo 3 fans who I disappointed last week, this video is for you.
The Toshiba T400 Gigabeat player is nothing especially new in the Asian markets but its appearance on Sam’s Club’s website means the player is finally going to be availabe in the States. Generally, the 4 gigabyte player is underwhelming. It can play MP3s, WMAs, WAV files and has video playback for WMV videos that you can watch at QVGA resolution on the 2.4-inch QVGA screen.
The screen, larger than most other screens in players this size, is the most impressive feature and definitely not too bad on the eyes. If this device reminds you of anything, by the way, it’s because Microsoft’s Zune was directly taken from Toshiba’s hardware, so it’ll be interesting to see if anything comes out of that relationship. The device goes on sale September 25th for $113.88. [Sam's Club via InfoWorld]
I have to admit that last night on *gulp* Today Tonight there was an interesting spot on Telstra shops recording your live discussions with staff – yep, it isn’t just for phone calls anymore. It was focused on the fact you’d be hard pressed to notice the signs in store that point this out. Fact is, there are signs, but they are small. So be warned – ask your Telstra shop attendant not to record you if you’re the paranoid type.
What caught my eye was the fact they’re using the iRiver S10 to do the dirty work. It’s tiny, and it has built-in voice recording. Perfect. If you’re looking for a stealthy little audio recorder, you’ve got the Telstra seal of approval on an S10. If they’re sending this audio off to the USA for analysis (and according to TT, they are), it must be delivering fairly good quality too. I’d link to the story if it was on the TT site… but there’s obviously no room between the story on Hair Loss Horrors and Two Towns Battle Weight Loss. -SB
Nothing quite flavors a meal like the black, peppery-goodness of R2-D2′s droppings. The cute little peppermill comes in two colours — or droid models, I should say — the white R2-D2 and the black RD-Q5. The R2 works pretty much how you’d expect, just turn his head and the 11 cm droid will grind to your heart’s content. Sadly, the peppermill does not move or bleep, but for $19 dollars you can get R2-D2 to defecate pepper on your food, and that, in itself, is worth the investment. [SeamlessTech via TechnaBob]
I love these Star Wars Kubricks because I have a soft spot for cult toy makers that work with big franchises. The characters for this series were taken from Episodes I-III, and feature the likes of Qui Gonn Jinn, naked C-3PO, and Annakin Skywalker before he grew a rat tail and allowed his hormonally raging manhood to overtake his Jedi state of mind. These are expected to come out in March of 2008 for about $96. [Instinctoy via Toys R Evil]
There’s nothing quite like a mass of cluttered cables to cause a stress-related premature death — luckily, the guys over at Instructables have a cheap and easy solution. This involves buying a plastic box and lid from IKEA (it doesn’t have to be IKEA, but it’s much hipper if it is), buying a drill with a large bit, and then drilling several well-placed holes in both the lid and container.
After your box is made, you trace your various cables and power strips through the appropriate places and voila — your floor is clean. Granted, this isn’t the most revolutionary of inventions, but it’s a great, cheap way to organize the horrible tangled mass that is your cable collection. [Instructables via Lifehacker]
