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LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities
Posted by Jesus Diaz at 11:30 PM on January 28, 2008
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The LEGO brick turns 50 at exactly 1:58 p.m. today, January 28, 2008. This timeline shows these 50 years of building frenzy by happy kids and kids-at-heart, all the milestones from the LEGOLAND themed sets to TECHNIC and MINDSTORMS NXT, as well as all kinds of weird curiosities about the most famous stud-and-tube couple system in the world. Jump to zoom in and tell us what was your first LEGO in the comments.
One of the big Oh Noes about working for Giz is getting to see sexy new phones, enjoying a quickening of the pulse and then thinking, "Buggerama," as you realise that said sodding handset is only available in Japan. Casio's W61CA uses Exilim technology to give you a five-megapixel camera that will survive rainstorms and being dunked in the bath. No surprise then, that it's being marketed as a sports phone, and comes in that sizzling yellow shade so beloved of Akio Morita. Full specs are below.
Each time someone buys one of these limited-edition concrete coffee tables, the designers subtract a pre-planned chunk from the next one they'll sell. So, it's self-destruction in an expensive, arty, musical-chairs-meets-LEGO kind of way rather than a Mission Impossible explosion. "This Table Will Self Destruct" is intriguing, though: does its shrinkage represent less value for money each time, or do you get increased "art" as each chunk gets nibbled away? Only 23 chunks have been zapped so far, so you can buy a nearly complete one today or wait for it to get holier—both options will cost you US$1700 for two. [
Hokay: the iTube looks like it is the 21st-century version of the Lava Lamp. A 30-inch-tall iPod speaker with 360º speakers and special effects that react to your tunes, the iTube connects up to either an MP3 player or your stereo, and you can control the psychedelic levels of its LED lights and bubble blower via remote control. Video and more info below.
The Japanese tentacle of HTC's multi-armed octopus-like body is planning on opening an HTC Land in Shibuya; a place where customers can come in and fondle the goods for themselves without buying first. 
For this week's retromodo installation, we're looking at the Death Ray Machine, (awesome name). Apparently, the device was put together by a Cleveland scientist, and its abilities were only showcased in a one time display to members of the National Inventors' Congress at Omaha, Nebraska. The Death Ray Machine was witnessed to instantly kill dogs, cats and rabbits once its beam shone on them. 
A young man in Ghana answered his mobile phone that was charging from a wall jack and was met with the full electrical current of his home's wiring. He was knocked out but still had a weak heartbeat. His parents rushed him to the emergency room where he was proclaimed dead on arrival. The remains of the phone look to have been from a Nokia, but the good news is that we know such incidents aren't the norm or, like, everyone in the whole world would be dead right now. [
In honour of the year of the rat and Chinese New Year (Feb. 7), iRiver's coating their rat/mouse-shaped 
Podravka, a European food company, recently received their annual report from the folks at Bruketa & Zinic, but all the pages were blank—until the book was baked. Yes, those clever fellows at Bruketa & Zinić put together an annual report that was laced with thermo-reactive ink. The initially blank pages displayed text once the book had been covered in foil and baked for 25 minutes at 100°C. The report was titled, Well Done, and we could not have thought of a better pun if you held us upside down over an alligator pit and tickled us with a fluffy feather, but it wasn't done for just humour's sake.
We all knew that Sony Ericsson would be expanding their PlayNow over the air music service and dub it PlayNow arena (and no, for whatever reason "arena" is not capitalised). Today it's official, and as expected, Sony Ericsson has added TrackID to the service, allowing users to ID and snag songs off of radio broadcasts. 
Torrent sharing group The Pirate Bay has asserted itself as "World's Largest Tracker," now claiming over 10 million peers sharing 1 million files. Not only is 10 million more than the population of New York City, it's just about equal to the user numbers of the most successful MMO on the planet, World of Warcraft, which not so long ago announced the same user milestone...and may have a thing or two to say about The Pirate Bay's title. 
The 
