Saturday, February 23, 2008
Vehicles
Ice Hovercraft School Bus Is Coolest, Worst News for Students Ever
10:34PM Jesus Diaz | This ice hovercraft school bus has to be the coolest and worst news ever to descend upon children all over the world. I mean, I would have loved to go to school in one of these spiffy snowspeeders powered by dual fan engines. More »
Software
iPhone SDK Delayed By One to Three Weeks?
6:01PM Jason Chen | Arik Hesseldahl of Business Week claims that a source tells him the official iPhone SDK will be delayed by one to three weeks, much like the recent delay in the Apple TV 2.0 upgrade (2 weeks). Apple hasn’t made any official statement, but there’s only a week left for them to hit their previously-announced “February” release date. To lend credibility to this rumour, Arik points to the fact that Business Week was the first to report on Apple’s eventual announcement of the official SDK back in October. [Business Week] More »
Science
Researchers Have Developed a Working Laugh-o-Meter
1:40PM Sean Fallon | Researchers at Kansai University in Japan have developed a machine that has the capability to scientifically measure the quantity of a person’s laugh as well as the sincerity. The device works using a series of electrode sensors that monitor the amount of bioelectricity generated by various muscles involved in laughter. The data is then whisked away to a computer where it is analysed and assigned a numerical score based on its quantity. More »
Gadgets
Homemade 400mm Binoscope Gives Your Binoculars Lens Envy
1:20PM Matt Buchanan | We love us some big ass glass. Here’s an amazing set of the homemade variety, a 400mm binoscope (a honkin’ set of binoculars basically) painstakingly hand-crafted over the course of three years by a hardcore French dude. The detail on it really makes this thing a DIY engineering marvel. [MAKE] More »
Vehicles
69 Year Old Attempts Record Hawaii to Japan Trip in Wave Powered Boat
12:50PM Sean Fallon | Ken-ichi Horie, a 69 year old Japanese sailor, is planning a solo 4,350 mile trip from Hawaii to Japan using the most advanced wave powered boat on the planet. If successful, the trip would earn him a Guinness record while simultaneously proving the viability of wave powered propulsion. His boat, the Suntory Mermaid II, turns wave energy into thrust using two fins mounted beneath the bow. These fins move up and down with the waves and use them to generate “kicks” that propel the boat forward. More »
Gadgets
iStick: The iPod touch Tube
12:20PM Matt Buchanan | The iStick is the size of lipstick tube. But it has four touchscreens for four times the Coverflow. I don’t really get the white cube eating up a quarter of the stick though—why not just make the whole thing a solid tube of touchscreen, with the bottom and top holding the single button and earphone jack? It also has Wi-Fi, for browsing the iTunes Store on a screen the size of your finger. [Yanko Design] More »
Peripherals
Samsung Planning on 256GB SSDs, Huge Price Drops by End of the Year
11:20AM Adam Frucci | I told you SSDs would be plummeting in price this year, and here’s Samsung coming along making me look like some sort of genius for finding an article that said that and then writing about it. I rule! Anyhow, Samsung is looking to double the size of its SSDs not once this year, but twice, ending up with a 256GB SSD by year’s end. More »
Phones
Sony Ericsson Files Patent for Self-Adjusting Pico Projector
10:50AM Sean Fallon | With pico projectors on the brink of becoming available to the mobile masses, Sony Ericsson has filed a patent for technology that would automatically adjust the projected image using analysis from the handsets camera. Naturally, there is no clear timeframe for when this technology might show up in a commercial product. [Cellpassion via Intomobile via Aboutprojectors] More »
Gadgets
10 Feasible Concepts We Wish You Could Actually Buy
10:20AM Sean Fallon | Concept gadgets are great because they offer a possible vision of our future while showcasing the potential of outside of the box thinking. The one problem is that many of the designers out there are not even on the same planet as the box. The trick is to come up with an interesting, marketable idea that may actually be possible to build sometime in the not so distant future—ideas like those featured in the gallery below. More »
Phones
