Friday, June 6, 2008
Design
Seven Deadly Glasses Will Tease, Tempt You With Sinful Wine
11:45PM Gizmodo US Edition | In vino peccatus… perhaps the saying should go like this, given the kind of hangover a bottle of wine can result in. And designer Kacper Hamilton might well agree. His Seven Deadly Glasses wine glasses are meant to physically represent each sin. So there’s the phallic Pride glass, contrasting with the curly Greed glass—that hangs on to a few sips in its tentacles—and Sloth, which needs someone else to drip-feed you the good stuff. Check out the gallery to see the full range of designs: they’re pretty intriguing. More »
Press
Ballmer Predicts Death of Printed Media
11:30PM Mark Wilson | Little known fact (that we just made up): Steve Ballmer once had a newspaper thrown through his front window. After eating the newspaper delivery boy and his entire family , Ballmer sat down with to chat about the future with The Washington Post. And among other things, he pegged a date for the death of printed media: 10 years from now. More »
Vehicles
Toyota Gosei Creates 360º Airbags, Plus One on the Front for Unlucky Pedestrians
11:15PM Gizmodo US Edition | We’ve already seen a version of this: Autoliv’s hood airbag system, but Toyota Gosei (an offshoot of, no prizes for etc etc, Toyota) has gone one better. As well as protecting the pedestrian from being squished like a bug on a windscreen, it has airbags down the side of the car, both front and back, protecting passengers from injury in the event of a nasty shunt from every which way in the car. More »
Peripherals
Microdia to Release (”FIRST!”) 64GB CompactFlash Card
10:45PM Mark Wilson | While several companies are working on a 64GB CompactFlash card, Microdia will be the first to actually bring the technology to store shelves (in Australia) this month. Dubbed the Microdia 64GB XTRA ELITE CF, the card features super fast 45MB/second read and write speeds and promises to hold somewhere around 19,000 high resolution JPEGs from a 20MP camera. No word on price yet. Read on for the full press release. More »
Toys
First Peek at Hasbro’s Relaunched Millennium Falcon
10:15PM Gizmodo US Edition | This, is Hasbro’s new Millennium Falcon, unveiled to ExtremeTech’s Brian Heater in a Manhattan hotel yesterday. The only reason the toy giant reworked it was because the original mold broke, which made us chuckle. Thirty percent larger than the original, it’s got room for up to 18 action figures—and Han and Chewy (the only two characters I like) are thrown in for free. You can hear the late Sir Alec Guinness’ disembodied voice Obi-wanning it, and dazzle yourself with the flashing lights, but cross your legs, Star Wars fans, because it’s not out until July. There’s also a whole bunch of Clone Wars merch on its way, including an AT-TE walker and some helmets, check out ExtremeTech for a video of that in action. [ExtremeTech] More »
Vehicles
Scorpion Supercar Uses Hydrogen Hybrid Engine to get 17km/litre
10:10PM Gizmodo US Edition | According to Ronn Motors, the Scorpion supercar will not only achieve 0-100 kph in just 3.5 seconds, but also earns green credentials by getting 17 kilometres per litre. This trick is achieved by having a hydrogen-hybrid engine under the hood (also known as hydrogen injection, Water4Gas or HHO.) Small doses of hydrogen are generated and fed into the fuel mixture, making for a more efficient burn. Apparently this technology is a little controversial, but that hasn’t stopped Ronn from putting together a bloody good looking car around that special engine, as the second photo underlines. More »
Entertainment
Blow Victims Away with Mentos and Coke Booby Trap
10:00PM Gizmodo US Edition | That sound you are hearing is thousands of people screaming after falling for this Mentos and Diet Coke booby trap. And the sound you will hear soon will be the screams of the people who did the traps, as the joke victims beat the crap out of them. [Instructables] More »
Hardware
Western Digital Researching 20,000RPM Hard Disk to Fight Solid State Drives
9:59PM Gizmodo US Edition | According to blog Bit-Tech.net, sources in the hard drive industry say that Western Digital (maker of the old world’s fastest hard drive) “is working on a 20,000RPM Raptor hard drive to combat” Solid State Drives, since these are going to “be affordable in the next 12 or 18 months.” The new Raptor will be a 2.5-inch drive inside a 3.5-inch custom box designed to make it “silent,” since a 20,000RPM HD could probably make your ears bleed after a few minutes at fulll speed. But can a mechanical drive compete against solid state? More »
Press
Google Signs 40-Year Lease to Build New Campus on NASA Land
9:40PM Gizmodo US Edition | Sergey and Larry’s involvement with NASA seems to be getting ever deeper. Alongside the parking rights for the Google company jet at Moffat airfield, and using NASA data for Google, the Mountain View-based company is to build a brand new empire on 42.2 acres of land owned by the space agency at the Ames Research Centre in Mountain View. The high-tech campus will have around 1.2 million sq ft of offices and R&D facilities, and is costing around US$3.66 million per year of its 40-year lease. More »
Design
