True story: George Lucas owed us some money and he wouldn’t pay. So now we have the best office decoration ever. And until Carrie Fisher shows up in a metal choker and a bikini, we’re not giving it back. Those are our terms, and before anyone tries anything funny, remember that like half the Gizmodo staff knows karate–or as we call it at the dojo, karaté.
[flickr via Newlaunches]
Yeah, yeah, the Large Hadron Collider is in no real danger of accidentally opening up a black hole that swallows the world when it’s finally fired up on August 7. We know. But still, we sometimes like to pretend it is, and this is where Cern’s LHC cooldown status website comes in. Using it you can track the current temperatures of its 1600+ superconducting magnets in real time. But what should you be looking for?
Part of Vizio’s new XVT premium line, the 50-inch VP505XVT plasma known in a past life as the VP504F, actually uses Panasonic panels, meaning it’ll have something in common with future versions of Pioneer’s top-of-the-line Kuro sets. Yes, the plasma universe is collapsing upon itself as we speak, though for not that might not be a bad thing. And yeah, the 1080p set has Silicon Optix’s HQV Reon processor. Here’s what all you’re getting for US$1599 when this finally hits in mid-September:
We’ve seen plenty of naked/half-naked/non-naked ladies playing the Wii, but you can’t make a night out of just jubblies on the computer screen—not socially, at least. Dark Room Sex Game is an “erotic rhythm game without any visuals, played only by audio and haptic cues.” The result is a quasi-sexual experience that’s almost just as awkward as the real thing! See for yourself:
Adam already pointed out the need to carry a camera with you at all times to catch amazing pictures. Now, here’s one reason to always remember to carry a good videocamera. And survival kits and a GPS and armoured suits and canned burgers and infrared goggles or a F-35 helmet. Unlike Lori Mehmen, however, these guys didn’t take cover and just kept driving to this huge mother of all dust storms in Australia. Not as dangerous as a tornado, sure, but scary doesn’t even start to describe it. [LiveLeak]
This concept USB watch, dubbed “Timeless” is either a fabulously ironic piece of deconstructivist electronic art, or a geeky overload. Whichever way you look at it, it’s kinda neat: basically it’s a simple digital watch, with an internal battery that’s charged when you plug it into a USB socket. And then the same USB socket plugs back into the watch face, secured with PCB mount-style latches, with the ribbon cable as a strap. It’s a concept… but I could rattle off a pretty long list of people I know who’d probably love to own one. [DesignBrothers via CoolestGadgets] galleryPost('usbwatch', 3, '');
For those of you who’re into a little bit of creative electronics as well as fancying yourself as a bit of a mean DJ, this DIY laser light show may be just the thing to spice up your parties. Not only will the project spray laser light around (and who doesn’t like laser light shows?) but it also reacts to music, so you’ll have your own laser visualiser. Check out the video to see it in action.
A team at Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal have produced the world’s first field-effect transistor based on paper. The paper layer acts as an “interstrate”, with the actual FET components being fabricated onto both sides: so the paper holds the transistor together and acts as an insulator. Amazingly in tests the paper transistor performed better than amorphous silicon transistors and even approaches the performance of state-of-the-art oxide thin-film transistors. Why is this interesting news? Mainly since paper is a lower-cost substrate than silicon, so this invention opens the way for cheap, or even disposable, paper displays, smart labels, RFID technology… basically expect more ubiquitous technology integration in future products. [Physorg]
Be happy: A new wireless HD video standard guarantees that major brands including Sony, Sharp, Hitachi, Samsung and Motorola will have interoperable wireless video streaming. Amimon–the chip makers behind the “video modem” wireless HD tech we’ve been seeing on and off for the last few years, and most recently in Belkin’s Flywire–is announcing the WHDI consortium with the above members, formed to standardise their wireless HD spec and embed it in member companies’ TVs, projectors and HD video sources. The result is a network of HD components, streaming uncompressed 1080p video not just through one room like competing UWB standards, but to and from any source to any TV in your entire home, with a range comparable to Wi-Fi. Pretty impressive stuff.
Over at Sound and Vision Mag they’re asking exactly this question, and there’s a lot of logic behind it. Current flat-screen TV tech favours the 16:9 (or 1.78:1) dimension ratio, but many movies are shot in Cinemascope 2.35:1, around 32% wider. That’s why you still see letterboxing on your HDTV, or the frames are cropped to fit. High-end home theatre projectors already cater for Cinemascope dimensions by using anamorphic lenses and some fancy processing to correct the image. So will next-gen home TVs end up wider too?
