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National Debt Clock To Get Most Depressing Upgrade Ever
Posted by John Mahoney at 11:40 PM on October 13, 2008
It was a bad sign when the National Debt Clock on Sixth Avenue in NYC ran out of space this past weekend, calling for the screen previously used for the dollar sign to be used for the 1 in 10 trillion. Now, the real estate mogul Seymour Durst who put up the sign back in 1989 has announced that the current clock will be replaced next year with one that can accommodate figures in the quadrillions--that's 15 zeroes. Hopefully that'll buy at least two or three more years of worry-free service. Time to have a look at our next great depression gadget guide? [CNN, Photo: Jesper Rautell Balle]
The 
On October 19, NASA will launch the IBEX, or Interstellar Boundary Explorer, into a 210km earth orbit to begin mapping the very edge of our solar system. This region of space, also known by the kick arse scientific name "termination shock," is rife with mystery. Only the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft have ventured there, but they weren't armed with the right kind of tech to adequately catalog what's going on at the point where our solar system meets outer space. IBEX is, and from its orbit around our planet it will beam back some of the first detailed measurements of the region.
Bang & Olufsen, maker of 
The Port Authority has released renderings of the plan for the World Trade Centre Transport hub, and they look fantastic. With an arched, spiny roof and striking curves, the hub — though it will only serve as a train station and vestibule to the new WTC — has more in common with 
LG and Prada have just sent out a pre-announcement for the upcoming Prada II, sequel to the companies' first touchscreen lovechild that was released well over a year ago. Stand-out features include a 5MP camera, FM radio, 7.2Mbps HSDPA 850/2100 (hey, North American importers) and Wi-Fi. The rest of the tech specifications pretty much 
It's tough to decide whether Toshiba is being incredibly intelligent or incredibly stubborn in their decision to back upconverting DVD technology instead of Blu-ray. I mean, they were certainly burnt - badly - by Blu-ray with that whole
If it hadn't been 
With the accidental discovery of "black silicon," Harvard physicists may have very well changed the digital photography, solar power and night vision industries forever. What is black silicon, you say? Well, it's just as it sounds. Black silicon. It's what this revolutionary new material does that's important, starting with light sensitivity. Early indications show black silicon is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than a traditional silicon wafer.
In case you needed more, here's a proof that seems to completely confirm that--
This is a 20-foot-long Lego model of the HMS Hood, a Royal Navy battlecruiser built in 1920 and sunk by the German Kriegsmarine Battleship Bismarck in 1941. This stunning piece of brick engineering, built to 
Here's the video of the fiery re-entry of the 
DJs or other beat mashing fiends with more than two arms are being held back by today's traditional turntables, so it's a good thing Highwater Sound is around to create $US56,000 four arm Frankensteins like this thing. The table is built around a TW-Acoustic Raven AC and implements three motors. The arms were assembled from parts from Breuer Dynamic, Graham Engineering, Triplanar, and Ortofon, and the cartridges are the work of Dynavector, Ortofon, and Miyabi. We imagine that if you're a DJ, that last sentence caused the ol' heart rate to increase just a tad, among other things. [
Today, the machines became a little smarter, as a computer named Elbot managed to achieve a 25% success rate when convincing a human being that they were talking to another human. The experiment is called the Turing Test, after mathematician Alan Turing, and Sunday's saw six Artificial Conversational Entities (ACEs) trying to ace the exam. Word is there was one human dunce in the mix, as all six computers managed to fool at least one interrogator into thinking they were speaking to another person, but none of the machines could officially pass Turing's strict standards.
This post is almost half a Retromodo, in that compressed air cars have been peddled by companies like MDI for the last 20 years. But this compressed air-powered pod, the AirPod, is all new. The three-seater is powered by MDI's proprietary compressed air system, which uses electricity to force the air to power the engine's pistons. The car might appear in U.S. cities by 2010, and possibly India and Europe a bit sooner.
Researchers at MIT are using computer networks and cabbies to tackle a routine problem that I, personally, can attest to: Boston area traffic jams. Called CarTel (get it?), the system creates a network by way of cell phone-sized black boxes. The boxes currently sit on board 50 cars and taxis in the Boston area. Drivers access the CarTel web portal for real-time info on their own vehicle as well as those around them. "Everybody's data is contributing to collective views of what congestion looks like," said MIT associate professor Samuel Madden.
Here's one in the plus column for the looming robot uprising: a prototype developed by University of Maryland professor Jaydev Desai could one day diagnose, hunt, and destroy breast cancer cells all in one sitting, and in a much more efficient manner than we ham-handed human beings.
Chinese blog MacX is showing some very legit looking pics of what they allege is the MacBook Pro casing today. We will have to wait for the 