Friday, November 14, 2008
Design
Swedish Nuclear Bunker Transmogrified Into Data Centre Fit For Bond
11:45PM Kit Eaton | This must take the record for the trippiest data-centre build anywhere, ever: It’s an old nuclear bunker 30 metres below central Stockholm, and its new conversion for one of Sweden’s biggest ISPs has made it truly 007-worthy. Check it: it has simulated daylight, greenhouses and waterfalls, there’re German submarine engines rigged as emergency backup generators, plus there’s 1.5 megawatts of cooling for the servers. Oh, and it can survive a hydrogen bomb attack. galleryPost('pionen', 3, ''); More »
Peripherals
iPhone Shoulder Holster Is Chuck Norris’ Favourite Fashion Accessory
11:30PM Jesus Diaz | Apparently created for police detectives, construction workers, or anyone with zero sense of fashion and/or shame, the e-Volve Gadget Shoulder Holster is just that: A shoulder holster which, according to the manufacturer, “is designed to evolve and adapt to the reality of constant state of change in personal electronics by enabling you to wear your present and future gadgets”. Yes, it does all that. It has been engineered to “access your gadgets quickly,” like if your iPhone was Chuck Norris’ revolver. But make no fun of this, because this thing does it all: More »
Gadgets
By Far the Geekiest Way to Roast a Marshmallow
11:15PM Mark Wilson | You may have fond childhood memories of sitting around a campfire, telling ghost stories while cramming your mouth full of charry, molten sugar with little abandon. And you’d be right to reminisce. Roasting marshmallows around a fire is one of the few unornamented pleasures of this world. But tell me, dear reader: Does it really beat the sterile environment of an electrical laboratory? Here’s the clip:
Entertainment
Chinese Kids To Get Hyperwiz, Fakey Version of Transformers
11:00PM Elaine Chow | We’ve covered how companies in China borrow inspiration from gadget makers and architects, as well as how they can be prissy about obeying copyright laws, so I guess making copycat cartoons is kind of par for the course. Here’s the newest trailer of a Chinese TV series called Hyperwiz, a 3D vaguely anime-styled cartoon with cars, trucks and helicopters that transform into cars. Wait, don’t you mean?… Yes, it’s a ripoff of Transformers, complete with Autobots and Decepticons, and characters called Ironhide and Bonecrusher. Optimus Prime would not be pleased. [Youku] More »
Design
Walloffice Is Smallest Home-Office Solution, Not For Shiny Floors
10:30PM Kit Eaton | This Wallflower Walloffice desk from Jonas and Jonas design may hold the record for the smallest and simplest home-office solution: It’s got just two legs, and is made from a one-piece bent-laminate structure you lean up against the wall. Nevertheless, it looks useful, is “scratch and shock-resistant” and “allows for any kind of strain,” though I’d be a tad reluctant to try the ol’ office-nooky-on-the-desk manoeuvre, no matter how strain-resistant it is. More »
Phones
‘CrackBerry Love’ Tribute Ruins Ten Years of BlackBerry in About Four Minutes
9:55PM John Herrman | Gadget-inspired songs are almost always terrible, but this, this is something else. A kind-of-spoof, kind-of-ad performed by legendary nobody Caitlen Moe, “Crackberry Love” is an unmitigated disaster. Things to watch for: a man in a BlackBerry suit, endless T-Mobile shout-outs that the company almost certainly didn’t ask for, and the line “my Crack and I, we got a date.” Slightly NSFW for language, and because your boss might hate it enough to just fire you out of spite. [CrackBerry] More »
Science
NASA Sends Plumbers to the ISS So Astronauts Can Drink Their Own Pee
8:08PM John Herrman | A much-needed second toilet is on its way to the International Space Station, but that’s not all, not nearly. NASA is.gifting the crew with a new waste recycling system, which will be able to reclaim ‘used’ water. In other words, it will process astronauts’ urine and return it to the station’s water supply to, as one of the current inhabitants of the stations cheerily put it, “take yesterday’s coffee and make it into today’s coffee.” More »
Design
Cycle Life Watch Concept Charts Your Life Draining Away In Daily Drudgery
7:58PM Kit Eaton | Here’s a bit of tech that’ll cast a wonderful air of doom and gloom over your morning breakfast cereal: The Cycle Life watch charts your progress through the boring average day’s drudgery. It begins cheerfully with “wake up!” but then the rest of your productive, vividly personal, exciting daily life is reduced to displays for “Car, PC, Car, TV, Go to Sleep!” Totally reminds me of a French slang saying about daily tediousness “Métro, boulot, dodo, Métro boulot…” travel, work, home, travel, work… At least the watch also has a real time display so you can see exactly how much closer to death you’re getting. A concept, but a darkly delicious one. [Yanko] More »
Vehicles
Tuner Adds Fake ‘Vrooom’ and ‘Pew Pew’ Sounds to Tesla Roadsters
7:32PM John Herrman | Popular Mercedes tuner Brabus has designed a Tesla modding package which adds — among other things — fake engine sounds to make up for the Roadster’s silent electric motor. You can opt for a traditional v-8 engine sound, a race car sound or even two “futuristic landscape” settings that may or may not make your Tesla sound like George Jetson’s spacewagon. You also get a few trim additions, some interior tweaks and, oh god, groundlighting. The whole package might be gaudy, but the fake engine sounds take the tacky cake. I’ll say it: they’re the electric supercar equivalent of spinner hubcaps. [NextAutos] More »
Gadgets
