Not only did balloonbrat Falcon Heene casually admit they did it for the show, but this new video of the flying saucer taking off shows that this was all a hoax. It also shows that the father is a world-class a-hole.

Clearly, that balloon didn’t have a kid inside. It’s just flying up way too fast and uncontrollably. If the kid would have been on the bottom part—weighing the balloon at its centre—the balloon would have taken off in a straighter vertical line and wouldn’t have tilted the way it did.

Later in the video you can also see the bottom part on its own, after the authorities got the balloon. It looks like it was completely sealed from the start, so there’s no way the kid could have gotten in there at any point after the construction of the balloon.

Look at the guy getting mad and shouting at his wife as she fails to hold onto the balloon tether. As Adam Frucci just cleverly remarked a minute ago: “I knew Wifeswap was a sleazy show, but this is some next level shit.”

The big trick with these homemade blimps is using hot air (read:fire) for lift power, like a hot air balloon, instead of helium or hydrogen. Dan Nachbar’s Skyacht is one of the more intensely engineered crafts, with steerable thrust and an intricate system of ribs that lets the engine sit in the tail itself. Brian Boland’s Lips, on the other hand, has a simpler design, and fits in the back of a car.

If I built a blimp, I would make it look like a shark, and I would sneak up on other people’s blimps, so it would look like my blimp was about to eat theirs. [Popular Mechanics]

The mission was dubbed BEAR-4 (Balloon Experiments with Amateur Radio), and used an 1800g balloon for a total weight of about 1.74kg.

The camera was kept in place by foam blocks, and hooked up to five AAA Lithium L91 battery cells. With the extra legs, it captured almost 4.5 hours of footage. Mercifully, they’ve edited that down for the results you see below. [via BEAR]

Bonus: Remember those kids who photographed space for $US150? They’ve now put together a time lapse video of all the photos their rig took during its flight. Not quite as cool (or expensive) as the video above, though. [via L337arts]

Nah, it’s one of the many art installations sprinkled over the dusty playa at Burning Man 2009. This year’s theme is Evolution: A Tangled Bank. Safe travels if you’re a weekend burner, and don’t forget the white distilled vinegar to neutralise the super-fine alkaline playa dust!

One year later (and having travelled around three continents since), I’m still spotting in random places, most recently in my hiking shoes. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Like the really cool iSteam, MyBalloon is one of those nice iPhone toys that will let you do a silly thing for $US0.99. It also uses every control element in your iPhone:

• The microphone to inflate. If you blow too much air it will explode.
• The touchscreen to control the flow of air out of the balloon, closing it or making funny balloon noises. You can also touch the balloon itself.
• The accelerator, so when you move your iPhone, the balloon bounces accordingly.

The overall effect is quite cool, resulting in a great balloon simulator—whatever that means. Unfortunately, it is not perfect because the touchscreen controls are not accurate at times. Fun for $US0.99, which depending on the user’s mental age may result in hours and hours of joy. Or just 30 seconds.

I belong to the first group.

Blow. Balloons.

Good graphics.

It’s silly.

Controls go bonkers sometimes

Maybe too silly, even for $0.99.

[iTunes App Store]

It’s not quite as gritty as traditional Russian roulette, but this “Low on Risk” balloon gun does retain the two core elements of the game—chance and the threat of bodily harm.

Like a traditional revolver, there are six “shots.” Each pull of the trigger could result in the discharge of a pin that pops the balloon. Naturally, if the balloon is placed next to your head, the pop could leave you with a ringing in your ear. Not exactly deadly—although I suppose perennial losers could end up going deaf over time. Available for $US16. [EarlyAdopter via WTFismo via nopuedocreer via Coolbuzz]

Radio-synced to Google Earth, the team tracked the package as it soared 970kph into the sky, taking shots on a periodic timer. The balloon eventually failed around 100,000 before the system parachuted to the ground.

(We paraphrased. If you read the entire account over on the students’ page, you’ll appreciate details like the team running out of laptop batteries to track the experiment and knocking on neighbourhood doors for access power. It’s basically got all of the good-hearted excitement of a Disney movie, but it might be topped by these cuter teddy bear astronauts.)

The students were able to recover the package that landed about 9.5km from the launch site, but it was only after they tentatively extracted the SD card sitting safely inside that they discovered the fantastic fruits of their labour. [Project Page via Telegraph and boingboing]

Instead, Ford uses full-sized balloon vehicles—inflatable pretend cars that can be crashed into with no resulting damage (to either the crasher or the crashee). They’ve been custom made for the company, which is no big surprise since they aren’t exactly off the shelf toys (yet).

Each of Ford’s dozen or so balloons cost $US10,000 and manage to weigh but 18kg. When splattered with a bit of metal paint, Ford’s collision detection system sees the balloon as any other car to be avoided on the road—and if for some reason the system fails to see anything, well, you have another fun game of car soccer. Hopefully Ford hasn’t been scoring too many goals, if you know what I’m saying. [detnews via NewLaunches]

As Mark said, there’s something strangely anthropomorphic about a giant, slightly-cartoony helium aircraft balloon going up, seen here at Flughafen Zürich. I love this almost as much as I love the word flughafen. Bring it to the US! [Aleksandra Mir via Like Cool]