The Houdini and Houdini Pro are two emergency car tools that improve your chances of not dying when faced with a crashed or sinking car. It's much like the seatbelt cutters and window shatterers that have been on the market for a while, but also comes with a safety whistle and LED light. The Pro upgrades the seat belt cutter to the big boy status that can get you out of automotive messes that leave you upside down. They're $US25 and $US40 respectively. Until the days when your kung fu training enables you to punch out a window with your fist and clip your seatbelt with "scissor fingers", we'd go with these. [Houdini Tool via Gear Diary]

That headline is one of those insane things you never expect to write, or even read, in your lifetime, but newly restored Houdini movies show that he's the first person EVER to fight a robot on film. If you're at all interested in robots, Houdini, or some combination of the two going at it, get a copy of Houdini: The Movie Star on Amazon. Now, who's the first person to have sex with a robot on film? Charlie Chaplin? [Boing Boing]

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