Starting at $US3,000 (and easily reaching $US10,000+), the Phobos features a single-pieced aluminium body tastefully coated in black car paint. The DVD drives are slot-loading, the USB/SD card reader pops up from the case and everything is so simple and tucked away that I’d have missed the iPhone doc on top of the case had they not pointed it out.

Its touchscreen LCD, mounted to the front of the monolith, can do everything from boot the system to one-touch tweak its performance settings thanks to the fact that it runs its own processor and custom Linux OS.

The machine, packed standard with luxuries like dual video cards and SSD boot drives—is actually not meant to be opened by the user. Instead, BFG includes a full professional installation and 6-month on-site tune-up in their pricing for the system. They’ll also send pros out to install new components like video cards—upgrades they fairly offer for the difference between the price of your old card and the price of the new card. But the Phobos is still very easy to open (the case slides right up).
Looking under the hood, it becomes obvious that BFG has designed a normal tower PC and flipped the whole thing 90-degrees so that its sits on its own ports. The design allows the machine to pull in air from the top and expel air out the bottom. It’s a smart idea that apparently cuts down on dust and pet hair inhalation.

The processor is water cooled and the cords neatly arranged. But it’s all for bragging rights since BFG doesn’t want you hassled with cracking the case anyway.

So the Phobos is nice, but I had two ideas for improvements. If the touchscreen popped out of the case, the system would work far better as an HTPC since you could take the remote to the couch.

BFG’s next model will have that.

And the size. The Phobos is huge, easily the biggest tower I’ve seen in some time.

BFG is working on a lower tier Phobos model with a smaller footprint.

The company is realistic. BFG knows that most hardcore PC gamers prefer to build their own PCs and that many HTPC users would prefer something small. But they’re happy in their service-oriented niche, even if it means selling 500 uber PCs a month. Still, shrink the thing and offer me an innovative PC remote…and maybe we’ll talk. [BFG Systems]

Artificial Owl has a whole heap of amazing photos taken both of and from the tower, and is well worth checking out to get a proper perspective of just how large and impressive this radio antenna actually is.

[Artificial Owl - Thanks Kaan! Originally passed on to me by "crisis and da shewz massive". - Kaan]

And yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds. Who hasn’t wondered what it would sound like to stack cats, claw-to-back, in an attempt to match the Tower of Babel? The only difference is, Babel didn’t collapse in a cacophony of mews.

Not sure where exactly to get this game in the store, unfortunately. [Mew Mew Tower (iTunes) via Animevice]

Nakagin was built in the Metabolist style of the 1970s by late Japanese architect Kurokawa Kisho. The tower rises 14 floors and is composed of 140 individual capsules designed to be either apartments or business offices. PingMag has an amazing expose on the building and more on Japan’s Metabolism movement.

The Metabolism movement wanted to create a new system of architecture—focused on adaptable, growing and interchangeable building designs–and is probably the forefather of things like stackable prefab housing.

Unfortunately, the complicated nature of the Nakagin building, as well as several design flaws thanks to a rushed drafting schedule, may have ensured its demise. Budgetary concerns over repairing and maintaining the building caused residents to vote that it ought to be demolished. With it goes an integral piece of Japanese architectural history. [PingMag]

The Shanghai Tower is organised as nine cylindrical buildings stacked one on top of the other with a double-skinned layer on the outside. The outside layer is triangular shaped and swivels as it reaches upwards. Designed by San Francisco-firm Gensler, the tower plans on accommodating offices, a luxury hotel, nine sky-gardens and various retail and cultural venues, as well as a new Shanghai Metro stop.

A lot of folks over here are saying that no matter how bad the current economic situation might get, the chances of this project losing funding is very slim. Ironically, this is probably due to the Mori Building, whose own construction was halted in its tracks by the Asian Financial Crisis—even if The Shanghai Tower turns out to be a money loser, there’s no way the Chinese would’ve stood for having a Japanese building dominate their soil. [The Design Blog]

Oh, wow. Apparently, in May, a Brit and a Frenchman snuck on to the under-construction Burj Dubai and BASE jumped from it at 650 metres up. Now, there’s video available of their infiltration, jump and subsequent escape. The footage from up top and the jump is just incredible stuff. I wish I had the cajones to do something like this. Although my favourite part of the video may be the footnote at the end; wait for it, it’s worth it. [Current via Neatorama]

These pixels are arranged around a central core and can be moved about—so the layout would constantly evolve. On the downside, the ground floor was designed to be as thin as possible in order to make room for the surrounding plaza, so the whole structure looks bloated and precarious. Hopefully, they won’t sacrifice strength and stability for eco-friendliness when it comes to the foundation. [Contemporist via Ecofriend]

Yes, the temporary towers currently in place are response to a Secret Service request, though notably Service spokesman Eric Zahren told the Post in the original story that “this was something that was being addressed before we were out there,” and that they could have used existing mobile coverage in the area. The critical point, though, is that before the Secret Service tower happened, as Green notes, “whatever its motivation, Verizon plainly went to considerable effort and expense to pursue building a permanent tower on the McCains’ ranch,” per Cindy McCain’s original efforts, and it was “long underway until just recently.”

The 200-page environmental assessment alone was an ordeal, with Verizon hiring consultants, sub-contractors, archaeologists and contacting over a dozen Indian tribes, not to mention all of the appropriate government agencies. It’s clear Verizon went through a lot of trouble here.

So whether or not the McCains wanted special treatment, it looks like they got it—even Verizon’s map of the sparse area (above) clearly denotes “McCain’s cabin,” so they definitely knew who it was for. And if the permanent tower “made no business sense,” as Verizon spokesman Jeff Nelson put it, why did they go through all of that trouble in the first place? Wouldn’t they have known how desolate it was before pouring lots of money and time into a bunch of regulatory crap? I guess that’s one of the perks of having power—you don’t have to ask for favours, you just get them.

Update: AT&T’s official story on their tower at the McCain ranch is that they’re giving “temporary accommodations to AT&T customers involved in or covering the campaign of a presidential nominee,” which seems more on the up and up than Verizon’s story. [The Atlantic]

P.S. If you have evidence T-Mobile put a tower on top of Obama’s house, let us know.