"Filming the bouncing toad was very challenging; the remote mountain plateau is one mile high and 26 square miles in area, whilst the toad is one inch long and very elusive. The tarantulas which prey on them are also very hard to find. To give the crew the best chance of finding and filming them, the expert on these creatures came on the shoot. He searched for a week before the crew's arrival to find both species and a location where they could come together and where the toad would demonstrate its bouncing-ball method of escape. This allowed the cameraman to set up his slow-motion camera in the right place. The scientist was able to ensure that the toad was never in danger of being harmed by the tarantula as a result of us filming them. The technique was a total success - the toad tucked its legs in, rolled and bounced, allowing the crew to film its method of escape in slow-motion detail."

"A Jesus Christ lizard running on water is so fast that a human would have to run at 65 miles per hour to achieve the same trick. The speed makes it an enormous challenge to film. After consulting with a scientist at Harvard University who has made a ground-breaking study of the lizard's water sprint, the crew decided that as well as filming the behaviour at normal frame rates they would attempt to capture the close up details of the lizard's run with a slow-motion camera filming at 2000 frames per second (i.e. slowed down by 80 times).

It's very hard to predict exactly where and when a lizard will run, what's more it's all so quick that once the lizard is spotted it's gone in a blur! Learning from the scientist's observation methods was essential and as a result it was decided to film the details of the sprint would need some degree of control to ensure that the crew had some idea of where and when the lizard would run. They travelled to Belize, home of the lizard, to work with local animal experts who had some lizards in natural forest enclosures. If, and when, these lizards decided to run, they always ran along the same stretch of water, where the cameraman could station his camera.

The key to success was using the latest digital slow-motion camera that continuously records into a memory buffer, so that when the cameraman hits the trigger button he downloads the action that took place a second or so before that moment. Whenever a lizard sprinted past the cameraman over the water the cameraman hit the trigger, desperately trying to keep the lizard in the frame and in focus. The final end result of this was stunning, slow motion shots of the lizards, with every drop of water visible as they sprinted through the surface."

OK, we don't actually have any notes on how this was shot. But the macro shot of water beading up on the gecko's hydrophobic skin is gorgeous.

The above clips are from Episode 2: Reptiles and Amphibians. The series is playing now on BBC One.

We don't know much about the actual gloves, seemingly built from plywood and a couple of dustbusters, so we've got a bit of doubt about the whole enterprise, especially as it's described by the BBC itself as a "stunt." But whatever: There's a guy climbing the side of a building! [BBC News via Geekologie]

As an American who has lived in the UK for four years now, let me tell you: this is a good thing. The BBC produces a ton of channels and a wide variety of content, the best of which never seems to make its way to BBC America, which actually shows fluff from second and third tier British networks more than it does actual BBC program(me)s. Plus, trade balance! Any American version would have to add advertising to the Beeb's generally untainted broadcasts, but hell, we're used to that. [Telegraph]

The machine hack is actually an art project designed and created by Ellie Harrison as part of her residency at the Plymouth College of Art. The little monitor you see at the right is actually tracking the BBC's RSS feed, and whenever the aforementioned doom and gloom comes over the wire, someone's getting something sugary.

The innards were programmed by Ben Dembroski using PureData and Python, while project2891 was implemented alongside i-DAT to activate messaging on the GreenScreen. In other words, free candy! And, this thing must get refilled, a lot. [Ellie Harrison via Make via noquedanblogs- Thanks, Sabino]

Reports the BBC:

Marc Stephens watched the videos as a precaution when his wife Jo started to feel some discomfort.

Four hours later, his wife went into labour and started giving birth before an ambulance could arrive at their home in Redruth. "I Googled how to deliver a baby, watched a few videos and basically swotted up," Mr Stephens told the BBC.

That said, don't let Stephens fool you. He's a natural. "This is our fourth child now and while for our first I spent most of the time at my wife's head, now I'm not afraid to go down to the business end."

Truly, a heart-warming story in an age that sees despicable baby-related smartphone apps being approved for the general populace without missing a beat. [BBC News via Google Blogoscoped]

The following is a retelling of an excellent—but far less judgmental—BBC News story:

Step 1: Two Belgian hackers show up at the Sumitomo Mitsui bank reception desk in London on Sept. 16, 2006, and asked for the bank's security chief, a Mr. O'Donoghue. ERROR: They were caught on closed-circuit camera, not just talking to but joking around with O'Donoghue, who even showed the two to a freakin' secure terminal.

Step 2: The so-called hackers used a USB key to log keystrokes on that terminal, and returned to retrieve the keystrokes—usernames and passwords of employees—themselves. ERROR: They had to return in person. O'Donoghue decided to cover the Belgians' tracks by cutting wires to CCTV cams, and even "enquired about creating extra access badges."

Step 3: On Friday, Oct. 1, they showed up and used the logins to attempt 10 cash transfers to accounts in Spain, Dubai, Hong Kong, Turkey and Israel. ERROR: They never actually learned how to fill out transfer forms, so the transfers didn't go through. (Also, they chose countries that sounded like Bond film locations, and they chose a target—Nomura Holdings—that sounded like the company Hans Gruber tried to rob in Die Hard.)

Step 4: Having failed, they went back again on Saturday. ERROR: They went back again on Saturday.

Step 5: On Monday, when the bank managers noticed around $320 million in failed bank transfers, they alerted authorities, who quickly zeroed in on, you guessed it, Security Chief O'Donoghue. ERROR: O'Donoghue should never have come back to work. Also, $320 million? Didn't they know about rounding up pennies?

Although the case against O'Donoghue and the Belgians seems open and shut, there's a lot more to this tale, including a dapper "self-styled lord of the manor" named Hugh Rodley, a money-laundering porn-shop owner named David Nash and a mysterious Swedish dame by the name of Inger Britt Marie Malmros. I am not making any of this up.

Please go to the BBC and read more—there's even a video. [BBC News]

Accompanied by a card-like carrying case/base station, the Zumba slips out into an earpiece shaped like one of those old fossilized spiral shellfish. The entire assembly sits on your head, and operates all functions, including texting, through voice commands.

Our lovely presenter can't tell us anything interesting about how this technology works (or more realistically, will one day work), other than that it is linked to some kind of cloud system, much like Google's iPhone voice app. She enthusiastically blames this on extreme secrecy, but it sounds more like second-hand PR speak to me. Also, her demonstration unit appears to be a dummy, and there's no sign that the touted speech recognition capabilities exist yet either.

The Zumba will apparently ship before next year. Or, IA Technology will explode into a massive cloud of unsent patent applications and investors' £100 notes. Either way, we have our eyes on you, Zumba. [BBC]

Television is only an aggregator—meaning all of the content available already exists out on the web for free. And, it only works on wi-fi, which is unfortunate. But the list of available shows is pretty decent:

USA

CNN - Now in the News, In Case You Missed
CBS - Eye to Eye, Face the Nation
NBC - Nightly News, Meet the Press
CNBC - Fast Money
Comedy Central - Standup Highlights
VH1 - Celebrity Rehab, The Pickup Artists
Onion Networkk - All videos
College Humor TV - All videos
Digg.TV - Diggnation
CNET - First Look, Buzz Report
Discovery Channel - Highlights
National Geographic - Highlights
MTV - MTV News, music videos
NBA - News and match highlights

UNITED KINGDOM

BBC - Highlights from Top Gear, Torchwood, Goodness Gracious, QI
SKY - Sky News
ITN - News and Showbizz
Megawhat.Tv - Tech News

FRANCE

TF1 - Le Journal, Météo
M6 - Six Minutes
BFM - Première Edition
iTele - iTele News

GERMANY

RTL - News, Aktuell, Wetter, Exclusiv
ARD - Tagesschau, Das Wetter
NDR - Ratgeber Technik
WDR - Die Sendung mit der Maus, Käptn Blaubär
ZDF - Heute, Wetten Dass Backstage, Aktuelle Sportstud

Now, Hulu—you must be working on an iPhone app, right? When can we see it? [Television - iTunes - $3.99]

Peter Serafinowicz, of the possibly acclaimed Peter Serafinowicz Show, has put together a couple videos in the style of Apple's stodgy online product demonstration videos, imagining two new products from the company. The iToilet, below, is relatively uninspired (it's funny because it's impossible, and something to do with bathrooms! Ha!) but the Mactini is kind of fantastic. Not to mention Serafinowicz's wonderfully convincing half-Jobs, half-generic-demo-guy character, who is only a wandering eye outside of fitting right into Apple's product tour rotation. UPDATE: It turns out that Serafinowsicz is partially responsible for the hilarious Look Around You series, so this sketch is no fluke. The vids are taken from his forthcoming Christmas special sketch show, which you can preview here. [Cult of Mac]

Maybe I'm rhapsodizing this a bit early, but there are plenty more clips on YouTube, and if you're still into it after that, the first full episode is on BBC Three's video site. (Thanks for keeping it US-friendly, BBC!) Still hungry for more? The show's own site has some crazy 3D animation worth fiddling with—presumably best under the influence of some sort of mushrooms not generally found in my pantry. [The Wrong Door]

While the secrecy is most likely related to shame and embarrassment more than danger and intrigue, the "toy" is actually a pretty impressive piece of hardware. The camera can transmit high quality streaming video to a flat panel-equipped base station over 300 feet away, where it is recorded to a hard drive for playback and/or incrimination. Because of the top secret nature of the project the price is a matter of speculation, but Harris estimates a build cost in excess of $1,500, which means that there must be some serious shit going down at Doctor Who conferences. [ChannelFlip]

There is a catch, however. The stream will only be available to UK residents, and viewers will have to buy a TV license if they wish to avoid getting on the wrong end of threatening letters and potential jail sentences. The service should be up and running by the end of next year. [Daily Mail and Media Guardian]

There's the "Klippit" module, which has a single button you press when you find a radio program you like: it gets added as a favorite on your Facebook profile, has an audio snippet recorded, and extra info gets emailed to you. There's the "Volume Voting" module that rates popularity with how much you turn up the sound when your favorite tune comes on. A push-to-talk module lets you have a quick VOIP chat with a friend, perhaps about the program you're listening to, and there's an MP3 recorder-player, and a phone-charging module too.

Designers Schulze and Webb really envisage their device being a physical social hub for your home too: they suggest a key-storage module that sets up the radio to your user profile, and handily stores your keys; and a kids "tear-off" fluffy portable module that stores most-listened to stuff, and glows brightly when the program is due on.

Despite all these extra modules being hypothetical, there's some clever design here exploring social networking, radio-listening habits and the like. But we can't help but think it's based around the wrong sort of technology: isn't radio a bit passé now? Make it internet-radio based, and we'd be very interested indeed. [Schulze and Webb via Like Cool]

But the neatest thing from a production standpoint? Apparently elephants move so smoothly that the improvised footage resembles that shot with a Steadicam rig. Look for the show on BBC One this Sunday, March 30th. [BBC and dailymail via bbgadgets]

When you think about what a cabbie has to endure—an average of 34 months spent learning the Knowledge, as it is referred to, when you take to the streets of London on a moped, with nothing but a kagoule and an A to Z for company, when you phut-phut your way round the capital's roads until you know the city like the back of your hand, and can prove it to a bunch of bolshie examiners—then it is not surprising that the human element triumphed over technology.

Says Spencer Kelly, presenter of the technology programme Click:

We chose waypoints that took us through extremely busy parts of London. We would need to go from Box Hill in Surrey to Wembley Stadium, then the Houses of Parliament and finish at Greenwich Observatory. In fact, if we had just followed the shortest route to our first waypoint - the new Wembley Stadium - we would have gone right through some of the worst traffic blackspots in the area.

The rules were simple. Andy the cabbie could choose whichever route he wanted, listen to traffic reports on the radio, and change route at any time. But so he did not get an unfair advantage, he was not allowed to use bus/taxi lanes to avoid any jams. I had to do what the sat-nav said. No exceptions.

Spencer, who was using the TomTom, and alternated between the voice of Yoda and John Cleese, won the first leg, choosing to use the M25, a mahoosive freeway that circumnavigates London. He managed to get to Wembley Stadium, in the northwest of the city, five minutes ahead of Andy. When it came to the streets of the city center, however, Andy's experience was at a clear advantage, and he was already celebrating with a cuppa beside the Greenwich Observatory by the time Spencer had arrived at the Houses of Parliament. [BBC Online]

A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career. Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science. If you look at the most interesting things that have emerged in the last decade - whether it is cool things like portable music devices and video games or more practical things like smart phones and medical technology - they all come from the realm of science and engineering.

I also place a high value on having a passion for ongoing learning. When I was pretty young, I picked up the habit of reading lots of books. It's great to read widely about a broad range of subjects. Of course today, it's far easier to go online and find information about any topic that interests you. Having that kind of curiosity about the world helps anyone succeed, no matter what kind of work they decide to pursue.

A new sketch show from the BBC, Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul, takes off Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. It rather makes Apple's current Mac vs PC ads look like outtakes from a Frasier episode. Given their pedigrees, Paul Whitehouse (he did The Fast Show and Harry Enfield (er, he didn't), the comics behind the skit, could have done better. Nice sweaters, though. – Ad Dugdale