This weekend, I scored big time. First, I found a red Gone-with-the-Wind-ish petticoat in a vintage shop. Then, I arrived home to find the Sqweel – a brand new, pre-release, revolutionary, wow-factor sex toy – waiting for me in a stack of mail. The good news? The Sqweel is orgasmic-ly awesome. Even better? As of 12:01am today, it is officially available to the rest of you.

How Does It Work

As the name suggests, the Sqweel merges the wheel (one of humankind's greatest inventions) with sex (one of humankind's greatest pleasures). Except instead of typical wheel spokes, it turns a series of tongues – 10 tongues, actually – using 3 speeds. Let me repeat: there are TEN TONGUES. It's like group oral sex with everyone somehow fitting in between your legs. Or oral sex with an extremely talented and eager lover.

The Sqweel is a remarkable sex toy designed by an Irishman (and animator) named Trevor Murphy who won LoveHoney's Design a Sex Toy competition a few years back. This fact gives me tremendous hope that other animators, engineers and people who sit with their computers or graphics tablets all day will soon turn their talents to advance sex toy design and innovation. If not for me, then for the love of sex. Please?

Though not a vibrator, the folks at LoveHoney suggest (and I agree) that while vibrators can certainly contribute to highly pleasurable sex play, there's something to be said for non-vibrating play that promotes slow yummy build-up, much as oral sex does, and that perhaps leads to an orgasm that leaves one feeling that curious mix of satisfaction and craving more.

The Rundown

These are the key points about the Sqweel, aside from the 10-tongue 3-speed yum:

• Materials: The tongues are made of silicone (easy to clean, non-toxic awesomeness) while the black compartment is made of soft plastic.

• Hygiene: The tongue component can be removed from its holder for easy cleaning of both parts.

• Power: What does it run on, you ask? (Aside from the Grace of the Sex Gods). Three AAA batteries. I would have preferred AA batteries rather than the AAA batteries that few people keep lying around the house (whereas, if needed in a pinch, AA batteries may be scrounged from TV remotes or Flipcams).

• Cost: At £34.99 UK pounds (and yes, they ship to the US in only a few waiting-with-bated-breath days), I find the price fair even after the conversion to USD. Especially if you want to switch out your vibrator from time to time, gift your partner with a tongue that doesn't stop or give yourself a break from lockjaw.

• Endurance: No more lock jaw! Or at least you get a break. The Sqweel is not intended to replace oral sex, nor should it (after all, oral sex can be lovely, intimate and passionate). But it may offer an occasional alternative, or complement, to oral play, which is especially useful for partners whose tongues, jaws, necks or lower backs get sore from extended oral play.

• Single or doubles? Both. The Sqweel can easily be used privately or with a partner. It's comfortable to hold in one's own hand during self-pleasure of one's outside parts (please do NOT try to insert all the way in the anus, lest I recount one man's salad tongs incident). When pleasuring your partner, it's not so bulky (only 4.5 in X 4 in X 1 inch at its thickest) as to block your view.

• Education: Similar to the Sasi, which also mimics oral sex, women who would like to learn to orgasm from oral sex may find it helpful to practice with the Sqweel.

• Lube: Due to the Sqweel's silicone components, silicone lube is a no-no. Instead, try a water based lube applied directly to your or your partner's body as: (1) there are too many tongues to put lube on every single one and (2) I could easily see the globs of lube go flying as the tongue spokes go round and round and no one needs lube on their ceiling.

• Convenience: Now you can provide your partner with oral pleasure via the Sqweel while simultaneously kissing each other, sitting back and watching, talking dirty, or breathing warm air on your partner's genitals.

• Conversation: If your partner is using the Sqweel on you and you ask him or her a question, your partner can actually answer you rather than making that awkward "mwawahwah" sound that people make when they try to speak while performing oral sex.

The Experience

I found that holding the Sqweel steady and straight (aimed perpendicular at one's body) was the best strategy – leaning it to one side or the other, as one might do with a typical vibrator, sometimes caused uncomfortable feelings due to the toy's edges pressing against fairly sensitive parts. Try exploring the low, medium and high settings – for example, using the low setting to build arousal and the medium or high settings to up the intensity or as one approaches orgasm (if that's your thing). You might even try turning the tongues upside down for a modified version of Sqweel play stimulation.

In regard to positions, one can lay back and enjoy self-directed or partnered stimulation OR you can prop it like some do with the Fleshlight (e.g., between sofa cushions, between the mattress and box springs or in a sneaker). The Sqweel can be used to stimulate men's or women's genitals though I don't recommend it for internal anal stimulation lest it possibly get "lost" (and not lost in translation, which I just watched again late last night).

Please be careful how you hold it! In some hand positions, one's fingers can get caught in the compartment and stop the movement of the tongues. This happened to me once or twice. It didn't hurt, but just wanted to throw that out there in case you are used to moving your hands along with your toy of choice. Or if you have particularly long labia or hair down there that may possibly be an issue too.

The future

The folks at LoveHoney have said that they are planning to roll out different "attachments" in time – so if you decide to try to Sqweel, there should be even more to come. Personally, I would like to see a Sqweel iPhone app. It doesn't have to vibrate like the fancy MyPleasure MyVibe app, it just has to have a great visual of rotating tongues in which the user can control the speed of vibration.

As it is, however, I love it. It's yummy. The Sqweel is a very innovative sex toy. If you try it, please let me know what you think – I always enjoy hearing and learning about others' perspectives and experiences with sex and, in particular, with sex toys.

10 tongues. TEN. The only thing better would be 11. Or 10 plus chocolate.

Silicone material

Comes apart for easy cleaning

Unlikely to produce Fleshlight-furniture-ish shame spiral during use, storage or cleaning

Comfortable to hold

Easy to store in a nightstand or sock drawer

Requires three AAA batteries (a con in my household given that I mostly keep AAs on hand, but may be fine in yours)

Looks like a tape measure

Only 3 speeds. Given how women and men vary, I'd have gone with 5 or 7.

Dr. Debby Herbenick, author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction, is the Associate Director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation at Indiana University (IU) where she is a Research Scientist. She is also a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction where she writes (and hosts audio podcasts of) the Kinsey Confidential column and coordinates educational programming. She has a PhD in Health Behavior from IU, a Master's degree in Public Health Education (also from IU) and a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. In addition, she is certified as a Sexuality Educator from the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

Debby writes regular sex columns for Men's Health magazine, Time Out Chicago magazine, Velocity, Cheeky Chicago, Psychology Today and she has also written for Glamour magazine.

When I say "trash," I don't mean it's bad; quite the opposite, actually. But at $40/$50/$70 for 2/4/8GB capacities, the Clip+ is very nearly disposable—you can knock it around or drop it and not feel bad—making it an excellent player for workouts or as a spare in case your main PMP runs out of juice on a long trip.

What's New

The Clip+, unlike the Clip, packs a microSD slot for cheap expandable memory (up to 16GB at the moment). The microSD slot also supports SanDisk's own (admittedly stupid) SlotRadio cards. The clip on the back is no longer removable, and the headphone jack has been moved to the right side of the player, away from the miniUSB port. Oh, and the control pad is now square instead of circular. That's pretty much it for new features.

Why It's Great

What makes the Clip+ better than competitors like the iPod Shuffle and Creative Zen Stone is surprisingly excellent sound quality. This little guy has some power behind it, sounding as good as my Zune with a pair of decent earbuds. SanDisk clearly knows what they've got, since the Clip+, unlike other tiny budget mp3 players, supports audiophile codecs like FLAC and OGG.

It's got an FM radio, podcast support, and a voice recorder as well. It also auto-detects OS and will choose either MTP (Windows) or MSC (everything) when plugged in, meaning it supports every OS perfectly. The two-color OLED screen is bright and readable, and the player itself is miniscule and feels very tough—I've actually dropped it twice and there's nary a scratch on it.

Flaws

In terms of controls, it's not ideal—I'd really like to see a dedicated Back button instead of having to hit Menu and then select "Back to Music List," but after two minutes of toying around with the player, you'll have it figured out. The battery life isn't thrilling, rated at 15 hours, and I would have preferred a dedicated hold switch to the Home button playing double duty. Also, scrolling through long lists of artists or songs is a little pokey—it's no problem if you've only got a few GBs of music, but if you have a filled 8GB player with a microSD card, it'll be annoying.

Conclusion

It's the best low-end mp3 player on the market, without question. And did I mention it costs $50 for 4GB? That's $20 less than the iPod shuffle and the Clip+ has the shuffle handily beat on features and sound quality. I recommend the 4GB version—it's worth the $10 upgrade from 2GB, and 8GB is really more music than the little guy is built to handle. The UI's a little dated, but it's totally serviceable, and the player's strengths more than make up for its drawbacks. I've got absolutely no hesitation about recommending the Sansa Clip+ as a workout or spare mp3 player. [SanDisk]

Tiny and rugged body

Excellent sound quality and surprisingly extensive codec support

Competitively priced

UI hasn't evolved since previous model

Maybe it looks big because they have small hands, but it doesn't look like. And despite the nice film-emulation filters, it can only take seven minutes of 720p video, no matter how big is your flash memory card. Still, check the gallery. Aesthetically, it's retrolicious. Especially with the flash or the viewfinder on. [Engadget China]

[Thanks Karl]

In the video it looks like it's far away, but take into account that those are very wide lenses. Of course, they are out of the airspace exclusion area, but they are quite close. Apparently, from up there the clarity of the launch is amazing.

I so want to do this.

What sorcery is this? Is this real? According to reader Nathan Alexander, from Commercials I hate, it is. It does look like it may be real indeed.

This opens a lot of questions. You know, like, did Miyamoto actually thought about using Marshmallow Peeps in the first place? Does he eat them? And why Nintendo doesn't include Marshmallow Peeps in every Wii box instead of some dumb IR bar? And anyway, what in the name of all that is sweet and pink do they use to make Marshmallow Peeps? How can the Wiimote see it? Is it some kind of IR light-emitting chemical marker? Is it radioactive? Will it kill me if I eat one? One thousand? Can I make them explode? Can I roast chicken with them?

OK, don't tell me. I'm just going to try all of that. [Thanks Nathan]

David sent me this crazy 12 minute video—in reality, it was more than that, but I cut it down—and I lost my faith in the Force back then. How could I best this? I couldn't. So I just kept pushing it back. Today I was doing some spring cleaning in my hard drive and thought it was too good to pass.

So here you go: The definitive movie on the construction of the Lego Millennium Falcon, crazy stop motion worth of the Go Miniman Go stop animation contest:

Or maybe is this one?

[Thanks Ariel]

I wish it was even larger. Large enough to control the TV with my butt. [Michbex via Hacked Gadgets]

Dr Manhattan was projected using the largest water projector in the world. I'm disappointed he didn't move, but it sure looked like an spectacular show.

Even while it's all black, in the video you can see the Earth rising over the Moon's surface and hiding the Sun at the same time. It must be lonely for Selene up there, but boy, what a view. [JAXA]

As you can see, Toshiba not only has created a slim 9.9mm-thick smartphone with a generous 4.1-inch screen, but they seem to have redesigned the user interface completely to avoid the dreadful Windows Mobile's user interface too.

Of course, this is a canned demo and we will have to wait until we have it in our hands to see if the changes are just on the first level or deep into the user experience. [Pocket Lint]

• First you have to tell the app the state of your Rubik's cube.
• You can do this with two methods: Either painting the faces of the cube or, better yet, taking a photo of each of the faces.
• The program will analyze the faces and, after a few seconds, it will tell you the solution step by step, using a 3D interface.

I'm digging out my old Rubik Cube and getting this app just to have the pleasure to beat it 50 times in a row. [iTunes Store Link via Wired]

The CECE—developed by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and NASA—is fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. All the engine components are super-cooled, so when vapor comes out of the burning of the oxygen and the hydrogen and touches the rim of the cryogenic engine, it transforms into ice instantly.

The engine architecture allows it to smoothly throttle from top power levels—it was tested up to 108 percent—down to very-low power: 8 percent, which apparently is a new record in these kind of engines. Its performance allows it to smoothly land on the Moon while carrying a bigger load. [Pratt & Whitney via Universe Today]

There are more here (NSFW), some of them funny even if you don't speak Danish. And did I say I love Scandinavia? Oh yes, I do. [Thanks Michael]

The BaR2D2 is a radio-controlled bar-bot, with a "motorized beer elevator, motorized ice/mixer drawer, and six-bottle shot dispenser." It's also "sound activated neon lighted", because alcohol delivery is not complete without psychotropic light effects. According to its creator:

The concept for BaR2D2 was born when a friend showed up to an event with a radio-controlled cooler. We joked about taking the idea to the next level and in the Spring of 2008, construction began.

Hopefully, the next one will mix Margaritas, Manhattans, Long Islands, have a pole dancer on top, and they will invite me to a party. [Instructables]

Bonus, completely unrelated clip with Richard Ayoade as Dean Learner.