The Sunday Times has reported that Amazon's currently looking for "bricks-and-mortar stores" to open up in, hopefully adding to its $59.1 billion value. Somewhere customers can get their hands on a Kindle, or perhaps pick up a TV they pre-bought on the website makes sense, but why change a winning formula so late in the game? And why in the UK? [The Sunday Times]

UPDATE: Amazon has refuted claims it's opening a high street store in the UK, stating "We have no plans to open physical stores anywhere in the world."

Around 1,000 laptops and iPods are also lost in the depths of black cabs each month, with the VP of security company Credant Technologies, who carried out a survey on the matter, commenting that in ye olde London times, "It used to be small items like brollies and briefcases stuffed full of boring office papers. Now it's laptops, smartphones and thumb drives, all chock-full of valuable information to an identity thief." [Credant Technologies, via The Reg]

Image credit: Annie Mole

The giant bubbles would be structural, decorative, and be used to project weather info, spectator numbers, and race results. They'd be constructed from of a type of plastic called Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), the same stuff used to build the Beijing Aquatic Centre.

The Cloud has been shortlisted in the competition set-up by London's Mayor, and has been called "a sculptural spectacle, and a celebration of technology" by the senior curator of
architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The designers intend to build The Cloud using micro-donations from millions of people. One of the architects, who's from MIT, told the BBC: "We can build our Cloud with £5m or £50m. The flexibility of the structural system will allow us to tune the size of the Cloud to the level of funding that is reached."

I hope they get all the cash they need, because that design is straight out of my Sci Fi dreams. [The Cloud via BBC] Thanks Tom!

On the other hand, buying one might prove problematic. It appears that the 1666 and DCCCXVII A.U.C. (64 AD in the Julian calendar) are only in the prototype stage at the moment. [BBM via Core77]

ATMs run by a company called Bank Machine offer a language option allowing customers to enter their "Huckleberry Finn" instead of their PIN, and rather worryingly informs them that the machine is reading their "bladder of lard" at a prompt about examining their card.

The origins of Cockney rhyming slang are obscure. It is thought to have been used by market traders who needed a way of communicating without tipping off their customers.

It works by replacing a word with a short rhyming phrase. For example: "Money" becomes "bread and honey," which in turn is shortened to "bread." Similarly, "head" becomes "loaf of bread," and then just simply "loaf."

Jesus—the last thing I need is confusion and stress when dealing with my bank. But the thought of some cockney thugs trying to haul one of these away in a Guy Richie film is amusing to me. [Yahoo and Times Online]

It's a pretty impressive little bit of engineering, even if steering looks super awkward and clumsy. Apparently the glass cloth used to cover the styrofoam is quite delicate as well, suffering damage just from accidental handling. But it's a pedal-powered hovercraft! [Steamboat Willy via MAKE]

The Mail has assembled the above infographic to explain how the ISA system works, but it's fairly simple: Cars are outfitted with computers loaded with speed limit data for public roads, and monitored via satellite. In "Advisory" mode, the dash readout indicates if you need to slow down, and smiles at you if you do. In the hilariously named "Voluntary" mode, the computer will actually seize control of your throttle, letting off the gas until you ease back down to the speed limit.

You can't blame people for having a mid-scale privacy freakout over this one, but a few crucial factors keep it from being downright Orwellian: First, it's being deployed in London cabs, government cars and buses, so it's not being expressly imposed on private citizens; second, the system is local—as in, it reads its own GPS data to calculate speed and decides on a course of action without remote input—and has an override switch, which, based on my experiences with London cabbies, I suspect will get plenty of use. (And serve as a brilliant rant subject conversation piece).

But still, satellite speed control? That's worse than speed cameras. And the mere existence of this technology—not to mention the government's involvement in its development—certainly feels like a step in the wrong direction, even if this particular use is relatively benign. [Daily Mail]

The brainchild of culinary adventurers Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, Alcoholic Architecture creates a intoxicating vapor using the same ultrasonic humidifier system found in Antony Gormley's installation at the Hayward in 2007 called Blind Light. Patrons pay around $7 for hourly slots between 7 and 9pm where they can don protective suits and get drunk off the air. It's a novelty for sure, but $7 isn't a bad price for an hours worth of gin and tonic no matter how you look at it. [Jellymongers and Metro and View London]

It is a much-needed breath of fresh air into a building that currently looks like an ancient crypt. Which gives a nice vibe to the contemporary art inside, mind you.

And, it looks quite similar to the De Young museum in SF, in that they both use pyramid-like shapes. [Dezeen, image credit to Hans Peter Schaefer]

The foursome used the App Store's Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth and DigiDrummer Lite to recreate the song. Again, surprisingly not horrible. [T3]

This tunnel is actually one of eight built by the British government during World War 2 as a network of bomb shelters to protect citizens from the German blitz. They could hold 8,000 people and were designed to function for five weeks without any assistance from the outside world. This "protection" even included "a bar and two canteens, not in use, and a billiard room, not to mention functioning water and electricity supplies," reports the New York Times.

However, after their completion, the tunnels were held aside to serve as secret bases of operations for soldiers. They were never used as shelters. Instead, they served as a temporary base for D-Day troops; one even became the European HQ for U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Later, in 1944, the tunnels became bastions of counterintelligence, as members of the secret service used them to coordinate resistance movements in Nazi-controlled countries. The tunnels, once filled with Normandy invaders, were decked out with spy gear, telephones and teleprinters.

Today, though, the tunnels are empty, and waiting for some rich playboy real estate tycoon to swoop in and buy them up. Won't you take up that standard, and invite us poor gadget-loving folk to a few parties below the busy London streets? Please? [New york Times]

The city intends to install dozens of the fancy waste receptacles in London's financial district next year. And boy, do they sound expensive!

The technology reduces the shockwave of an explosion — which usually creates devastation by destroying nearby objects such as windows — and because most of the bin is made of steel, it can contain the heat and shrapnel generated. He said that the technology “reduces the peak pressure of an explosion and extinguishes the fireball”.

The green bins will double as an information service called Renew, with large screens on each side of the device relaying the latest news.

Traders walking past on their lunch break will be able to check the latest share prices, but on their way home the screens will display travel information and other news. The authorities will also be able to use the screens to relay urgent security information.

Is it just me or does it seem like every single decision the British government makes hinges on the threat of terrorism? You guys are starting to seem a bit obsessed over there. [Times Online]

I still think it's a little gross, all jiggly like that, but I won't complain one day when I'm wheeled in on a gurney and a 3D rendering saves my life. [Reuters; HeartWorks]

The stadium is to have a permanent 25,000 seat main structure, but for the Olympics they'll also install a 55,000 seat upper tier. When the games are over, it can be (relatively) easily taken down and, if needed, shipped to another Olympic city for the next games. In fact, London is currently talking to Chicago, a possible host of the 2016 games, about sending the stadium their way.

Chicago is making a low-impact games a big part of their bid, proposing holding events in existing structures like Soldier Field and the Bulls Arena rather than the earth-raping clusterfuck that's happened in Beijing where they had to build all sorts of crazy stuff to prepare for the influx of people.

One could imagine a movable set of stadiums, moving from city to city and being set up for each games. It's a cool idea, one that I could see grabbing hold as the real impact of having to build a megastadium every four years in a different city becomes more apparent. [Guardian via Treehugger]

St George says in the 19th century his great-grandfather, Alexander Stanhope St George, built a trans-Atlantic tunnel from London to New York which was forgotten by time. The artist discovered his great-grandfather's plans recently and using the diagrams installed parabolic mirrors at both locations that reflect what's happening 3500 miles across the pond. Now, I can't say for sure since I haven't seen the Telectroscope in person, but a picture in the gallery above suggests a more logical explanation that involves built-in webcams and broadband internet sending live video in both directions. Either way, the scope looks fantastic and I can't wait to check it out.

The Telectroscopes are on display 24/7 until June 15. New Yorkers can check out the Brits by heading to Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn; Londoners will need to head to Tower Bridge if they want their fix of spying on the Yanks. [Telectroscope via Gothamist 1, 2]

• large 2.8 inch VGA display (640x480 pixel resolution)
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Quadband GSM/GPRS/Edge and UMTS/HSDPA
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0
• 3.2megapixel camera with autofocus
• extra VGA camera in the front for video telephony
• QWERTY keyboard
• Qualcomm 528 Mhz CPU
• 4 GB of internal memory plus a MicroSD slot
• FM Radio
• an accelerometer sensor (like the iPhone's)

[newsMobile— Thanks Giancarlo!]