Gizmodo: melbourne

Rear-Projection Urinal Lets You Pee Over Football Games or Bill O'Reilly

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:20:00 EDT

A pub in Melbourne came up with what potentially could be the best and wrongest multimedia device ever invented: A urinal with a rear projector, so you don't miss a single second of a game when you have to pee.

The idea of the Rear Projection Urinal is good, although potentially disturbing—especially when your favorite TV anchor appears. Or when people instinctively follow the ball and end peeing on the next guy in line. Or when they play a Nicholas Cage movie.

Yes, this can be disturbing and very wrong. Not as disturbing as the crazy singing clown urinal from Osaka, but close. [Melbourne Pubs]

Australia Building Huge Electric Car Grid: 600,000+ Stations By 2012

John Herrman — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:50:23 EDT

Apparently not content with just one giant ongoing infrastructure project, Australia has committed to fully outfitting three of its biggest cities for widespread electric car use. In hardware terms, that amounts to 200,000-250,000 charging stations each for Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with an additional 150 battery swap stations scattered between them. The effort will cost $1bn in Australian Dingo Dollars, which is about $667m USD. If that's not ambitious enough for you, consider this: it should be online in three years.

Granted, most of these 'stations' will just be small, designated sockets clamped on to existing lines at homes, businesses and parking lots, and the battery swap stations will essentially trade your batteries the same way that Ace Hardware does your propane tanks. But even if the technology is kind of trivial, the fact remains that a significant part of Australia's population will soon have a ubiquitous infrastructure for electric cars.

The Australian government is currently encouraging domestic automakers to answer the anticipated demand for electric vehicles, because, well, there are about two right now. There is, however, a suspicious aspect to this plan: the government is suggesting cell phone-like contracts as a method of charging for the juice, which sounds like about as good an idea as Kangaroo Jack IV. [AP via Slashdot]

Blaupunkt SD27 Car Receiver Too Hip For CDs

ybaranovsky — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:00:54 EDT

CDs are slowly going the way of the VHS tape and the Blaupunkt Melbourne SD27 car receiver/audio player is just further proof of that. The receiver has no CD player at all—instead, it plays MP3s and WMA files, includes an MMC/SD card reader and has an LED display that'll show all of your ID3 files and folders.

The unit also accepts USB devices and even has optional iPod and Bluetooth interfaces, providing you with almost every possible way to load music onto it. At $160, the sweet little player may as well come with a shovel you can use to bury your beloved CD collection. [Blaupunkt via SciFi]

New Apple Store: Melbourne, Australia

Mark Wilson — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:55:03 EST

This new Apple store proposal is part of a $200 million redevelopment in Melbourne, Australia. It features a glass atrium ceiling, and will be adjacent to a hotel and shopping complex connected by a clear, circular-panel walkway. Over the last 100 years, this site has been redeveloped twice, most recently housing the Fun Factory, a historical amusement center that had fallen into disrepair.

Apple fanboy or not, the center has some cool architecture. And ironically, the minimal Apple shop is more imposing, monolithic structure despite its shorter stature.

More pictures...

– Mark Wilson

Wonka-style Flagship [appleinsider]

Is that Your Phone Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

tgrumet — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:06:32 EDT

Well, if you can't get a Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaudi or Ieoh Ming Pei, you may as well get that local Aussi architect to build you a highrise that looks like a telephone. And plunk it in the middle of Melbourne too. Why not? Obviously, Milliionaire "Crazy" John Ilhan, an Australian communications magnate has no problem with this plan and has unveiled a design for a $40 million tower in, yes, the shape of a cellphone. Comparing his building to the Sydney Opera House, Ilhan says, "I just want Melbourne to stand out — that's the idea behind it." Yup, we got it Mr. Crazy. As of now, there is permission granted to build a standard-shaped tower on City Road, Southbank, but no word on whether the city will allow a 120m phone to hulk over the city. Finalised plans for the tower will be submitted for approval late next year. Can't wait to see how that goes.

Imposing: An artist's image of the $40 million tower in the shape of a phone">Crazy idea! The high-rise mobile
[Herald Sun]