The picture above is a crashed UFO prop, complete with chasing LED lights.

Or there are the "ghost sliders," where you attach a set of casters to kneepads in order to drift across pavement like a ghost. This is dangerous. Don't blame me when you end up eating asphalt instead of candy and get your jaw wired shut.

There are hundreds of projects at the link. Check it out if you need something to keep you occupied this weekend. [Make]

On May 4, 1536, Francesco Lapi—a Florentine merchant who at the time was in Seville, Spain—used the symbol @ in a letter, the first ever known instance of a document containing it. It didn't had a domain name after it, however. Back then, he was referring to the number of "amphoras" that were shipped in three vessels which departed Spain on their way to Rome, Italy. An "amphora" was a commercial volume measure of those times. The document you can see above says:

There, an amphora of wine, which is one thirtieth of a barrel, is worth 70 or 80 ducats.

In Spanish, the word for that measure was called "arroba," which is the name the @ symbol still receives today in that language. Later, the symbol was conserved in typewriters' keyboards: People kept using the at sign through the centuries, and it was common in commercial accounting where it meant "at the price of."

It was in 1971 when Ray Tomlinson saw the symbol and thought it could be good to append the mail server host to the name of the person receiving an email:

I chose to append an at sign and the host name to the user's (login) name. I am frequently asked why I chose the at sign, but the at sign just makes sense. The purpose of the at sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was "at" some other host rather than being local.

And the rest, as they say, it's history. I don't know about you, but from now on I would be saying jesus amphora gizmodo dot com every time I have to tell my mail address. It just sounds so much better. Or better yet, jesus monkey gizmodo dot com. Yes. Definitely this one. [NYT Blog]

Unfortunately, there is some assembly required, but it'll teach the young'ns about how monkeys need to often be under direct sunlight. The solar chimp will cost you about £14.19 ($20), and while the product description says its suitable for kids over 8, I don't think anyone over the age of 8 is going be lining up, Hannah Montana tickets style. Your best bet is to hang it by a window and hope your toddler can comprehend "photovoltaic arrays" even though their thoughts will be more, "where's my DS?" [Select Solar via DVICE]

With a resolution of 800x600 pixels, the webcam will serve your basic Skype needs, even though I'm sure that's not this gadget's most useful trait. I could use a little bit of "Happy every day!" in my life as long as it makes me forget about the other monkey who managed to leave the country with a $1 trillion deficit. Still the monkey-webcam's adorable smile/pencil holder/webcam combination for $25 propels the product into "lets-buy-it-for-kicks" territory, even though you know you really don't need it. [USB Geek via Craziest Gadgets]

With a .7 second look, both man and beast are on even ground, but with a 0.4 second or 0.2 second (!!) peek, the college kids got owned, completing it 40% of the time compared to the chimps' 80%. One thing's for sure— taking this test probably didn't help the college kids with their self esteem. While not as funny as a chimp working a typewriter while smoking a cigarette, the video above of brave Ayumu doing his thing is pretty damn amazing. Get that chimp a stylus!

And if you want to be impressed, see the next video, showing the chimps memorizing the digits after the mere peek.

[AP]

The scariest one? This robot chimpanzee made by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Now we won't have to worry about monkeys taking over the world (Planet of the Apes) or robots taking over the world (every other Sci-Fi movie). It'll actually be monkey robots. And we can identify them by their cheap Chinese-made Disney knockoff shirts. – Jason Chen

A gallery of unusual Chinese robots [Primidi]

Readers could also use it to spy on a victim who doesn't know this is a webcam. A very dumb victim.

USB MyPet Webcam cranks the cuteness factor [uber gizmo]

Blow Monkey Nail Dryer [Newlaunches.com]

The Kapo Super Monkie, which translates to something like "Super Stealing Monkey," apparently, is an FM radio inside of a monkey head. The switches are embedded in the hair of the monkey and there's a tuning dial in the ear, I think. All I know is that I'd set this thing on a numbers station and fall asleep to the lilting tones of a woman repeating "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" over and over again while sucking on the Monkie's nose.

Kapo Super Monkie radio [CNET Asia]