The UK Guardian says the report was apparently surprising to some inside NASA, who thought the project was more or less on track. Nine billion dollars have already been sunk into the Ares I rocket, which now risks becoming the most expensive pile of scrap metal ever seen. And thanks to a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit, the chance of that extra funding coming from the government seems unlikely.

This also throws a bit of a wrench in the plans of the Constellation project, which aims to put someone on Mars by the middle part of the century. But again, without funding and the additional voyages (like that to the moon), the 81 billion dollar project will suffer some epic setbacks. This could not have been what Dubya envisioned when he commissioned the project in 2004 (WE WERE SUPPOSED TO FIND LITTLE GREEN ALIENS!) [Guardian via Slashdot]

The whole thing is purely conceptual for now; it involves certain bacteria and ice nucleation and a lot of other science-y sounding words and phrases I don't understand. What I do understand is the phrase "It will snow ice cream," and what I wish I didn't understand is "The technology is a long ways off." Don't be fooled by the existence of an actual Cloud Project van—it's purely for illustrative purposes, and only functions as a regular ice cream truck/science information center.

Next up: Spaghetti. With a chance of meatballs. Get it? [The Cloud Project via Likecool

Student Kyle Buckner made this 3/4 scale model out of wood, with real working hinges and everything, and hand-drew the Dock, icons, keyboard, trackpad, and even the little Philips screws on with a pencil. It also features a magnetically-attached "screen" that has a pull-tab underneath. When pulled, the tab shows a very cool film strip drawing with illustrations of the wonders of Mac. Check out the gallery below for more shots. [Kyle Buckner, thanks Kyle!]

Tisch School of the Arts student Kacie Kinzer created the tweenbot as a kind of art experiment. In her words:

I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

In New York City, we might expect the smiley-faced tweenbot to be stabbed, stomped, mugged, or covered in graffiti, but every single one of the journeys was completed without a hitch. Pedestrians would stop and help the little guy when he was trapped against a curb or headed into traffic, and point him in the right direction.

I don't know about you guys, but I like to think this project says more about the state of our nation than that stupid negative-nancy stock market. It's just about the warmest, fuzziest thing I've seen since the last Muppet movie. [Tweenbots]

The project is a collaboration between creative director Tag (Ryo Taguchi), photo retoucher IMKW (Imakawa), and contemporary artist Immr (Yuichiro Imamura). Doesn't the ultra-modern Tokyo skyline look a little insane behind all that well-manicured green? [006600 via Cscout Japan]

[Product Page via Born Rich]

[Hackint0sh]

All in all then, this is one useless, but awesome, camera. The unusual undertaking was the work of the Legacy Project, done in order to get into the Guinness Book of Records. The image will be on display at the Art Center College of Design in Pasedina, California, from September the 6th to 29th. [Sci Fi Tech]

Beyond just being fun for the whole family, dying the straps will make it easy to tell which one your kids' friends slobbered all over and which one you keep in a drawer just for you. And at $4 each, it's pretty cheap as well. Then again, if just having a Wii isn't getting your wife into gaming, perhaps you've got no hope after all. – Jason Chen

Project Page [Instrutables via Kotaku]

This video of a breast bouncing contest, where two well-endowed, bikini clad women face off to see who's got more bounce. The contestants warm up with a catwalk, then a hop, and then get onto a platform carried by a dozen Japanese men. The score is counted by a digital readout — two per girl, naturally. The 7-minute clip is hosted on youtube. And it just doesn't download fast enough.

Unlike Chen, I think that YouTube can beat the venice project if they get a flash embedded p2p client for their player. Please. Quickly. –Brian Lam

P.S. Spoiler: Blue takes the win at 2941 digitally-counted bounces.
Venice Project Hands On: This Is Going To Kill YouTube [Gizmodo]

So how can the Venice Project demolish what is essentially the biggest video site on the internet? Two reasons: the founder's track record, and the state of the Venice Project now.

Janus and Niklas know peer to peer. They know exactly how to make it work to meet a singular need. And from the quality of both the video and the speed of the streaming, they've done a superb job with the Venice Project as well. It's definitely no contest when you compare this to the blurriness of YouTube and other streaming sites.

Do people care how the data is getting from the host to them? No. That's exactly why peer to peer will definitely win over a centralized, YouTube approach. By cutting down on bandwidth costs (they're mostly from the users), the Venice Project can have much higher quality video. Just like with Skype, what do people care that their call or video is going through Zimbabwe before getting to them? The only thing that's important is that the quality is there, and the content is there. All that the Venice Project needs now is content. – Jason Chen

Inside The Venice Project [Giga Om]

What's better than a solar-powered streetlight? A solar-powered streetlight that also provides free WiFi or MiMax connections. The Abertay Center for the Environment (ACE) at University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland, is now in cahoots with a company called Compliance Technology to build these wacky streetlamps using Photovoltaic technology. Called Project Starsight, folks from the ACE and students from the University will be the first to try it out during a pilot scheme.

Sunlight powers streetlights, Wi-Fi access [Cnet]