There are a lot of questions posed by this video. Is the excavator stranded? Is this just a group of people making the best of a messy, annoying situation? Or was it placed there intentionally, as a part of some kind of perennial South Carolinian tradition; a sacred coming of age ritual known in the local dialect as gittin'r done? Lastly, when can I try this?

Search as I may, I can find no answers. Just more questions. [Break]

Now, granted, I haven't actually slipped my hand into one of these potentially revolutionary paddles, but the design alone had me salivating this morning and that has to mean something, right?

The $100 set includes the two paddles, four balls, terrycloth wristbands and a carrying case. The designer claims the more intimate palm-to-ball feel will result in a faster game with more spin and better control.

No idea if that's true or not, but I can guarantee using these paddles will result in a completely different game of table tennis. Question now is whether or not the International Table Tennis Federation takes notice. [Broadmann via Uncrate]

It also reports time of run, top acceleration, speed, jump data (time in air, distance, height), rolls (count and rate), top altitude and steepness of runs. The 3d playback of your data is done in third person, over 3d terrain.





You'd figure there would be an app for this already but there's no doubt in my mind that if its good enough for the US bobsled team, all those sensors and gyroscope must be good enough for me. [ripxx via Popsci]

Baseball King Balls are specially designed polyethylene baseballs from Japan. By making adjustments to that band in the center of each ball, you can alter their aerodynamics, thereby throwing a sinker, curveball, knuckleball, riser, or screwball at will (no special training required!). The catch? There is no catch! Well...other than the obvious fact that these puppies aren't regulation.

But I'm sure that millions of fans and countless MLB officials won't even notice you holding the Baseball King on the cover of Sports Illustrated. [Japan Trend Shop via OhGizmo!]

BTW, if you hate the gallery format as much as the Grinch hated Christmas, click here.

GoPro Hero HD cam: HD video, mounts for helmets, chests, boards—even cars—make it pretty easy to share high-def versions of your adventures back home or on the internet. $270 [Review; GoPro]

Mountain Hardware heated jacket: Turn it off while moving, turn it on while resting. Easier than peeling off and reapplying layers on a cold snowy day. $400 [Review; Mountain Hardware]

The cheapest MP3 player you can find: Everyone has a nice one. But if you're roughing it up outside, you want to bring a crappy one and you want it to be somewhat disposable. SanDisk has some 25 dollar ones on Amazon. I used to use an iPod shuffle til they removed the buttons. For sports involving gloves, things with big buttons are best. A good stocking stuffer, but explain it as such so you don't look like a cheap ass. [Amazon]

Nike Plus: If you like running, the Nike Plus informatics system will track and log and compare your mileage with that of your friends. (I hate running.) $29 with an iPod nano or iPhone or iPod Touch, or $69 for one that doesn't need an iPod. [Review; Nike+]

Remember, though, that Nike Plus doesn't map your routes. If you've got an iPhone, I recommend Motion X GPS Sport app for tracking all sorts of outdoor activity routes. $3 [Review; iTunes Store]

Patagonia Nano Puff: Ounce for ounce the warmest tightest packing jacket Patagonia makes. PrimaLoft One (60g) filling makes it so. I'd use it as a good fall/spring outer, or a good winter/ski extra midlayer for when the cold creeps in. $150 [Patagonia]

Rugged Cameras: The W80 Pentax is pretty compact, takes OK photos and videos, and is shockproof to a few feet, coldproof to 14 degrees F and waterproof to 16 feet. I like it for winter sports. $300 [Review; Pentax]

The larger Lumix DMC-TS1 is only coldproof to 32 degrees on paper, and waterproof to 10 feet, but it takes superb images and videos. $400 [Review; Panasonic]

DON'T BUY Columbia Heated Boots: Seems like a good idea but they're not. Unlike heated jackets, which warm your core and are located on your center of gravity, heated boots won't do much to warm your body and are in danger of shorting if you step in a stream. They're also heavy and the weight on your extremities is tiring. [Columbia]

A Heli Trip: Sending a loved outdoor geek on an adventure is going to be better than any sort of piece of gear they might lug. Say, for a ski bum, a heli ski tour. Most people I know, unless deep into the scene, will consider replacing a chair lift with a helicopter, an extravagance. It's not that much, though. Couple hundred bucks [Ruby Mountains]

Black Diamond Guide Gloves with Gore Tex XCR: I just tested these gloves in 13 degree weather and was warm. (They're rated from -20 to +10 degrees F.) Why? XCR Gore-tex is supposed to breathe 25% more than regular Gore-Tex, keeping my hands dryer, and so, warmer. But the dampness that built up, however minor, did not bother me because the upper of the inner liner is wool, which stays warm when wet. Highly recommended. $159 For those in wetter snow climates, I like the Mountain Hardware Jalapeno gloves with Outdry tech. Basically, the heat press the inner and mid layer together to create a better waterproof seal that also has the side effect of fitting more tightly and providing more agility. [Black Diamond, Mountain Hardware]

Gerber Shard and Strata: There are tons of multitools on the market. Most do basic screwdriver, cutting and plier duty; This one has a special tool for gutting those annoying plastic packages gadgets come in. The Shard is a seven in one tool, and although we can't figure out all seven functions, it is safe to carry on flights. Price TBA. [Gerber Strata, Shard]

Spyder Winterskyn X-Static Crew Undershirt:Thermal underwear that makes you look like Spiderman and that is woven with silver fibers to eliminate bacteria created odors found in other synthetic baselayers. $100 [Spyder]

Sportiva Hobnail Ice Screws for Your Boots/Sneakers: These spikes screw into any pair of kicks (but probably not wise to use em on Nike Airs) to provide you with supreme ice traction. Removable when the snow melts in Spring. Like I said, they work on any footware with a solid sole, but work especially well on Sportiva's Goretex trail runners. $45 [Sportiva]

Brunton Firestorm Lighter and Coghlans Magnesium and Flint Firestarter: I always, grimly, imagine being stuck in a snowstorm, needing to build a fire. (I was a boy scout, so fire starting is always on my mind.) The Bruton Firestorm has a static ignition an the flame is good in up to 80mph winds. It also seals completely watertight and has a clip and lanyard hole. Alternatively, the Coghlans Firestarter has a magnesium strip which you shave into a pile near kindling, sparked using the flint on the opposite side to create a burst of 5400 degrees. $60 and $7 [Brunton and Coghlans]

Eton Solarlink Radio: A solar or crank charged radio with AM/FM/NOAA weather and a flashlight, siren and cellphone charger. I wouldn't take it camping, but I would feel safer driving into storms during ski season with one in the trunk. $80 [Eton]

Brooks-Range Rocket Tent: For lighter backcountry skiing and snowboarding, this tent uses your hiking/skinning poles as part of the structure. $600 [Brooks-Range]

Smith Maze Helmet and IO/s Goggles: I like Smith optics, esp the low light sensor lens in whatever size fits your face. I also like their platinum lens for bluebird days on the slopes. The IO
The IO and IO/s (smaller) goggles swap lenses pretty easily; two for one! (I'm also a fan of the turbo fan series, which has an active venting system powered by a couple of AAs. Great for muggier days or sweatier people.) The Maze helmet is one of the lightest around, has 9 vents and is available with headphones or bluetooth setups. $180 and $100 [Smith Optics]

K2 Snowboarding Stuff: On the recommendations of a few snowboard magazines and bloggers, and my experience with some bindings from last year, I went and threw down for some K2 snowboarding gear. Full kit! Thraxis boots, with boa dials for liner, upper and lower shells. A set of their standard but updated to plastic chassis Formula bindings, and a snowboard called the Slayblade, which kicked a lot of ass and won a lot of awards for its flat profile (no rocker or camber). I'll keep my old Lib Tech board around for some light/medium powder days, but sometimes you gotta trust the experts. $400, $200, $550 [K2]

Don't forget to recommend your own favorite outdoor adventure gear in comments—include pic and pricing if possible.

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

The Amazons, after all, amputated their left breast so it wouldn't impede their skill in archery. Though athletes have taken some truly crazy stuff to have an advantage, nobody's gone so far as elective amputation.

I've spent the better part of my lifetime trying to get out from under an idea of being "disabled," and the baggage that comes with that label. (Look it up in a thesaurus if you want a taste of what I mean.) As of yet, the best prosthetic available is not as efficient and not as capable as what Mother Nature gives us—or, what she was supposed to give me, and South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius. The revolutionary design of the woven carbon-fiber Cheetah Leg, nicknamed for its design inspiration, has been in existence for nearly 15 years—and after my initial triumphs with them in the mid 1990s, it has been the leg of choice for nearly all elite amputee sprinters. But in one instant, after Pistorius entered a summer 2007 track meet in Rome and placed second in a field of runners possessing flesh and bone legs, he and I were deemed too abled.

Commence the comical nightmare of being told that we now possess an "unfair advantage" in wearing prosthetic limbs to run. The scores of amputee sprinters who had competed with the limbs for the previous 13 years—and were still comfortably categorized as "disabled"—were virtually ignored. What is fascinating is the immediate shift in society's regard of a disabled athlete as an "inspiration" (cue the patronizing "awwwww") to a legitimate threat to other athletes ("Uh, what the hell do we do now?").

The first obvious issue for me was the deliberate ignoring of the truly excellent athletic feat performed by Pistorius and the insistence that if he could beat able-bodied athletes, "it must be the legs." Look, I also beat a few able-bodied athletes when I ran Division I track in college, and so have plenty of other well-trained amputees in the last decade. The difference is, none of us have ever posted his times. Bottom line: If it were just the legs making us superfast, I would have done a decade ago what he's doing now, and so would others. Oscar's not running with any different technology than what I ran with 14 years ago.

The modern sports ethos that we've constructed is based upon increasing advantages. Because certainly, in so many sports, we have pushed past natural human function to facilitate a more exciting game—better times, better performance. But where does an advantage become unfair? The crux of that question lays under the umbrella of ethics, which should indeed govern our rule structure within the competitive arena, but there's something in this story which specifically points toward a deep-seated fear, one we don't want to talk about in polite conversation, one which parallels historical instances of racial integration of sport and gender integration of sport. If we allow a person, one who we view as our inferior (in whatever way), to play with us, and then that person beats us, what does that say about us?

In the 1930s, Jesse Owens and Joe Louis blew the lid off common thinking of how "capable" an athlete of African descent was compared to an athlete of European descent, although the beginning of league integration took a decade more to achieve, and in some sports another three decades. It was as recent as 2003 when some members of the PGA balked at Annika Sorenstam's quest to compare her talent to the best men in the world, admitting their fear of how it might feel to have a woman beat them, an embarrassing display of archaic thinking.

In 2001, golfer Casey Martin, who played with a degenerative circulatory leg condition that made it nearly impossible to walk an 18-hole course, successfully won a Supreme Court decision allowing him to use a cart as an acceptable assistive medical device. The PGA Tour fought Martin for years, saying all pro golfers must walk because uniform rules are essential for the integrity of the sport. "Accommodating Martin with a golf cart will not fundamentally change the game," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for a 7-2 majority.

What keeps percolating for me is this perceived discrepancy between advantage and "unfair" advantage. It's absurd to look at a star line-up of athletes and think that they all have an equal shot. We don't cry foul play when an athlete from the United States, with the best access to training facilities, coaching staffs, and nutritional science is up against someone from say…Uzkbekistan. It's tough luck that 5' 11" Tyson Gay has to line up against a 6'5" Usain Bolt.

It makes me twitch when we talk about "a level playing field." No two athletes are the same genetically and environmentally, and the mental and emotional factors they've endured in their life are relevant in their performance, too. The only reason athletes today are better than those of decades ago is because of science and technology: We know exactly what and when to feed our bodies for maximum energy, we have lighter shoes and better bikes and new rubberized track surfaces and (legal) supplements and altitude training. We are upping the ante each Olympic year with "smarter" design of an athlete's tools, both inside and outside the body.

A whopping 74 world records were broken last year between March and November with the Speedo Fastskin LZR Racer suit. 74! Do you wonder if Mark Spitz is annoyed that his times are compared to those of athletes using something he didn't have the opportunity to use or wear?

My interest was piqued in the latest version of the Fastskin LZR suit, an R&D collaboration with NASA. From the initial press releases to subsequent monthly articles, whatever I could find describing it was overwhelmingly celebratory: Writers cooed about the sharkskin-inspired biometric fiber panels for less drag in the water, and its corset-like torso construction, enabling a swimmer to compress their physique and keep better, more supported form during fatigue, making them markedly more efficient in the water.

Very, very few writers brought up any kind of ethical concern of such a tool like this suit until after the Beijing Olympics, choosing to focus on the race between swimwear companies to develop their own supersuit. Even then, the majority of articles on swimming were marveling at how Michael Phelps says he "literally felt like a rocket coming off the wall" using the device. Jason Rance, the lead designer on this Speedo suit, commented, "It's part of the evolution of the sport, and it's really exciting for swimmers. They say they feel like Superman."

After the ensuing arms-race to out-do the performance of the Speedo, the Americans and Australians led a protest to FINA, the governing body of swimming. In July of this year, FINA banned the full-length suit, having the suit stop at the knee instead, and mandated that all must be constructed of a "textile," which is in itself an incredibly ambiguous, vague rule. The ban will take effect in January 2010, and—most intriguing—FINA will allow all records set with the suits to stand.

Let's think about Tiger Woods having not one, but two LASIK surgeries to achieve 20/15 vision, when what we consider the best of natural vision to be is a mere 20/20. Before his first LASIK surgery, Woods had lost 16 straight tournaments. Immediately following the surgery, he won 7 of his next 10. Advantage through technology, or not?

On a company website he endorses, there's a quote from Tiger after his first LASIK surgery, and I found what he said remarkable on a few levels. He said:

For years I played golf with an invisible handicap, invisible to everyone but me. It was my contact lenses. My eyes would sting burn and water all the while I was trying to concentrate on championship golf. I had the Lasik procedure with a TLC laser eye center surgeon and the results were fabulous. I'm 20/20 with no contacts. My vision is so crisp I feel I can read all the subtleties of the green and look down the fairway hundreds of yards and focus perfectly on the fly. I'm very happy with the results, and grateful for my TLC center experience.

The first remarkable aspect of this is that for him, the "handicap" was the ineptitude of the contact lenses, and not the fact that he was visually impaired. (He suffered from -11 nearsightedness, considered the worst 1%, legally blind without corrective glasses or contacts.) The second is his own literal description of being able to now clearly see—without the impediment of burning, stinging eyes—hundreds of yards down the fairway thanks to his technological altering. He himself declares the advantage.

"Invisible to everyone but me." So is that why nobody's up in arms, the fact that you can't see his augmentation? Is that why nobody's challenging this medical method which assists him in achieving dominance in golf? Of course, in the same way that my running legs don't power themselves, Tiger's new eyes don't power and execute a beautiful swing. His athletic talent is further revealed and enabled than what it would have been under the limits of nature, thanks to technology.

Advantage is just something that is part of sports. No athletes are created equal. They simply aren't, due to a multitude of factors including geography, access to training, facilities, health care, injury prevention, and sure, technology.

I really don't know how we compare world records of today to those of 50 years ago. A modern climber's ascent to Everest has innumerable inherent differences than an ascent of a climber who didn't have access to lighter tanks, comfortable breathable fibers against the skin, medical support at base camp, etc. The competitive benchmarks in that sport have changed from simply being, "Can you climb the mountain?" to "Can you climb it with oxygen, or without?" A wooden tennis racket isn't the same thing as the graphite ones used now. We wholeheartedly accept titanium golf clubs, LASIK surgery, the invention of new pitches, better injury prevention and repair, titanium knee and hip replacements, Tommy John surgery (surprisingly even in Youth Leagues), and a notable shift in the size of the average NFL player.

Where do we draw this ethical line on performance enhancement? I'm not sure I can answer that right now. What I will say is that I don't think it's useful to have this discussion around the existing Cheetah Leg, confusing the current non-enhanced technology with future prosthetics that will indeed provide augmentation. As with all evolution in sport, let's decide the parameters of competition when the technology actually exists, when we have metrics that inform us as to what extent augmentation is a certainty. Conjecture has no place in this discussion.

Maybe our acceptance of Tiger's LASIK super vision is really answered in the question, "Can everyone have access to it?" In other words, perhaps because the average citizen out there on the street can get laser surgery, it's okay for Tiger to get it, too, whereas the nature of a bionic prosthetic is still viewed as exclusive, and having to wear one isn't exactly a position the average citizen covets.

What's going to happen in the future, especially with the rise of more capable prostheses? The human leg is actually a series of internal motors and springs, so the fact that external motors aren't allowed in track is kind of interesting. (Case in point: Dean Kamen placed 14 motors in his new design of the artificial arm to simulate human function.)

In the not-so-distant future, designers will be able to build a prosthetic leg with a chip in it that they can program to accurately simulate human performance thresholds. (Since we know that no two "able-bodied" athletes have the same bodies, and therefore what they can achieve with their bodies are different, will they average out individual "able-bodied" thresholds to get those metrics? Will they cap how fast they imagine the fastest man on earth to be at 9.58? That time was unimaginable even 18 months ago, when Bolt then set the new WR at 9.72.)

The chip used in a prosthetic that will dictate "acceptable human" metric-based output is what will be allowed in the Olympic standard; meanwhile, the Paralympics will be no holds barred. In an ironic, amazing cultural flip, you will see runners in the Paralympics going faster than those in the Olympics. Now won't that be an interesting comment on "dis"ability?

Aimee Mullins is an athlete, speaker, actress and model we met at TEDMED. She's also the guest editor for our theme week This Cyborg Life. Read her bio here.

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It's about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature's ultimate machine.

LASIK image: Stefan Zaklin/Stringer/Getty; Tiger image: Lucas Dawson/Stringer/Getty Images; LZR image: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images; Aimee images: Howard Schatz, Greg Kadel

Kinda Like the Old One

The GoPro Hero HD is squarely based off the old model. It has the same mounting system, case, physical shape and user interface. It is so similar, I suggest you read the original short review I did and then come back here for the low down on what makes this one better. Here's the link. Or you could just take these basic points as a foundation.
• Awesome mounts for everything.
• Meant to be semi cheap so you don't sweat it, yet capable.
• It has a 170 degree field of vision and the case makes it waterproof to 100 feet. Very rugged.
• Two buttons for controlling the basic UI. Shoot, toggle modes. The UI is so rudimentary you'll often forget how to use it, but all you need to do is turn it on and shoot.
• There's no native LCD for viewing replays.
• It's not tiny.

The Video is Now HD

Instead of the paltry 512x384, the $270 camera with surf mount has several modes, most HD. On the silky smooth 60 frame per second mode there are standard definition resolutions of 848x480 or HD at 720p/1280x720. Both are 16:9 ratio, which is recommended only for motorsports or other activites where you're not trying to catch yourself in frame standing up. The 60 frames per second modes are noticeably smoother in normal playback but they're meant to also look better if you slow down the frame rate playback for slow motion in your favorite video editor. The grain was noticeably worse when using 60FPS indoors, but not a deal breaker.

In 30 frame per seconds, there are modes for 720p again, but also a 1280x960 which is 4:3 high def. That's the default and I used that for surfing which is (usually, if you do it right) something you do while standing. The 1080p mode is 16:9, and 30 frames per second but limits the field of vision from 170 to 127 degrees. Again, the 16:9 modes are used less than you'd expect in sports shots. There's also a center weighted mode for exposing the road when shooting from inside a car, and leaving the dashboard underexposed properly.

The bottom line is that this new camera is in HD. That's the big improvement

Quality

This is a still of the movie at full res, not the actual 5MP stills.
First, watch the movies the guys at the company produced here. Then watch my shitty one filled with shitty surfing. Colors were a little washy/green but the ocean and the sky together, with the lens collecting droplets, well, that isn't an idea situation. Watch it for yourself and form your own conclusions, but note the reflections off the water which will inform you of pretty decent autoexposure and sharpness. It's a vast improvement over other sports cams and the standard def version. Oh a little thing held over from the last generation that isn't a ding or a plus: the 170-degree angle is great for reducing apparent vibration and for making sure what you want in shot is in the frame, but has the unfortunate side effect of making things like waves and jumps and other otherwise impressive looking things seem smaller.

Storage Capacity

Average recording times:
1080p: 12 min/GB
960p: 14 min/GB
720p: 16min/GB @30fps; 11 min/GB @ 60fps

GoPro recommended you use fast SDHC cards to save battery life. And that on a 32GB card you can get almost 6 hours of recordings, although you'd be constrained by battery life. Oh one annoyance — every time you clear the card, the files are named from 001, 002, again. So if you copy them over to the same location, they'll ask you if you want to overwrite. I wish the camera kept its file name numbers in series.

Battery Life

The other big change is that instead of being powered by a pair of AAAs, GoPro jammed a 1100Mah 3.7 volt battery in the case. I did not do a full run down test, but shooting 51 minutes of video didn't reduce the charge one notch; GoPro estimates you can get 2.5 hours of battery life from the camera in normal climates, regardless of the definition of video you're shooting. The old model died quickly in the cold if you weren't using rechargeables but this camera's housing retains a bit more heat making it better for the winter. You charge it by USB. Unfortunately you can't charge it while doing a USB transfer, yet. They hope to fix this by firmware later.

Sound

Stills

I didn't test this mode, but GoPro claims the 5MP shots are better due to better processing. There are several still modes, as before: Single shot, triple shot that takes three shots over 2 seconds and a time lapse mode that can be set to record a shot every 2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 seconds. And a 10 second delay timer. For me, this is not why you get a sports camera.

The Surf Mount, in Particular

Oh it's 3M double sticky and it seems to hold up just fine. You clean your board of wax and then use a bit of rubbing alcohol to apply it. Let it settle overnight. To get it off (permanently) you use a hair dryer, which sounds a bit scary when it comes to something nice and fiberglass, but what do I know? (That's why I put this one on a pop out longboard.

The Future

Another big but so far not useful thing on the new camera is the expansion port. they plan on offering a bigger back door for the case, so you can fit in an external LCD screen for replays or an extra battery pack. I like the idea. I'm thinking they could probably go ahead and work on making the camera smaller even if it costs a bit more, in the next generation, though. I like GoPro enough to use it, even though gadgets on the mountain or in the surf piss me off by way of distraction. Now that they've got mounts, higher resolutions and battery endurance covered, I think making it even smaller is the next step to making it more enjoyable.

High def modes

Best mounting options in the business

Rugged, yet affordable case good for bumps and waterproof to 100 feet

Wide angle lens captures 170 degrees of motion so you fit in the shot and vibration is dampened.

Smooth 60 frames per second great for action shots

Relatively cheap for what you get

Case kind of biggish
[GoPro]

That is an Egyptian vulture, a Neophron percnopterus. Mason has been rescuing them since he was 11, and now he keeps doing that and trains them as his fly instruments. This is how it works: He carries one at take off. Once he is airborne, he frees the raptor, who starts looking for warm, ascending air currents.

Mason—who usually flies with another person, charging $147 per flight—steers the paraglider following the vulture for a while, enjoying the paths traced by the bird. Every now and then, he will use a whistle to call the vulture, who returns to him from behind the paraglider, landing on his arm like an F18 would land on an aircraft carrier.

Mason has other birds too. In fact, he rescues, nurtures, and then frees them into the wilderness as soon as they are in good shape.

Yes, I so want to do this too. Badly. [SFGate]

The screen, which Titans punter AJ Trapasso pegged on Friday, hangs 90 feet above the field, which is just low enough to be in the way of seriously high punts. If it gets hit again the ball is ruled dead, the clock is set back and the play is done over. If it happens a lot this season, however, look for the league to force Jerry Jones to spend a couple million bucks to move it up 10 feet. [NFL via Engadget]

Apparently nobody had thought to test if a punted football could reach that high, and when Titans punter AJ Trapasso hit the screen, none of the officials knew quite what to do. It's not a reviewable play, but even if it were, it's not really fair to make a team waste a challenge on interference from the stadium which is entirely not the team's fault.

The solution? The NFL could change the rules so there's a "re-do" option if the screen is hit, which will require another referee to be watching the flight of the ball (none were at the game last night). Or the Cowboys owners could raise the screen to be out of the ball's flight path, but that would cost at least $2 million. It's a tricky situation, and one that'll have to be worked out quickly.

My suggestion: This screen seems like a real danger to the integrity of professional football. If the Cowboys owners will cover the delivery fee, I will be willing to take it off their hands. My email address is over there on the masthead. [ESPN, thanks Robert!]

Face it, you could barely slip a playing card between your feet and the ground on a vertical jump. Poweriser spring-loaded boots can give you a vertical leap of up to six feet and run strides of up to nine feet. Just imagine what you could do on the basketball court. Check out the product page to see it in action. [Powerisers]
Of all the sports out there, golf is probably the one you need the most help with. Titanium drivers have revolutionized the sport, but the Air Force One driver from PowerBilt takes things a step further with compressed nitrogen. Filling the clubhead with nitrogen at 150 psi allows you to reduce the thickness of the face and increase the size of the sweet spot—and increased flex in the clubface means greater distance. Surprisingly, this club even meets USGA guidelines. [PowerBilt via Link]
When it comes right down to it, putting is really at the core of a good golf game. The Argon Laser Putter helps give you an edge in that area with a three-laser targeting system. [Argon Putter via Link]
The Vector O Bat blends the finest in wiffle technology with space age alloys to generate better aerodynamics, faster bat speed and greater distance. [Reebok via Link]
Designed for the three big football leagues (England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga, and Italy's Serie A), Nike's T90 Ascente is the most advanced football $140 can buy. The secret is in a three-layer construction that basically turns the entire ball into a sweet spot. [Nike via Link]
Wooldand creatures won't know what killed them when you are sporting a TAC-15 crossbow. It mounts directly onto an AR-15 rifle, allowing you to switch between both weapons quickly and easily. [PSE via Link]
Until these high tech bodysuits like the LZR Racer are officially banned from major swimming competitions starting next year, athletes are going to continue to break world records at an alarming rate. [Speedo]
I don't see a Tour de France in your future, so why work so hard with all that pedaling? The Sanyo Enloop carbon fiber electric bike handles that problem for you and can keep you going for up to 62 miles on a single 3.5 hour charge. [Sanyo via Link]
Spend less time fishing and more time getting drunk with this radio controlled chum boat. Not only does it drop feed and a bait hook up to 950 feet away, it also has a built-in fish finder that relays information to your handheld remote. [Pro Idee via Link]
Team building my ass—show your co-workers who is really the boss on your next paintball excursion by building a turret. This beauty can mow down your enemies with a firing rate of 34 balls per second. It can even be controlled with a HUD from up to half a mile away. Hit the following link for the complete instructions on how to build one yourself. [Inventgeek]

Yesterday I was reading a post on Gizmodo that talked about how, among other things, the only way to really test certain gadgets is to take them outside and use them in the real world (as in, there's only so much you can know about a waterproof camera without using it wholeheartedly during fun summer outdoor oceanside play).

For me what came to mind is my iPhone. People who know me know that I love the outdoors and I generally have a pretty low-key lifestyle. I don't wear a lot of make-up in my day to day life. I pretty much wash my hair and go, so it's often wet if you see me before 10am. And whether clothes require dry cleaning or ironing play a large role in whether or not I will even purchase them (unless they are beautiful dresses, for which I have a weakness).

I also spend a lot of time outdoors walking, running, biking, swimming, tossing a frisbee or sitting outside reading. Being someone who enjoys their solitude, I do many of these things by myself. And because I like to make sure I can get help if needed, my iPhone almost always joins me on my excursions.

When I run, I leave it at home (I don't run far enough for it to be a big deal). But when I go on long walks or even short bike rides, I bring my phone and yet I need my hands to be free, so I have to put my iPhone somewhere. As practical as so-called fanny packs may be, I refuse to wear them so my iPhone almost always ends up in my breasts/sports bra. In my case, this is a pretty decent place to keep it although - like sex - some positions work better than others.

I've found that having the iPhone totally immersed in said breasts (top photo) is the best for keeping the iPhone safe during my walks and bike rides so that it doesn't accidentally fall out and meet an untimely death or cracked LED or screen. On the down side, my walks sometimes last for an hour or longer and, if I accidentally turn the screen toward my skin rather than my clothes, then the iPhone's screen gets quite smeared (I slather my entire body with lotion each morning to keep it soft, so it may be the lotion - and not just sweat - that's getting on the screen). But you know that look that your iPhone screen gets if you hold it in the palm of your hands for 10 minutes, or up against your face while talking on the phone for longer? It's that times ten, which is kind of gross.

I've tried to keep more of the iPhone peeking out of my clothes (see middle photo) but I've had a few near-drops so have nixed that position.

When I first got my iPhone, I thought it would be held in place better if I tucked it under my sports bra straps (see bottom photo) but not only did that feel awkward, it also nearly slipped out a few times. Hence, the top position won. (Oh, and in case you're wondering about keeping it in my shorts - that's a big no. The waist band on my running shorts is not tight enough and I don't wear lyrca biking shorts, which would probably work fine for holding the iPhone since they can't slip through the bottom as they can with running shorts).

I do worry sometimes that the sweat and/or lotion will - over time (or on a very warm day) - be enough to cause water damage to my iPhone and be detectable as such at the Apple store. And then I wonder if the guys at the Genius bar will consider storing one's iPhone in one's breasts as "normal use" or as "mis-use"? Would the hypothetically damaged phone be able to be switched out? Would this be a very awkward conversation at the Apple store when I swear that while I didn't drop it in a puddle, I did regularly keep it in my breasts while biking? Well, let's just hope it doesn't come to that. It would be awkward (but funny) to have to demo this at the Apple store.

UPDATE: I've been told that my use of the word "slather" was perhaps too sultry. It wasn't intended as such. Let me clarify: I put on a bunch of lotion. On all 65.5 inches of me. And the entire process takes about 5 seconds. Hence, I say "slather" rather than "place" lotion. [My Sex Professor]

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.

You play the game by trying to throw the ball past your opponent through a netted hole while you both jump around. It certainly looks fun, at least for a little while. I'd probably want to try it out before dropping all that money on it, however.

According to former astronaut Scott Carpenter, it's "the best conditioning exercise for space travel." Sure! Although the weight limit is 200lbs per player, so you'd better hope you don't have any really muscular potential astronauts. [Hammacher Schlemmer via Uncrate]

A U.S. proposal to limit the amount of swimsuit coverage - between the waist and knees for males, not beyond the shoulders or below the knees for females - was overwhelmingly passed by the FINA congress, meeting in Rome during the world championships.

The new rule also says suits shall only be made from "textiles," but that term has yet to be defined.

It's about time—I mean, this seemed like such an easy fix. The only problem is that the 108 world records set last year, the 30 set so far this year and whatever records are set between now and 2010 will be allowed to stand. That means swimmers competing in world championship events and the Olympics beyond the start of the ban will have to measure themselves against records set with a major technological edge. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if those records get marked with a big, fat asterisk somewhere down the line. [SF Gate and PA/ Image via NASA]

Cosmetically, the HD Hero is basically indistinguishable from the previous version, and the similarities run deep: it's got the same 170° field of view, an identical 5MP still shooting mode and the same water-resistant credentials. But hardware performance has been bolstered elsewhere, with support for 30fps shooting in 1080p mode and 60fps shooting in 720p, all powered by a larger 1100mAh Li-Ion battery for up to three hours of recording per charge.

For such a large performance jump on such a new camera a price hike is inevitable, but it's really not that bad. The $300 price is at least in the same range as the $200 base model, and judging by the previous model, I'd expect the footage—especially in the 720p slo-mo mode—to be fairly spectacular. [HelmetCameraCentral via Engadget—Image from Freeskier Mag]

The mechanism involves a complicated math algorithm that tracks and predicts the ball's trajectory in real time, only 400 milliseconds after being hit. To get the data needed for the calculation, ESPN uses a 2000Hz Doppler radar which follows the ball's speed, location and spin, given precise data of distance travelled, something that before took seconds or even minutes to calculate. After calculation, the path is shown overlaid on screen in real time, chasing the ball precisely.

The results are quite cool, even while they fail (again) at making baseball exciting to me. [Popular Science]

And yes, I hereby declare today Gizmodo's Official Ball Celebration Day.

The new ball was designed for the three big football leagues (England's Premier League, Spain's La Liga, and Italy's Serie A) and it will undoubtedly lead to less games that end regulation tied 0-0. Essentially, Nike has expanded the sweet spot to cover the entire ball using a three-layer construction that will equate to longer kicks, greater accuracy and better speed. They have even updated the ball with a high tech look to increase visibility. If I had $140 and I wasn't an American with little interest in soccer, I would be all over this. [Nike via Crunchgear]

It's a good idea, and combined with this technology, which monitors the force of impacts to the head, we could soon see the perfect helmet to make football an all-around safer activity. If that's what we want to do.

I can't be more clear: I don't like seeing kids dying out on the football field, or afterward because no one knew how badly they were injured or overheated. But the sporting culture seems to demand human sacrifice.

Why do pro boxers eschew the helmet that amateur Olympian pugilists are required to wear? Why are there entire insanely funny movies devoted to the fact that hockey got boring when it eased up on rink bloodshed? And why is it that most people only remember the car races where somebody flips up into the catchfence and scatters debris into the grandstand? Think it over. [PopSci]