What started as a stock Nerf Vulcan—more than enough foam killage for most of us—was modified with four wheels, a turret, webcam and laser sight. And then, as you see in this clip, the tank turned on humans, hunting modders' girlfriends everywhere as if the violence were some sort of game.

It's with some irony that the Nerf Tank, the same invention that will directly lead to Man's demise, will be heralded by generations of other beings to come. So at least we have that little academic point to comfort us as the world melts into a sea of childproof yellow lava. [Instructables via MAKE]

Studying Epsilon Eridani [artist representation above] is like having a time machine to look at our solar system when it was young. This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth. Epsilon Eridani looks a lot like the young solar system, so it's conceivable that it will evolve similarly.

Looking at the Spitzer data, the Epsilon Eriadni solar system should have at least three planets in orbit. At least, Marengo and Backman are saying this is the only way to explain its asteroid belt configuration, which is very similar to our own, but in a more primitive state.

These include one inner asteroid belt which is a virtual duplicate to the one between Mars and Jupiter. There's also an outer ring similar to the Kuiper Belt. The latter holds 100 times more material than ours because it hasn't go through a process called the Late Heavy Bombardment yet. In theory, this happened when our solar system's planets attracted much of the Kuiper belt into the inner orbits. Finally, there's a third belt located in the equivalent orbit of Uranus, with as much mass as our Moon.

According to Marengo, "planets are the easiest way to explain what we're seeing."

We believe you, Dr Marengo Sir. Of course, it could all just be a huge scam, a deception, a camouflage system designed to hide one of the largest starship construction facilities in the Federation from our puny telescopes. And yes, right there I just became the nerdiest Gizmodo editor second only to Jason Chen. [Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics]

Obviously, that would streamline a process that currently requires a second aircraft to take the plane up to the supersonic speeds necessary to engage a CVC "scramjet" engine. Like all of DARPAs projects, the Vulcan engine is definitely an ambitious undertaking—and the 2012 date they set to have a working prototype doesn't help matters. Check out Aviation Week for more technical details on Vulcan. [Aviationweek via Crave via DVICE]

N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25

(Ages 6 years & up/Approximate Retail Price: $39.99/Available: Fall 2008)

The top-of-the-line blaster for mission supremacy, the NERF N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25 blaster is a 25-dart belt-fed fully automatic blaster that will intimidate any opponent. This impressive blaster comes complete with a fold-up tripod to steady your aim, 25 sonic micro darts that whistle through the air when launched and a 25-dart belt. The NERF N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25 blaster features the Tactical Rail System allowing players to customize their blaster for each mission - for example, players can use the green 'night vision' Tactical Light accessory (sold separately) for nighttime missions. Six "D" batteries are required but not included.

Essentially, I have to say the OQO2 is brilliant, based off design, specs, price, and the details that come to a product in its second revision. The Flipstart is also nice as hell, with a higher-res screen, the clamshell which makes for easier viewing/typing on a table top, trackpad, VGA cam, and dedicated Ctrl-Alt-Del button. But because of aesthetics and details alone, I prefer the OQO2. I've put shots of all angles, rooter to the tooter, nave to chop, in the gallery below. And after the jump more impressions of the two that go more than just skin deep.

The OQO2 boasts a smaller, magnesium case, better processors, and double the Storage and RAM at 60GB/1GB. The Flipstart loads its little-big body up with an external lid LCD, a higher res screen at 1024 x 768 (vs 800 by 480 of the OQO2). Basically, the OQO2 looks better in person, and on paper. It has yet to be determined which one is easier to type on, but my impressions for both are that you won't be touch typing on either one of these very quickly without an external Bluetooth keyboard.

OQO Minutia:
The OQO2's backlit keyboard and screen are brighter, and the OQO2 has a light sensor that auto adjusts those features.

The OQO has a zoom that goes in and interestingly, out, so that the max res can be up to 1200 by 720. Good for moving files around a desktop. Using the dock, which contains an DVD burner ($399) and every other port you'd expect in a dock, it has both VGA and HDMI ports capable of doing 1920 by 1080 simultaneously! That hits 128 - 256MB of your system RAM, but at least its doable.
What's also cool is that the OQO has a dedicated HDMI port on its bottom. Easy enough to use it for DVI or VGA with the right adapters.

The keyboard itself has FN buttons for bringing up a wireless control panel, rotating the screen orientation, locking shift, fn, ctl and alt keys, and the typical volume controls. And a numeric pad.

The OQO2's thumbstick is an evolved version of the Thinkpad's and its much nicer. (They have the original IBM team that did the first, and they evolved it without pissing off any IBM laywers.)

The OQO2 has a cool whip antenna for WWAN, and actually, the WiFi can use one of two antennas, whichever is better, and the WWAN uses both to make a mega-signal. OQO2 is available with Verizon or Sprint EVDO, and soon, HSDPA.

Flipstart Minutia:
The Flipstart's keyboard doesn't have a numeric pad, but it does have a nub and a trackpad, as well as a cross pad for arrow keys. dedicated media controls...annoyingly right below the spacebar. It also has a zoom button, and a desktop button, and a window switching button (like a dedicated Alt-Tab). By the way, the best thing about the keyboard is the dedicated Ctrl-Alt-Del button. Wouldn't need that if Windows didn't crash so damn often, but this is the harsh cold reality of the situation, and a solution just one click away.

The Flipstart also has a sideshow like Screen up on the lid, but since its not sideshow-powered, plugins for email checking, iTunes playback, and other stuff needs to come from Vulcan directly. There is a random USB port on top, too, which uses the pins, but not the exact plug. It's for expansion, not for your typical devices.

The VGA camera is pretty useful for conferencing. I'm glad its in there.

The Flipstart has a side toggle wheel, like an old blackberry, that can be used to quickly navigate through a quick menu the device has. Smart, as its unlikely you'd enjoy mousing around such a tiny screen for very long.

More later...–Brian Lam

Oqo [Gizmodo]
Flipstart [Gizmodo]

In fact, business people are so familiar with RIM's little emailing device, eHarmony should have a field measuring your naughty bits in BlackBerries. After all, 1.5 BlackBerries wide and 4 BlackBerries deep make a whole lot more sense to a man than a cryptic "32C". – Jason Chen

FlipStart [Gizmodo]

In it, you can see just how super small it is (5.9 x 4.5 x 1.6 inches, weighing at a little less than two pounds), how the keyboard works, and how that 1024 x 600 display looks. You won't be able to see the 1.1 GHz Pentium M, the 512MB of RAM, the 30GB hard drive, or the 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, so you'll have to take our word on that.

– Jason Chen

Created by a company called Vulcan, another one of the exploits of Microsoftian co-founder Paul Allen, is this fat little $1999 UMPC with its 5.6-inch LCD screen with 1024x600 resolution running a Pentium M processor that belongs in a museum. This is a situation where we think that old phrase "better late than never" is simply not true. Will this relic be released? No date has been set yet. – Charlie White

FlipStart E-1001S Pics and details [Handtops]