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Now Available: The Ugliest Cellphone Ever Created

Not only does this Givori Serendipity phone look like it was designed by some sort of ADD-afflicted, semi-retarded Midwestern housewife at a forced-labor craft fair, but it costs $3,100. Hell, I’d pay that much to make sure I never become friends with anyone who would use this thing. Luckily, that probably won’t be an issue,…

Take Your Monkey To Space And Spank Him

The monkeys in the U.S. space program might seem like an odd subject for an animated film, especially since scientists killed a ton of them in the process. In fact, the first six monkeys, uninspiringly named Albert I through Albert VI, all died either in flight, on impact, or right after landing. Not exactly your…

My Table Is on Fire and It Feels Delicious

This kind of reminds me of the table at my first Japanese apartment, which had a heater bolted to the bottom, but Ward Huting and Gerard de Hoop’s version is a lot sexier with its discular luminescence. Its chewy center oozing warmy warms is a built-in candle—not a totally exposed heat source like my old…

How To: Woz’s Segway Polo Tutorial

Segways and Polo. Those two cups of tea are not really my bag, or whatever. But Woz’s videos on how to play Segway Polo are an interesting look at the rule book. You can’t ram or shove others, or run your Segway into the goal like those cheating bastards in Super Mario Strikers. (You know…

The Gray Caps Will Take Over the World with Their Mushroom Brain Implants

John Coulthart has just posted his cover design for the re-release of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, Shriek: An Afterword. This is the cover image, by Ben Templesmith — it shows a mysterious “gray cap,” one of an oppressed underground people who have this bizarre mushroom tech that will allow them to take over a city. You…

LG KU990 Viewty Touchscreen Cellphone Can Now Record 640×480 DivX at 120FPS

Recording VGA-quality movies is nothing new, but DivX and LG just announced that the LG Viewty smartphone can now record VGA-quality movies at 120 frames per second with what looks like a software update (new ones will ship with it pre-loaded). Best of all, it records in the DivX format, which means you can watch…

Is That a Magnetron Tube In Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

One day in the mid-1940s, Raytheon employee Percy Spencer was working with an active radar set when he noticed that a candy bar in his pocket had melted. Spencer got some popcorn, put it in proximity of the magnetron tube that generated the microwaves for the radar, and was soon enjoying a tasty snack. Raytheon…

Dog Barks Deciphered; Yes, Dogs Are as Simple and Dumb as You Thought

Researchers in Budapest have spent a lot of time analyzing dogs barking for some reason, and they’ve figured out a way to create software to decipher exactly what your pooch is saying. That’s not to say that Rex is suddenly going to start saying “My, Joseph, you have been sitting around the house all day…

Can a Robotic Weapon Be Programmed to Have Ethics?

Combat robots and computerized missile launchers may one day be better soldiers than humans because they are programmed with ethical behavior and will never engage in friendly fire. You learn about all this and more from videos just posted from the awesome Technology in Wartime conference, held two weeks ago at Stanford’s Center for Internet…

Sprint Offers Unlimited Voice, Data For $119

Helio’s got their $99 unlimited plan, but now Sprint, one of the four majors, is joining the all-you-can-eat club. At $119 it’s a little more expensive than Helio (even though Helio’s actually using Sprint as a backbone), and you still need a separate Power Vision pack or BlackBerry data plan for smartphones (so it’s not…

Batman Spreads His Legs And Reproduces

A weird old guy gets Michael Keaton into a gown and tells him to put his feet in the stirrups, in the only science fictional sequence from 1996’s Multiplicity. Then the machines whir and a lumpy body starts to form, slowly solidifying into a perfect adult clone of Keaton, with all his memories. It’s a…

Lightning Review: Olinari Silver USB Dog Tags

The Gadget: Sterling Silver USB dog tags that hold a Sony Micro Vault USB drive inside, which lets you carry around USB storage without burdening your pockets with another gadget. The Price: $349 ($319 if you don’t want the 2GB Micro Vault) The Verdict: Useful, but it’s too expensive. Although it’s very convenient being able…

The Earth faces seven “tipping points” within the next 100 years. These are changes in the environment that can’t be undone, and which will lead to a disastrous downward spiral and amplify global warming and environmental damage on a historic scale. The first of these, the collapse of the Indian summer monsoon, will happen within…

Corner Aiming System Looks Like Terminator’s Deadly Eye, Probably Has Same Effect

Peek into the Eye of Death, because the Concealed Engagement Unit by Swedish company Aimpoint looks taken straight out the skull of a Terminator T-800. This periscope aiming system is completely different from the CornerShot and a lot simpler. It can be used with any weapon, and according to Danger Room’s Aaron Rowe, who was…

I See London, I See France, I See Your Underpants from 32 Miles Away With Canon 5200mm Ultra Telephoto Lens

We have a winner. This Cloverfield-sized mirror lens by Canon doesn’t do zooming action, it’s a flat 5200mm, which can shoot stuff 18 to 32 miles away. That’s like from one end of Rosie O’ Donnell’s ass to the other. To focus this baby, it has telescopes bolted to the side. And yeah, that little…

Celebrate Black History Month with Aliens

The Carl Brandon Society, a group for people interested in great scifi by and about people of color, has released a list of cool books to read for Black History Month. They include classics and new books that deal with race and ethnicity — on other worlds as well as Earth. io9 pal Claire Light…

Closest Chinese iPhone Clone Yet

Until the Meizu M8 is released, this C-002 HiPhone seems to be the most iPhone of iPhone clones out there. As you can see from the video unboxing, it even comes in an iPhone-esque box and has iPhone-like accessories (protective cover, white earbuds). The UI? Well, just watch. It’s pretty much the iPhone. In fact,…

Massive Panavision Bazooka HD Lens Delivers 300X Zoom

Even Canon’s BFG of telephoto lenses is but a wee fish in the vast ocean of big-ass glass. Today’s whale shark specimen: The Panavision 300x HD lens. It’s actually a broadcast HD lens, but that makes this sucker no less ridiculous. It’s over three feet in length and weighs 85 lbs. (dwarfing the Canon by…

Regress Yourself With Borf’s Gun From Space Ace

If you played arcade games in the 1980s, then you probably remember the quarter-sucking craze of laserdisc games which were led by the juggernaut of Dragon’s Lair. Enough small fortunes were lost to that game to start a small media empire, which is just what creator Don Bluth tried to do. He followed that swords…

Socket Sense Power Strip Has the Sense to Slide

The age old conundrum of AC adapter bricks not fitting correctly on power strips has had many solutions lately, but this Socket Sense seems to be quite a clever one to add to the pile. It looks like a standard strip with the plugs offset at a 45 degree angle, but each socket can actually…