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Download Race Between Helio Fin, iPhone, Sidekick, and RAZR2

Our friends at Wired put a stopwatch to a four-way download race between the Helio Fin, iPhone, Sidekick, and RAZR2 with HSDPA. Of course, they wanted to see which one would load Wired.com the fastest in a straightforward race of phones that have different methods of downloading. Before going to the next page to see…

Philippe Starck Rolls Out Wild-Looking Watches With Cantilevered Faces

We’re always a sucker for designer Philippe Starck’s latest creations, and here’s a couple of watches he adds to his Fossil collection that have a strange cantilevered look we haven’t seen before. Check out those hands, placed on that hanging face at an odd angle, making them look positively peculiar. Well, what would you expect…

How to Get Free Air Conditioning From Your Water System

Some cheap guy came up with a way to get “free” air conditioning by cycling up his 50-degree well water through a home-made pipe/radiator system and dispersing the coolness into his house. It’s really, really ugly, but it does save some money on your cooling bill. Useful if you live in really hot areas and…

Domino’s Launches Pizza by TXT in UK

If you needed another hint as to how much more reliant people are on SMS in other countries, Domino’s Pizza by TXT feature should do the trick. All you have to do is just set up a “favorite meals” list and text the correct “meal” label to Domino’s, and they’ll bring one to your flat…

Lightning Round: T-Mobile Samsung Blast

The Gadget: The T-Mobile Blast, a medium-to-low-end red and black slider from Samsung. The Verdict: Decent call quality, thin but solid build, nice red and black finish, but the half-QWERTY SureType is a bit tough to use. The Catch: Instead of a standard dialpad like regular phones, the Blast has a SureType two-letters-per-key typing scheme.…

Baka RoboCup Competition Pits ‘Funny’ Robots Against Each Other

The Baka RoboCup 2007 is a robot competition in Japan, but not one to see what robot can kick a soccer ball the best or drive the fastest. No, it’s a competition to see which robot is the most entertaining and useless. Well, at least they’re honest. To qualify for the competition, aspiring baka-robo must…

Sprint says 50 million devices will have WiMax capability three years from now [I4U News]

These Two Washers Cost $1 Million

We report on a lot of toilet seats here—even some that approach the crazy $600 price the Pentagon paid for one in 1983—but we’ve never seen a couple of washers that cost almost a cool million dollars. Until now. That’s right, folks, this picture represents $998,798 worth of washers, bought by the U.S. Defense Department…

Apple Aluminum Keyboard vs. Old Apple Keyboards

Sure, you’ve probably seen comparisons of the aluminum Apple keyboard vs. the slightly older Apple keyboard. But have you seen it matched up against an Apple Lisa keyboard? Or how about the IIgs keyboard? Chances are slim, unless you’ve already been to Blake Patterson’s gallery page. [Blakespot via Daring Fireball]

Best. Phishing email. Ever.

[We Are a Community via NewLaunches]

Outhouse Nightlight for Hicks and Simpletons of All Stripes

All you city slickers go on down to the next post, but fellow hillbillies, here’s a nightlight that will make us feel right at home. Reminding you that indoor plumbing is still a luxury for some mountain-dwelling folk, this outhouse nightlight will illuminate your path, no matter how much moonshine you’ve been quaffing. Like most…

Jazzmutant Multitouch Tablet PC Demoed

Here’s a video of the multi-touch tablet PC prototype that Jazzmutant showed off last week at Siggraph. It’s got the pinch and spread features that Apple popularized on the iPhone, but this can actually take an unlimited number of contact points. You can use as many fingers (or styluses) as you were born with to…

The Skype outage still continues, but Skype says it will probably be back to normal by the end of the day. Some lucky users are already signing back on. [Ars Technica]

Chip Shortages Force Nintendo to Delay Expanding Wiis

Digitimes is claiming that Nintendo is having a problem making good on its promise to ramp up Wii production, something that was set for June, thanks to a shortage of IC chips and PCBs. This means that the global Wii shortage will continue well into the second half of 2007, the holiday season and probably…

9 Takes on the iMac Aluminum

Apple’s new iMac has a sweet 70’s future style that will have many reassessing the line. But it’s about more than looks—just ask any significant others of the Gizmodo staff. And while Brian Lam already published a fantastic rundown on the new machine, what we need here is a consensus for iMac users: to buy…

Blockbuster Fires Off Email Notifying Customers of Price Increase

What kind of price war is this? Yesterday we saw proof of Netflix cutting a dollar off its three-disc at-a-time plan resulting in a $15.99 monthly tariff, and today a tipster shows us an email from Blockbuster talking about raising prices. But there’s some good news in that email for existing customers. https://gizmodo.com/updated-netflix-lowers-prices-for-dvd-rentals-by-1-290100 The good…

Condom that Makes your Willy Bigger Set to be Huge

A condom that will make your erection even larger than it already is and last even longer than it already does—ain’t that right, guys?—is on its way. British firm Futura Medical’s CSD500 rubber will be launched by British condom manufacturer Durex under an as-yet undisclosed name sometime next year. And it’s all to do with…

World’s Tallest Escalator, Another Day at the Mall

Thirty-nine stories in the air, the glass-enclosed escalator at the Floating Garden Observatory in Osaka’s Umeda Sky Building is…well, our feelings are best summed up by a Frommer’s writer: I’m not afraid of heights, but taking an escalator over thin air in an earthquake-plagued nation certainly caught my attention; it made the “floating” observatory feel…

The Tank Prevents Propaneous Interruptus

If you grill using propane fuel, you need The Tank. It prevents that common problem where you suddenly run out of gas in the middle of an intense cooking session—it’s propaneous interruptus. The Tank is a typical 20-lb. propane container with a major difference: It has a gauge on top, an indicator valve that’s accurate…

Drunk American Heroes Create Homemade 535-foot Slip ‘n Slide

A dude who goes by the name of “Bruiser” decided he wanted a Slip ‘n Slide for an upcoming party. Like any logical person, he decided to make one using a bulldozer. What he ended up with is a 535-foot death slide into a fecally-tinted pool at the end. Despite the high probability of breaking…