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The Soviet Union vs US Jet Train Race

Click to viewAh, the good old times of the Cold War: Space race! Arms race! Spy race! Trains race? While astronauts were floating in their tinfoil suits, the real action was happening down on rails: The Soviet Union and the US were in a race to get the fastest and spiffiest train ever. The story…

World Largest Anti-RF Chamber Looks Like Mario Galaxy Level

This is the Benefield Anechoic Facility in Edwards Air Force Base: the largest chamber of its kind in the world—a room in which RF and sound signals don’t bounce off the walls, so you can get clean radio frequency testing on all kinds of gear. In this case, electronic warfare systems in huge toys like…

ZunePhone Shows its Superiority to the iPhone

Now that the iPhone music is available to buy on iTunes, it seems like everyone and his dog is getting on an iPhone parody trip. Here’s the ZunePhone, a mock-up of what Microsoft’s iPod Slayer would be like if it had Jesus-like qualities. [YouTube via TUAW]

Olio Coin Bank with Clock Needs T.P. for Its Bunghole

I would not like to meet the weirdo who designed this Olio coin bank-cum*-clock in a club—he probably uses his to keep his Rohypnols dry. $21.95, from Wrappables this is the chocolate teapot, the bone china stiletto or the USB thong of the gadget world. [Wrappables via 7Gadgets] *Huhuhuhuh, she said “cum.”

Bamboo Helmet from Roof is for Eco Petrol-Heads

We’ve already covered denim crash helmets and now here’s a bamboo version from Roof. The shell is constructed entirely from bamboo fibers, and has passed the E22-05 safety requirements needed in Europe. https://gizmodo.com/nexx-x60-helmet-lets-you-wear-your-jeans-on-your-head-260137 The cost of this limited-edition helmet is $378 ( 189) and it’s available in the UK. There, I managed to use the…

Viliv X2 AIO Multimedia Player Does Everything Else Too

Following on last year’s P2, the new Viliv X2 AIO comes with absolutely everything on a tight 4.3-inch screen package: movie, music and picture playback with picture in picture capabilities, digital TV tuner, GPS and electronic dictionary, which would be great if you live in Korea, where it’s going to be launched. https://gizmodo.com/viliv-p2-portable-media-player-183660 The 30GB…

Creative Travelsound i50 Dock Big Enough to Eat Your Shuffle

The Travelsound i50 is a portable speaker for the iPod Shuffle from Creative Japan. Attach it to your Shuffle and suddenly you’ve got what looks like a very cool, very Vegas-baby, retro-style Ronson cigarette lighter that plays your tunes. Charge the lithium polymer battery up via USB and it’ll give you 15 hours of playback.…

Britz’s Rosetta Speakers Perfect for Weird-Shaped Gamers

Consisting of two satellite towers and a downward-firing amplified subwoofer, these red LED-illuminated Rosetta speakers from Britz have been designed with computer or gaming setups in mind. Featuring IHSS (Independent Harmonic Surround Sound), they are probably a bit too weedy for hardcore gamers. If you ask me, both towers and sub look like the kind…

Water Tower Apartment Looks Great Inside, Misses Fiery Magical Eye on Top

Someone in the Netherlands transformed a water tower into a cool vertical apartment. The results are amazing, and the spiral stairs are guaranteed to keep you fit and/or drive you mad with so much spinning. Looking at the guy sliding down the wall, someone already thought about a better route for descent. [Materialicious via Boing…

iSpin ‘eTurntable’ Lets you DJ With iPods

The iSpin is a mixer that uses two docked iPods as inputs, and provides a range of effects like reverb, flange, hi/low pass filter and scratching sounds. While this would be fine for some DJs, it won’t suit everyone because you can’t beat-match with it. It’s probably more suited to a house party than a…

Giant Paper Boat Made from Tetrabriks, Allows Real Sailors on Board

Artist Frank Boelter has constructed a 9-metre paper boat from the stuff used to make Tetrabrik packs and is sailing it up the Elbe. The 37-year old artist came up with the idea one breakfast time, while he was sitting at his kitchen table fiddling with an empty milk carton, which he cut up and…

Matsushita has agreed to cover the direct costs of the huge Nokia battery recall that covers 46 million units. The company will cover logistics costs, call center costs and replacement battery costs. [Nokia]

Wooden Creative Zen Stone

Captain Ødegård created this Creative Zen Stone out of pine, although he seems to have accidentally scaled up the dimensions to a huge 8.25″ x 5.5″ x 2″. Check out a video of it in use after the jump. It’s internal components aren’t actually from a Creative because they’re too expensive in the Captain’s home…

Epson’s V500 Color Scanner Works Fast, Lets You Blow Up Pics

Epson has debuted its new color scanner. Aimed at amateur photo freaks in a hurry, the V500 cuts warm-up time and scanning time, meaning you can get through a pile of negs, slides and photos in less time than other scanners, thanks to its ReadyScan LED technology. You can blow pictures up to 17 x…

Wizz Dual Screen DVD Player Is Double the Fun, Allegedly

For a $232 price tag, this Japan-only Wizz CSDP-500 portable multimedia player and matching CLCD-507 7-inch LCD dual screens looks like a good option for video-on-the-go fans. The $86 40-ounce CSDP-500 plays DVDs of all kinds as well as video, music and picture files in MPEG-4,MP3,WMA and JPEG formats using it’s built-in USB port, SD…

Flowers by Alice (Part 2, 1992)

Part 2 of the US West concept video Flowers by Alice features the business tools of the future. Voice recognition technology seemed to be very popular in concept videos of this era. See also:Flowers by Alice (Part 1, 1992)

Cowon’s online tech support is claiming that the Cowon Q5 PMP is coming out sometime in October. Is it finally coming to the US? We’ll believe it when we see it. [Thanks, TJ] https://gizmodo.com/cowon-q5-pmp-with-hsdpa-and-gps-announced-again-250553

Transformers Hand Fans Make You Cooler, But Not With The Ladies

Our colleague over at Prime Diary has hipped us to a pair of Transformers hand fans that serve a purpose while upping your geek-cred. Painted as either Optimus Prime or Megatron, each fan has a removable top revealing a soft fan blade that offers instant cool when you and your Autobots roll out. Judging from…

DivX Connected Hands-On

I got to play with DivX’s Connected set top box that we showed you last night, and found a few more things out about the prototype. (Much of this could change by launch.) •DivX Connected Server runs on PC, and does the file serving as well as the decompression of most video content. •Only supports…

Palm CEO Responds to Engadget Spanking With Thanks

A few days ago, Ryan Block, Pete Rojas and Josh at Engadget wrote up a plan of attack for Palm and its aging Treo. Addressing problems with every aspect of the still useful but no longer glorious smartphone, it had some good points, and you could tell that they were writing it out of genuine…