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My interest in futurism can probably be credited to two things: Disney’s EPCOT Center and children’s science books of the 1980s and 90s. One of my earliest posts here at the Paleo-Future blog covered the EPCOT Center book, The Future World of Transportation. I vividly recall checking out the three books in this series from…
Looking for the best way to feed the world’s hunger for energy, James May visited a solar furnace to see how powerful they really are. Usually, solar furnaces are used to boil water into steam to generate electricity or make hydrogen fuel. But May thought that the best way to make people understand their insane…
This one will probably make the Greenpeace douchebags moan with pleasure: It seems that the Apple replacement parts department didn’t get Steve’s memo pushing for green this, recycled that, and reduced packaging materials. At least judging from the needlessly huge box used to ship this iPhone tiny USB power adapter replacement: Have you noticed the…
As promised, you can finally use Netflix’s Watch Instantly streaming video service on a Mac. The juiciest, most ironic part? The magic happens with Microsoft’s Flash-wannabe Silverlight—which you probably grew to know and maybe hate during the Olympics—since it keeps the DRM voodoo intact. The only real catch is that it works exclusively on Intel-based…
A truly bizarre day to announce a new notebook, Dell’s Inspiron Mini 12 is officially the most gargantuan netbook on the block. I wasn’t exactly blown away by it when I scoped it briefly a couple months ago, but Laptop was sufficiently impressed in its more in-depth hands on to compare it to the MacBook…
Tonight is the season 2 finale of Mad Men. Will Don continue to revel in the shirtless, poolside-martini-sipping, Lolita-tinged free love of euro-riche California? Return to Betty’s arms back home in the ‘burbs? Or will everyone be stricken simultaneously with lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver? While you wait to find out, dress your…
The Porto Decanter’s product description pretty much says it all. “Sure to spark conversation, these sophisticated, hand-blown serving pieces date back to 17th century Europe where they were known as Schnapps Pfeiffen,” it reads, lacking only the prerequisite “munchies” reference to all but confirm this $40 decanter set is smoking paraphernalia waiting to happen. Even…
The Formula Zero racecar, pictured above in all its conceptual glory, is the Mercedes-Benz take on racing in the year 2025. Designed by the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Center of North America, the car aims to mash together the “the thrill of Formula One, the track dynamics of the bobsled or luge, and the grace and…
Matching up with what was hinted a few weeks back, HP’s 10-inch companion to the popular 8.9-inch Mini-Note 2133 has appeared on HP’s online shop. The link is not yet live, so the only details we have are the $399 starting price, along with size and weight and that it’s ditching the 2133’s metal for…
Every office has a pompous windbag or ten that monopolizes meeting time with their constant interruptions. And while making fun of those idiots after the fact is a staple of office life, the sad truth is that thousands of hours are lost to these interruptions, and efficiency suffers because of them. Lucky for office life,…
Diets are tough, what with the eating and drinking of beer, and that being really, really, enjoyable and all. The IC3 Intelligent Cutlery System wants to help. How? Well, designer Alex Schulz says that as you chomp away at dinner, the IC3 does the traditional job as a fork, knife or spoon, and then goes…
Sure, AC/DC may be behind the times on digital distribution. And they could be described as “in denial” about the death of the music album, but this Microsoft Excel spreadsheet music video, while not condoned by the band in any way, is rockin’ our Hell’s Bells this fine Sunday afternoon. Better still, this “music video”…
Now there’s officially no reason to leave the house. Ever. We can call in food, clothing and gadget deliveries. We can pay our bills online. Thanks to infomercials, we can exercise in the comfort of a door frame. And today we discover that we can get all randy (or depressed) chatting with significant others on…
Get ready, because the iPhone 3G unlock is coming to an iPhone 3G near you. The iPhone Dev Team have been able to break in the baseband processor. As you may remember from the first-generation iPhone unlock, this is big news because it means they have access to the core of the system, which gives…
AT&T is circulating a survey among some of its longer-term iPhone users with a checklist of features they’d like to see. It’s a follow-up to a similar survey a few months back, and apparently also serves to judge reactions to the 2.1 firmware. Some of the most regular complaints make the list, including picture messaging…
NASA is set to begin work next month in Boston on a four-year, $1.74 million project called the Virtual Space Station. The project is supposed to create a program that can independently counsel depressed astronauts by supplying solutions to their typed insecurities. AP writer Jay Lindsay insists that it’s nothing like HAL 9000, and he’s…
A group of security researchers, including former NSA computer security expert Charles A. Miller, has discovered a security flaw in the G1’s web browser. The flaw could allow a hacker to trick a G1 user into visiting a malicious website that could install some nasty bugs on the smartphone (or com). Google was made aware…
CNET got their hands on Cowon’s new flash-based PMP, the O2, and they think it’s one of the year’s best dedicated media players. The 4.3-inch touchscreen player has a truly ridiculous list of supported codecs, an SDHC slot to expand its internal 8, 16, or 32GB memory, solid (if not too flashy) GUI, and a…
CEO Dan Hesse, whom you may remember from those classy black-and-white commercials on the teevee, recently told the National Press Club that as it stands, he doesn’t think Android is “good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.” Sure, he probably just meant that he’d like to see Android’s kinks ironed out before Sprint…
We honestly haven’t kept up with the television documentary Vanguard or its sponsoring Internet/Cable channel Current TV, but this trailer for their upcoming show Japan: Robot Nation has our interest piqued. We’re digging all of the robots, the ties of said robots to evolving Japanese culture and the overly dramatic score supporting the whole thing.…
