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It may sound counterintuitive, but the futuristic 38-ton, 72-foot speedboat design known as Eden calls for wood as a main building material. As you can tell from the pictures, the boat wouldn’t be a full-on woody: Much of the hull itself would be crafted in carbon fiber, and sweeping one-piece glass windshield to complete the…
A couple of dudes with more smarts than brains were busted for stealing the identities of legitimate trucking firms, setting up actual jobs and pocketing the cash, says Wired’s Threat Level blog. But though the hackers operated for years out of the comfort of their home, the master plan was doomed to backfire. The first…
Bad news greeted new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 owners this week, in the form of a partition error that limited the amount of available disk space on the machine’s 8GB and 16GB solid state drive. The problem limits the machines to using only 4GB of space, regardless of drive size, and only affected machines that…
Hell, we can barely say the name (or tell time), but we understand the reason for all the security features this puppy boasts as part of a multi-faceted effort to deter counterfeiters. For anywhere between $12,000 to the aforementioned $60k, owners can customize their Vacheron Constantin Quai de l’Ile with 400 styles and deterrents, like…
Real Jedi knock bowling pins down with their mind, but we plebeians have access to the next best thing with these Brunswick Star Wars Viz-a-Ball bowling balls. Better yet, we can all avoid wretched hives of scum and villainy like Mos Eisley, and buy them over at Amazon for about $92-$120 each. There’s Yoda and…
We don’t know too much about the Fender Bender, but we do know that, like RoboCop officer Alex Murphy, machinery and electronics have replaced much of the original. In the Bender’s case, inventor “Dan” has stripped out all the bits that made this a guitar, and then replaced them with sound board bits. The result…
Click to view MacGruber hasn’t checked his stock portfolio in months. So when he finds himself with a little spare time before defusing a nitrogen bomb, he pulls out his old ghetto laptop to check his stocks, “authentic” modem sound and all. What he learns is that the Financiapocalypse is at hand. Note: May not…
These Down Low Glow light bars for your bike are one wheel hydraulics system away from true low rider status, but that’s not actually their true purpose. While at first glance they may appear to be the epitome of bicycle tchotchke, the manufacturer lays out a somewhat convincing case as to why riders should invest…
Rat-fighting red coat nutcrackers? Look me up when you get to the 24th century, pal. That’s where I’ll be, cracking nuts and taking names with my $35 Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock versions of this timeless classic. They go nicely with my Star Trek synthehol bottle opener, and are handy in a pinch (groan, huh?)…
Greenpeace is dead set on giving Apple and Steve Jobs an inferiority complex. With one hand, the environmental group patted Apple on the head after the unveiling of its redesigned MacBook aluminum notebooks. With the other hand, however, it managed to knock Apple down a peg or two for still not doing enough to save…
It’s not going to change the world of iPhone apps or TiVo forever, but the $1 DVRPics app is a neat, cheap, little addition to the Apple App Store library nevertheless. The purpose is pretty straightforward: The app displays the photos on your iPhone or iPod touch on your TiVo. Features are bare bones for…
At the Los Angeles Auto Show in November, BMW will unveil a fleet of all-electric Minis. Dubbed the “Mini E,” the car will run on a 150kW motor juiced by an automotive lithium-ion battery that will give it a range of 150 miles. The cute little golf cart real grown-up car will come in a…
Freehands gloves are a cute idea: uncover the thumb and forefinger so you can operate capacitive touchscreens, like the iPhone’s, without removing your gloves. Past touchscreen-capable gloves (like these and these) have some sort of attachment on the outside of the glove so you don’t have to expose your fingers. I’m singularly qualified to explain…
The implied indignation in Mike Elgan’s post about the UK’s audacity to require a passport to buy even a prepaid cellphone shows that he’s never tried to buy one as a foreigner in Japan. It was among the most annoying things I did when I lived there—you don’t just need a passport (that would’ve been…
Flying in a plane made of a material called ‘buckypaper’ may not seem too appealing at first, but this new type of carbon nanotube may be the future of lightweight, high strength composite. Discovered accidentally while trying to create the same conditions that exist in a star, buckypaper is far from reaching its potential, but…
The latest on Nikon’s long-rumored 24MP D3x DSLR is about as barebones as they get, simply stating: “Went to dinner with Nikon this week. The Nikon D3X is due in December 08” and reiterating that it’ll use the same massive full-frame sensor as Sony’s A900, as we expected when it first came out, since Nikon…
The debates are over, and we’re in the home stretch to election day. Since campaign ads are obviously full of crap, that means the only ways left to decide who you should vote for are Photoshop and Lego. Built at what OJ calls “marionette scale,” Lego Sarah Palin is maverick enough to field interviews from…
This confirms what I suspected—the new MacBook Pro battery has a lower capacity than the old one. About 16 percent less to be specific. The old battery was rated at 5600mAh/60Wh, but the new ones are rated at 4700mAh/50Wh. This perfectly explains why you now need to use the integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M on the…
AT&T has started up a new division solely tasked with devising internet-connected gadgets—instant upload digital cameras, web-enabled dog collars that’ll tell you where your pooch is at all times, in-car iTunes, and maybe even a few that are maximum risque. AT&T won’t actually be making any of this constantly connected hotness though. Nope, they’re going…
This concept from Mac Funamizu is designed to show how truly badass a phone with an OLED-wrap display could look. The most important advance? No more bezels or borders of any kind. A concept like this makes even the iPhone look cluttered, with that primitive silver border. It’s a great little design, inspired by the…