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Stephen Colbert Breaks Wrist On Set

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 12:50:05 -0400

The host of "The Colbert Report" revealed on Thursday night's show that he broke his left wrist while running around the New York studio before taping a recent episode.

TASER-armed robots keep police out of harm's way

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:57:03 -0400

June 3, 2007 Love them or hate them, TASER stun guns have become an essential and effective part of law enforcement armory. Perhaps their main drawback has been that even the long-range wireless shotgun-mounted TASER XREP puts a police officer within 30 feet of a potentially dangerous suspect before they're in range. Now, a new partnership between TASER and iRobot will see the construction of TASER-wielding robots that can be sent in to incapacitate violent suspects without ever exposing police officers to the risk of harm. What's more, TASER has released their Remote Area Denial (TRAD) system, an unmanned device that operates in a network to identify and incapacitate intruders in secured areas. It all points towards an interesting future with embedded moral implications; how long will it be until suspects are told "you have 15 seconds to comply?"..

B-2 Bomber with Massive Penetrator weapon

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:33:01 -0400

July 23, 2007 Just how important does someone have to be to have their own 30,000 pound bomb delivered by a billion dollar aircraft? We'll soon know. We have written about the Massive Penetrator weapon before here and detailed the awesome firepower and effectively infinite range of the US$1.157 billion B-2 here. The B-2 is a multi-role bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions through previously impenetrable defenses. The B-2’s low-observable technologies with high aerodynamic efficiency, large payload and an unrefueled range of approximately 6,000 nautical miles (9,600 kilometers) give it the unique ability to penetrate an enemy's most sophisticated defenses and threaten its most valued, and heavily defended, targets...

Clips: EXPLODING CONSOLES

Wed, 23 May 2007 02:30:00 -0400

It's late, it's the middle of the week, you're probably tired, definitely cranky. Best way to sooth your troubled mind is to kick back and watch some consoles EXPLODE. There's some kind of basketball-related theme behind it all, but it's just window-dressing: this is all 'bout the asplosions.

Xbox? More like Tinderbox, am I right? Am I right? Gah. Luke Plunkett

Tired.

Tue, 22 May 2007 21:46:01 -0400

Here’s a chair you can sit in when you ‘re really “tired.” -via Bits and Pieces

Phony Soldier Charged With Making Up Claims of Atrocities in Iraq...

Mon, 21 May 2007 10:08:02 -0400

Lawmaker who voted to ban cell phones while driving -- rear-ends car while talking on cell phone...

Mon, 21 May 2007 10:08:02 -0400

Hasselhoff + Lightsaber = Starcrash.

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:33:18 -0400

Yes, that’s David Hasselhoff fighting a droid with a lightsaber, in a 1979 movie Starcrash. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Look At This …

Kites fly in jet stream to generate electricity

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 16:01:44 -0400

Mark Frauenfelder: The Economist has an interesting article about different proposals to harvest wind energy from the jet stream (elevation: 10km). A San Diego, CA company called Sky WindPower wants to send giant kite-turbines into the jet stream to generate power.

Mr Shepard’s flying generator looks like a cross between a kite and a helicopter. It has four rotors at the points of an H-shaped frame that is tethered to the ground by a long cable. The rotors act like the surface of a kite, providing the lift needed to keep the platform in the air. As they do so, they also turn dynamos that generate electricity. This power is transmitted to the ground through aluminium cables. Should there be a lull in the wind, the dynamos can be used in reverse as electric motors, to keep the generator airborne.

Here's another interesting proposal:

Meanwhile, Wubbo Ockels of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has been developing another approach to airborne wind generation at lower altitude, with backing from Royal Dutch Shell and Nederlandse Gasunie, a natural-gas company. Dr Ockels’s idea is that a kite (without rotor blades) be launched from a ground station, turning a generator as it rises to an altitude of several hundred metres. When it reaches its full height, it alters its shape to catch less wind, and can thus be reeled back in using much less power than it produced when it was being paid out.
An arrangement of two or more of these kites could act together to produce a steady supply of power. When one kite was being released, part of the electricity produced would reel the other kite back in, and vice versa. The whole system would thus remain in surplus, and if well designed could deliver a constant current. This system has the advantage that it requires only simple parts—generators, kites and cables—and should thus be much cheaper to build than a conventional turbine.

Link

Weird concept for condom package

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:34:23 -0400

Mark Frauenfelder: Wunderbaum says:

I posted a (crappy cellphone) picture on my Livejournal of a quite disturbing Taiwanese product that I happened to find the other day: "Family Condom," with a very suggestive illustration that is wrong on several levels: A very loving family, almost suggesting how the entire family can enjoy Family condom together... And besides, aren't condoms supposed to prevent children from manifesting anyway?

Link

Killer Lego sumo bots are back for more

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:52:00 -0400

Filed under: Robots

Round 3 of the 2007 DivX Lego Sumo Robotic Championship is just as much a DivX sellout as ever, and the required browser plugin still isn't winning any friends, but despite those caveats, we're still glued to our screens for these exciting Lego bot deathmatches. With new bots like "Blue Wedgie" and "Joker" making quick work of their competition -- thanks to Blue Wedgie's clever wedge action and Joker's active sensing technique -- the matches were a bit more expedient this time around, but still quite entertaining. Nerd sport of the future? We think so.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Homebrew robots reach dime size

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 21:24:00 -0400

Filed under: Robots

While we're a bit skeptical of its claimed status to be "quite possibly the world's smallest robot," this so-called Pico bot is certainly impressive enough in its own right -- especially considering that it's the result of a DIY project. As you can see above, the bot is small enough to sit on a dime, yet it still packs enough brains (and power) to move around autonomously (if a little recklessly), motoring about at a top speed of 0.5 feet per second and lasting about 15 minutes before its battery runs dry. While it currently doesn't seem to be capable of much more than the antics on display in the video after break, its creator does see plenty of room for improvement, including adding ZigBee wireless communication, as well as an on-board camera and built-in GPS. Of course, there's also the possibility that someone could take things one step further and amass a pint-sized robot army, letting them annoy their co-workers on a hereto unheard of scale.

[Via MAKE:Blog]

Continue reading Homebrew robots reach dime size

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Coldest April Easter in 57 years in Minnesota...

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 03:12:22 -0400

K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider for sale

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 19:29:47 -0400

David Pescovitz: K.I.T.T., the tricked-out Trans Am that David Hasslehoff drove in Knight Rider, is for sale at Kassabian Motors in Dublin, California. Asking price is $149,995. Apparently, this is one of four "picture" or "hero" cars used in the show. From the Sydney Morning herald:

Although it cannot achieve the 300 mph speeds that KITT reached, soar 50 feet in the air or throw smoke bombs, key features of the star car are intact.

Perhaps most important, the red scanner light on the nose glows and makes a humming noise.

The car has two working video screens on the dashboard, and the cockpit features buttons that light up in green, yellow and red: ski mode, rocket boost, micro jam, silent mode, oil slick and eject.

Link to Sydney Morning Herald article, Link to Kassabian Motors

? KITT for sale in 2004 (same one?) Link

Phony Craistlist ad invited people to burglarize house

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 06:30:06 -0400

Shortly after a homeowner evicted a tenant, an ad appeared in Craigslist inviting people to take whatever they want from the home. A couple days later, the house was stripped of everything, including light fixtures, windows, hot water heater and the kitchen sink.

WSJ: 'Pelosi may well have committed a felony in traveling to Damascus'...

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 08:37:25 -0400

Woman's House Robbed After Fake Craigslist Post

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 03:35:14 -0400

flanksteak writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that a woman in nearby Tacoma had her rental property stripped of almost everything after someone posted a fake Craigslist announcement that everything in the house could be hauled away no questions asked. When contacted, Craigslist said they would release data about the poster if they were issued a subpoena."

April 7, 1969: Birth of That Thing We Call the Internet

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 23:50:04 -0400

April 7 is often cited as a symbolic birth date of the net because the RFC memoranda contain research, proposals and methodologies applicable to internet technology. RFC documents provide a way for engineers and others to kick around new ideas in a public forum; sometimes, these ideas are adopted as new standards by the Internet Engineering Task Fo

Wii Blaster coming soon!

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 23:30:03 -0400

With the announcement of Resident Evil 4 and Umbrella Chronicles for the Wii, coupled with the still unreleased Virtual Console titles Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley, it's time to start asking, "Where's the Wii Zapper?" Gamestop has listed the Wii Blaster for $20 and what we strongly believe to be a placeholder date of May 1.

4,000 flash mob dancers startle commuters...

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:17:13 -0400