The Semi Invisible Traveler

Unfortunately, the artist Bruno Catalano doesn’t have higher resolution photos of his statues. The example above has a tremendous invisibility effect. Very nice!

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Get a Personalized Skin for Your Nalgene Water Bottle

Get a Personalized Skin for Your Nalgene Water Bottle: "

If you’re tired of carrying around a plain water bottle, Original Wraps, Inc. and Nalgene have combined forces to allow you to create a customized, full-color, photo-quality vinyl wrap for a Nalgene water bottle.  If you already have a Nalgene bottle, you can buy just a wrap for $8.95 (16 oz bottle) or $9.95 (32 oz bottle).  You can get a wrap and a bottle for $14.95 (16 oz bottle) or $19.95 (32 oz bottle).  (If you opt to buy a bottle and skin, it seems that a gray bottle is your only choice.)  You upload your own image to NalgeneSkins and use their design tool to further customize it by drawing or adding text.  You should expect to receive your skin or bottle and skin in less than two … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Gear, News, Spotlight Gadgets

Tagged: Custom design, Nalgene water bottles

Get a Personalized Skin for Your Nalgene Water Bottle originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 30, 2010 at 8:00 am.

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Coolest Sculptures EVER, Kinetic Powered By the Wind

The creativity of people at times simply amazes me and Theo Jansen is one such person. He combines art and engineering to create light weight but giant wind powered creatures described as “Kinetic Sculptures, where nature meets technology”. The picture above does not do them justice, follow the jump to see the sculptures in motion, simply amazing.

Jacket features turn signal LEDs

Jacket features turn signal LEDs:

Arduino could very well be the next best thing since sliced bread for some folks, as Leah Buechley demonstrates with her new jacket that espouses turn signal LEDs thanks to a Lilypad Arduino microcontroller board which will respond to switches located on the jacket's wrists, lighting up the direction which you want to turn so that any vehicle behind knows where you are heading exactly without ramming you down by accident. The choice of a black jacket isn't too smart though, although throwing in a reflective strip of sorts might help increase one's visibility on the road. We’ve included a video of it in action in the extended post so that you get a better idea on how it works.

Japan Plans a Moon Base by 2020, Built by Robots for Robots

Plan your Moon vacation by 2025

America may have eighty-sixed its moon base ambitions, but the Japanese have no plans to let perfectly good lunar real estate go to waste. An ambitious $2.2 billion project in the works at JAXA, the Japanese space agency, plans to put humanoid robots on the moon by 2015, and now official backing from the Prime Minister's office says the Japanese could have an unmanned lunar base up and running by 2020.

Key to all of this, of course, is the robots themselves, and who better than the Japanese to dream up and realize the kind of intelligent, self-repairing, multitasking bots that will be needed to fulfill such a mission.
As currently envisioned, the robots that will land on the lunar surface in 2015 will be 660-pound behemoths equipped with rolling tank-like treads, solar panels, seismographs, high-def cameras and a smattering of scientific instruments. They'll also have human-like arms for collecting rock samples that will be returned to Earth via rocket. The robots will be controlled from Earth, but they'll also be imbued with their own kind of machine intelligence, making decisions on their own and operating with a high degree of autonomy.
Those initial surveyor bots will pave the way for the construction of the unmanned moon base near the lunar south pole, which the robots will construct for themselves. That base will be solar powered and provide a working/living space future robot colonizers, as well as -- presumably -- a jumping off point for future human moon dwellers.
Sound far-fetched? It's certainly an ambitious project given the timeline. But considering Americans put actual men on the moon in a decade span with far inferior technology it certainly seems within the realm of possibility. Moreover, the massive technological fallout from that initial push for the moon was a boon for private industry, seeding some important and amazing technological breakthroughs. Even if Japan falls short of its 2020 deadline, the advances in robotics technology that could fall out of this little project could be as exciting as the moon base itself.
[CNET]

Bag TV – a Multimedia Purse

Time for women to go Hi-Tech




Bag TV London offers a handbag that lets you carry and display a 7″ DVD/mp3 player. The device is carried in a special pocket that allows the player to show through a clear vinyl panel so you can watch a video or display your pictures through the side of your purse. There’s also a panel that buttons over the vinyl panel when you don’t want to use the included DVD player. The rechargeable battery (with included wall and car chargers) lasts for 2.5 hours. In addition to playing DVDs, you can load content onto the device through USB or SD cards, and you can output to the TV with the included A/V out cables. You get the multi-media player and one leather or patent leather bag of your choice for £199.00 (about $284). You can buy additional bags for £120.00 ($171) or the multimedia player alone for £145.00 …

Bag TV – a Multimedia Purse originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 25, 2010 at 7:17 am.

FarmVille ice cream?! Zynga's virtual objects enter real-world 7-Eleven stores (pic)

FarmVille ice cream?! Zynga's virtual objects enter real-world 7-Eleven stores (pic):


Zynga, the company behind FarmVille, is bringing its virtual world into your local real-world 7-Eleven. Buying a real object, like a FarmVille-branded Big Gulp, gets you a code that can be redeemed for an in-game object in Zynga's games. The promotion starts June 1st, but I spotted some FarmVille Vanilla ice cream at my neighborhood 7-11 last week.

As someone who avoids FarmVille at all costs, I was a little freaked out to see it leaking into the real world. It's a great marketing move for Zynga -- which is launching Web, TV and print ads to support the 7-Eleven partnership -- especially since they just signed a new five-year deal with Facebook.


Has FarmVille just jumped the shark, or do you think it's just getting started?

Share

FarmVille ice cream?! Zynga's virtual objects enter real-world 7-Eleven stores (pic) originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 24 May 2010 16:00:00 EST.

NVIDIA: Intel's Moorestown is like an elephant on a diet, iPad set bar too low

NVIDIA: Intel's Moorestown is like an elephant on a diet, iPad set bar too low:

























Leave it to NVIDIA to kick off the week with some good old Intel trash talking. Let's start with the company's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, who when asked if the Atom Z6 processor could be competitive, quickly responded with a 'not possible.' Why? Well, if you ask him, 'you could give an elephant a diet but it's still an elephant.' He called out the Z6's x86 roots and being behind Tegra in wattage -- he claims it will be years before they can reach the power levels of the ARM based chip. That's certainly an interesting analogy, but NVIDIA product director Bill Henry also has a way with words. When talking about Tegra versus Atom in tablets at the Netbook Summit, he said Intel was trying to put the power of a dump truck into a Tonka toy. Oh, but the strikes weren't only at Intel -- Henry added that the 'iPad set the bar too low' and cited the typical lack of Flash and inability to handle 1080p video shortcomings of Apple's tablet. That all sounds good and well, NVIDIA, but it's time to stop talking and start showing some real Tegra 2 phones and tablets.

NVIDIA: Intel's Moorestown is like an elephant on a diet, iPad set bar too low originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 17:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Newborns Can Learn In Their Sleep (Plus Cry And Crap Their Pants When They're Awake!)

Newborns Can Learn In Their Sleep (Plus Cry And Crap Their Pants When They're Awake!):







The future supervillain in the picture aside, a new study reports that babies are more gooder at learning things than previously thought and can even do it in their sleep.

A new study has found that newborns are capable of a rudimentary form of learning while they're asleep, which may be an important process, considering that infants spend between 16 to 18 hours a day in the land of Nod.

Researchers recruited one- and two-day-old infants for the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. With each sleeping baby, the researchers played a musical tone and followed that by a puff of air to the eyes, a mild annoyance that caused the infant to automatically scrunch up its eyes. As this sequence of events was repeated, the sleeping babies learned to associate the air puff with the tone, and soon began to to tighten their eyelids as soon as they heard the musical note, even if the air puff didn't follow. Electrodes stuck to their scalps also showed activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in memory.

Further investigation is required to determine if blowing air in sleeping baby's faces increases the likelihood of becoming psychopathic killers in adulthood, but you don't need stupid experiments to prove sound logic.

Thanks to Andy, who learned everything he needed to by six-months.

LittleDog Learns Several Terrifying New Tricks [Robots]

The last we checked in with LittleDog, the smaller, scrappier version of BigDog and frequent resident of my worst nightmares, we took some solace in the fact that he wasn't quite as nimble as his predecessor. Now: terrifyingly nimble! More »

Give me a drink!

Give me a drink!:

Rendered Speculation: What will a Harley-Davidson look like in 2020?

Rendered Speculation: What will a Harley-Davidson look like in 2020?:




Jonathan Russel's 2020 Harley-Davidson concept - Click above for image gallery


It's no secret that the motorcycle industry as a whole is undergoing the same kind of turmoil as the automobile industry, and that's true for Harley-Davidson just as much (if not more so) than any other manufacturer. There's been a lot of conjecture on what the Bar and Shield brand needs to do to get itself back in order, but the one thing that remains constant is the need for interesting and desirable product.

What those products should be, though, is up for debate. Should H-D continue to focus on its core line of big-inch air-cooled V-twin machines or should it branch out even further with its lower-cost Sportster line or its high-performance, liquid-cooled Revolution-powered bikes? According to designer Jonathan Russel, Harley's future should include a major infusion of Apple.

Yes, that's Apple as in the technology company, not the fruit. Russel envisions lots of aluminum and laser etching, as seen on Cupertino's latest laptops. Also on the menu are lots of perforations with LEDs hiding underneath, which make up the tank-mounted instruments (including an interesting GPS) and the rear tail lamps. Intrigued? Check out our high-res image gallery below. Thanks for the tip, Radhika!

[Source: Yanko Design]

Lewi's 50 percent discount

Lewi's 50 percent discount:

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Iron Man 2 USB Drive

Iron Man 2 USB Drive:

Now that Iron Man 2 has hit the theaters and most people have had a chance to swing by and watch it, if you liked it you might want a little gear to go with it. Thankfully Tyme Machine has a small but useable item to show off your love for the new movie. Normally he looks like just a cute miniature of Iron Man 2, but if you pop off his head it’ll reveal a USB drive stored within.

The drive is a fully sculpted 3D drive that comes in several different sizes. Those being 4GB, 8GB and 16GB. Sadly they don’t say if he lights up at all when he’s actually plugged into a USB port. To get your own 4GB it costs $34.99, for the 8GB it’s $44.99 and the 16GB is $59.99. If you intend to use it for music the site lets you know exactly how many hours of music you’ll get with each individual drive.

Source: CrunchGear

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Coolest Gadgets UK – For all your UK centric tech and gadget news.
[ Iron Man 2 USB Drive copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Egg Toaster Concept Kills Four Birds With One Stone [Concepts]

Egg Toaster Concept Kills Four Birds With One Stone [Concepts]:

If you really like eating eggs, but you really like making toast, the BangBang is the device you've always dreamed of: a toaster-style, four-egg steamer, suitable for streamlining your morning routine or rigging your neighborhood egg toss. Delicious efficiency.

KLM Economy Comfort Product with Ramana at Manchester Airport T2

Restore Clean Water System for clean, drinkable water

Restore Clean Water System for clean, drinkable water:

You can never quite tell what kind of nasties there are in your drinking water, even though you have already installed a filter in your home. Why not leave anything to chance by forking out $99 for the Restore Clean Water System? This device itself claims to remove 99.9999% of bacteria, 99.99% of viruses and 99.95% of microbial cysts, which sounds pretty impressive, but we do have our doubts that it is 'super effective' in the words of Pokemon fans. Guess it works by being plugged into a power outlet at all times, using UV light to kill all sorts of bacteria and microbes within. You might end up with better health, but how about using the old fashioned way of boiling your drinking water while saving a whole lot on power instead?

What Women Buy...

Source:The Trendy Purse

7 Systemic Problems that are Killing America

(Nice article from http://www.businesspundit.com)

This country is full of idiots, socialists, and rednecks. At least that’s what partisans will have you believe.

As long as you’re railing against the people you hate, you can’t see the reality behind the rhetoric. These problems go beyond Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat. They’re serious enough to contribute to internal collapse. We dug up 7 systemic problems that have nothing to do with political parties, yet are still killing America.

Note: Kevin at National Strike Day, which happens May 10, 2010, contributed to this article.

Collapsing infrastructure

Image: Sanbeiji/Flickr

Recently, a drinking water supply line burst in Boston. Affected people had to boil water before drinking it.

Boiling drinking water sounds shocking today. But unless we update the country’s infrastructure, boiling water (and collapsed bridges and burst dams) will become weekly news.
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2009 report card tallies the hazard:
1,819 of the country’s dams are deficient “high hazard” dams (dams that will destroy buildings and kill people if they burst).

7 billion gallons of clean drinking water are lost per day through leaking pipes.
1 in 4 of the country’s bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
1/3 of the country’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

Combine that with natural disasters, like floods and earthquakes, and you have a nation constantly firefighting fallout from bad infrastructure. Infrastructure updates would prevent Katrina-sized outcomes. They’d keep our economy flowing, keep our water supply safe, and keep us looking like a developed country.

Loss of economic independence

Image: DaveFayram/Flickr

Right now, the rest of the world owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them. -Warren Buffett in 2006

In 1979, manufacturing comprised 21% of the economy. In 2008, that number was 11.5%. One in six factory jobs disappeared between 2000-2007. When a factory goes away, it takes its supply chain, R&D, and other supporting companies with it. Richard McCormack writes that “one manufacturing job supports 15 other jobs. No other category of job has such a high multiplier.”
By outsourcing much of our manufacturing, we ended up relying on services to support the economy. It’s a precarious situation, especially since services are outsourceable, too. One Princeton economist says 40 million jobs could be shipped out in the next 10-20 years, including 1 out of 3 service jobs.

What have gained by transferring our manufacturing (and, by association, knowledge and wealth) to other countries? A massive trade deficit with 90 countries, for one. Consumers and companies don’t have a choice of where to buy products. They’re made abroad by default. If they were made here, they’d be prohibitively expensive, thanks to stringent regulatory requirements that the US doesn’t apply to goods produced elsewhere. It’s no wonder we’re a country that consumes more than it produces.

We have a trade imbalance of $232.5 billion with China alone. China produces most of the goods that American consumers buy. American companies offshore there because China is cheap and doesn’t have expensive regulations. Moreover, China owns an estimated $1 trillion in US Treasuries. Yet the US only makes up about 12% of China’s trading. If China drops the ball, we flounder. We’re forced to politically tap dance with China in order to maintain economic stability.
All of this makes us look more like a colony than a sovereign country.

The lobbyist industry

Ever get the feeling the government just isn’t listening to you? All you need to do to get a response is slip a couple million dollars into your Congressman’s pocket. Up the money tenfold, and you’ll probably get your own law. This is the power of lobbying in the US.
Politicians listen to you when they want your votes. Once they’re in office, the currency changes to cash. During the first 3 months of 2010 alone, lobbyists spent almost $1 billion to influence the government.
The four primary lobbying groups—health interests, business associations, energy companies and Wall Street firms—each spent more than $123 million lobbying during Q1 2010, according to Open Secrets. That’s $1.37 million per day. Last year, lobbyists spent almost $3.5 billion total, that we know of.

If lobbyists are lucky, they’ll get regulators drooling on their laps. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, legally pays the FDA to speed up the drug approval process. The FDA, which monitors labeling and drug safety, is basically paid to do what its main funder, the pharma industry, tells it to. No wonder consumers don’t usually find out about adverse drug effects until years later.
Few laws exist to put distance between politicians and lobbyists. Bribery is both systemized and legal. Meanwhile, lobbying reform has been minimal. Lobbying makes our claims to democracy look more like reality TV than truth.

Obesity

Image: Tobyotter/Flickr

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. 33% of children are obese. Nearly 50% of African-American and Hispanic women are overweight or obese. If you’re a suburbanite or sit in front of a computer for hours a day, you’re also at risk.

What gives? If you trace obesity back to its roots, you’ll come back to the waterbed that government and industry cavort on every night. The government pays $20 billion per year to subsidize agriculture. Feed grain, corn, and wheat are some of the biggest recipients. As a result of subsidies and scale, food made with refined grains, sugars, and beef is cheap. Consumers, short on time and money, can buy a “complete” meal for cheap.

If you’re a poor American, you’re more likely to buy cheap, bad-for-you food and grow obese. If you’re obese, you’re more likely to develop diabetes, cancer, and the host of other diseases that cost the US an estimated $100 billion per year.

If you can afford health insurance to treat those problems, great–the US insurance industry, including health insurance, owns $2 billion in stock in the country’s five biggest fast food companies. And if you feel insecure about your weight, there’s a $35 billion/year weight loss industry waiting to sell you temporary self-esteem.

The bottom line: Government subsidies help make fast food cheaper than healthy food. Poor people, women, and children are most likely to become obese. Lacking the resources, motivation, or know-how to stop eating the stuff that makes them obese, people turn to a gargantuan dieting industry for a quick fix. Insurance companies also don’t mind if you turn to their products when your weight makes you sick.

Maybe obesity is an epidemic, but some very important people aren’t arguing with it.

The revolving door

or

Image: Dan4th/Flickr

After their terms end, many politicians become lobbyists for the same corporations and industries they used to regulate. 43% of Congressman and Senators who left the government between 1998-2005 became lobbyists, according to one study.

These former politicians retain access to all of the Congressional and House amenities they had during their days on Capitol Hill. They can legally join their politician buddies in the House gym or Senate floor. Their companies are allowed to buy politicians fancy meals, gifts, and trips.
Many politicians later rotate back into government in a different role. Larry Summers, for example, is today’s Director of the National Economic Council. Before that, he was the managing director of D.E. Shaw & Co., a massive Wall Street hedge fund. Before that, he was Secretary of the Treasury. You see how this works.

National laws support the revolving door. Former policymakers can jump into corporate boardrooms and corporate executive leadership teams with no wait. After one year, they can contract for the military.

What if these laws were extended to five years, without loopholes? The poli-lobbyist club would be broken up, or at least seriously dented. Lobbying would lose some of its exclusivity and, as a result, some of its power. The words conflict of interest would once again enter our legal vocabulary.

Using personal funds for campaign purposes

 


Image: Saad Akhtar/Flickr

Back in the day, we elected a tailor (Andrew Johnson), a teacher (James Garfield), and several farmers to office.

Can you imagine that happening today? 44% of Congressman are millionaires. Senators had a median reportable net worth of $1.79 million in 2008. Mike Bloomberg alone spent more than $100 million dollars of his own money in the New York City mayoral race. Linda McMahon has stated she is prepared to spend $50 million of her own money in the Connecticut Senate race.

If you have to be personally wealthy to run for office, “poor” (read: non-millionaire) candidates hardly stand a chance. The result is a ruling class of rich, out-of-touch politicians.

No term limits

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In the United States, presidents can only stick around for 8 years. But our other two branches of government, the legislative and judicial branches, can be around forever.

US Senators have an unlimited number of six-year terms. Congressmen can be elected to 2-year terms as long as they run. Supreme Court justices stay for life.


This system practically lays out the red carpet for oligarchy. Companies bribe build long-term lobbying relationships with politicians. In return, those politicians devise laws and exceptions benefiting those companies. Supreme Court justices do the same, often ruling in favor of corporations.

Our infinite terms have produced visionless, complacent back-scratchers instead of leaders. Why we don’t choose to limit House, Congress, and Supreme Court terms in a democracy is beyond comprehension.

If you’re inspired to take action, check out National Strike Day 2010, a nonpartisan citizen effort that happens on May 10, 2010. 

Odd Russian “Photosniper” Camera

Odd Russian “Photosniper” Camera:



This camera rig might not be the best to bring to a public photo shoot.

Hailing from Russia, the Zenit Fotosnaiper, or Photosniper is a manual film camera with a rather odd design. It has a shoulderstock and a gunstock outfitted with a 300mm f/4.5 lens. It’s certainly a creative alternative to a monopod or other stabilization; the camera is held and shot just like a rifle.

The whole kit, which also includes a lens hood, an eyecup, and filters, is advertised on one website for a mere $295.

Needless to say, it’s no wonder why the design hasn’t caught on in other major camera companies.

(via Reddit)

Image Credit: Photosniper – assembled by LordKalvan

3D printer creates ice sculptures -- just add water

3D printer creates ice sculptures -- just add water:

Paper-mache, candy, and human cells have all been seen flowing through 3D printers for custom fabrication work, but students and faculty at Canada's McGill University have a cheaper prototyping material: plain ol' H2O. They recently modified this Fab@Home Model 1 by replacing the soft goo extruders with a temperature-controlled water delivery system, and set about making decorative ice sculptures and a large beer mug for good measure. While the academic project is officially supposed to explore 'economic alternatives to intricate 3D models of architectural objects,' we're not sure architects will want much to do with prototypes that drip... but tourism might well get a boost from liquor sold in frosty custom containers. We're thirsty just looking at them.

3D printer creates ice sculptures -- just add water originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 May 2010 08:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.