Thanko’s solar-powered DAP urges you outdoors

Admin — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:04:03 +0000

So we’ve seen a few solar-powered gizmos (that we wouldn’t touch with a ~~ten~~ twenty foot pole), but Thanko’s own sun-lovin’ DAP actually doesn’t look half bad. The Solar Digital Audio Player, from the front, looks like any other ho hum unit, with a 1.8-inch 220 x 176 resolution display, 4GB of internal storage space and a miniSD expansion slot. Flip ‘er over, and you’ll find a thoughtful kickstand that just so happens to have a solar panel slapped right on, enabling the brilliant, outdoor sunshine to give it a few more minutes of life. There’s no official word on a price or release date, but we wouldn’t bank on it ever coming Stateside, anyway.

And the bride wore … a tank??

Admin — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:54:47 +0000

Scuba tank, that is. You know, a diving cylinder? For breathing underwater?

If you’re avid divers, you’ll love the opportunity to tie the knot under water, and there are places you can do just that. Given that scuba weddings are offered in exotic spots like Grand Cayman Island, thePhilippines, and Bali, this could well be a destination wedding as well. If you’re not an experienced diver, you will be required to take a course the day before, and may be restricted to a pool wedding — underwater, but not quite as exotic as the sea floor!

The underwater part is generally not legally binding — after all, you have to be able to speak your vows and declare you intention to marry. Unless you’re Deaf and signing your ceremony, this requires air and dry land. However, if the idea of a white scuba suit and matching mask, blue seas and curious fish is your idea of romance heaven on earth, an underwater wedding might be just the wedding for you!

From Aisle Dash.

iPod Touch Stress Tests

Admin — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:06:33 +0000

Broken Review put the iPod Touch through their grueling stress test, this time everything from low drops to spilling tea over it, kicking it down stairs and throwing it in a bath. The Touch got 71/100 dying upon being thrown into water.
Click here for the videos and full review.

Heres a taste of things to come..!

That’ll cost you: furniture made from quarters

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:03:05 +0000

Money offers an interesting conundrum for recyclephiles because it’s already reused and exchanged. In fact, that’s it’s function. Hmm.

So I pose this question to all you philosophers: is re-purposing quarters better for the environment than just using quarters as, well, plain old quarters?

I really don’t know the answer. But take a look at these interesting chairs made of coinage.

And while you’re at it, there’s a completely gorgeous origami koi fish made out of dollar bill out there. I just wish I knew how to replicate the folds. Oh, well.

From Green Daily.

Transferring planes in Dubai? Better wipe your shoes.

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:43:00 +0000

A British father of three named Keith Brown has been sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of possessing .003 grams of cannabis. The man, a council youth development officer, was going through Customs at the Dubai Airport, and apparently had the marijuana particle– smaller than a grain of sugar– stuck to his shoe.

Brown is a Rastafarian who was returning from a visit to his family in Ethiopia. He was imprisoned in September of 2007 but sentenced only this week. UAE officials say he will be deported after serving his four-year sentence.

Mr. Brown isn’t the only one to feel the wrath of Dubai’s draconian drug laws. Last month, charges against a German national were finally dropped after the man spent six weeks behind bars. His crime? Trying to pass through customs with .03 grams of hash in his bag. That’s about the size of a speck of dirt, and the man claimed he never knowingly possessed the hash.

The drugs, though invisible to the human eye, are detectable in customs using high-tech equipment, and customs officials are reportedly given a bonus for each arrest. Dubai’s drug laws were changed in 2006 so that the possession of even the most miniscule amount of a drug is considered possession.

Well, it’s at least nice to hear that Dubai doesn’t have any actual crime to worry about.

From Gadling.

L.A. Police Gear

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:37:28 +0000

Shopping tip - Security gear.

Websites selling military, security and government gear often offer great value for money. Take, for example, LA Police Gear, which can be found at lapolicegear.com. Selling anything from watches, boots, pants and backpacks to tactical Blackhawk Gear, gunsafes and gas masks all at amazing prices. Set up by Los Angeles Police officers they provide military personnel, security professionals, and of course police officers with essential gear, they are also open to the general public, offering you the chance to get great quality gear at great prices

So, if you’re in the security business or just out to get tough military grade clothing or accessories, definitely check out their site.

Tresling: it’s Tetris, with arm wrestling

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:19:35 +0000

Given the multitude of ways Tetris has been tweaked already, we were beginning to wonder if the spectacular mods involving the famed title were dwindling down. Apparently not. Tresling is a brilliant creation involving a sophisticated arm wrestling board which converts tussling into block movements within the game. For each flinch, yank and pull, one’s block turns — if you can’t maintain your position, chances are that your figure will end up all out of place. Believe it or not, it actually looks even more fun on video, so check out the heated competition in the read link below.

Read. From Engadget.

ITV drops ONE Pushing Daisies episode

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:15:06 +0000

The second episode of Anna Friel’s hit US drama Pushing Daisies will not be screened by ITV, it has emerged.

The UK broadcaster bought the rights to the entire nine-part series, but only has space in its schedule to show eight programmes before Euro 2008 begins.

Viewers will skip straight to episode three of the modern-day fairytale, about a man who brings people back from the dead - including his first love.

Episode one brought 5.7 million viewers to ITV1 on Saturday night.

“Episode two was the only show we could drop without spoiling the storyline,” an ITV spokesman said.

Pneumonia ‘linked’ to pollution

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:13:24 +0000

High levels of pollution may have contributed to the deaths of thousands of people in England from pneumonia in recent years, a study suggests.

A team at the University of Birmingham examined death rates from the disease and pollution levels in 352 local authorities between 1996 and 2004.

Writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, they reported a “strong correlation” between the two.

But the researchers conceded that social factors may also be at play.

Calculations were made by looking at how many deaths there were in each locality in excess of the national average.

These figures were then cross-checked with a range of pollutant levels, including engine exhaust emissions.

Elderly man hangs up the keys after trashing two Porsches

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:07:48 +0000

Jack Higgs of Penarth, England, is 93. He has been driving for 76 years, and has never gotten a ticket. He never even had a single accident since learning to drive at age 17. That flawless streak came to an end, however, on Monday, when Mr. Higgs totaled two cars and badly damaged a third. Mr. Higgs swears he’ll never drive again.

A former Pentecostal minister, Higgs was backing up his 13-year-old Ford Fiesta at a local Porsche dealership when he inexplicably lost control and found himself hanging upside down by his seat belt in his overturned car. At 93, Higgs managed to get himself out of the wreck unassisted and, after being checked over by the paramedics, walked away from the scene unscratched. You’d think the owners of the dealership would be livid, but their concern was mostly for Higgs’ wellbeing. The nonagenarian, who attributed his good fortune to prayer and God, had been driving through the dealership’s front lot for years without incident to get to his garage, was known to everyone at the dealership, and even offered to help clean up the mess. Somehow we doubt Mr. Higgs will have trouble finding someone to give him the occasional lift.

From Autoblog.

Finally, the Buddha Phone

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:01:17 +0000

We’ll admit, there’s something strangely intriguing about the over-the-top design put forth by this gilded, Buddha-themed candybar turning up in the streets of Shenzhen. The shell is alleged to be stainless steel with a 24 karat gold plating — though we suspect that might only be true of the engraving on the back — and not a single square inch of the thing has been left without some sort of intricate detail that you’re not going to find on your average Nokia or Samsung. No proper Buddha phone would be complete without a microSD slot or a touchscreen, of course, and this example is no exception; it also seems that the phone has been blessed by a monk, so you shouldn’t have much trouble with evil spirits taking residence in your decidedly materialistic purchase. Seriously, how can you go wrong with a keypad that fancy?

From Engadget Mobile.

Apple and Sony settle with Japanese battery burn victims

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:57:18 +0000

Remember that Japanese couple who sued Apple and Sony over one of those famous burning batteries? Well it looks like the companies have decided to settle, and will pay the fire-damaged pair a total of ¥1.3 million (or around $13,000). Of course, this is a bit less than the absurdly low $16,700 the two were asking, but percentage-wise they didn’t make out too badly. During the trial, Apple Japan apparently accepted responsibility for the incident but couldn’t justify settling out of court due to a request for “excessive compensation,” while Sony maintained its distance by suggesting a link between the battery and burns wasn’t clear. We’re sure the guy who made the trip to the hospital thinks otherwise.

From Engadget.

Just in time for the Olympics: China now world’s largest polluter

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:47:12 +0000

American polluters are hanging their heads in shame today at the news that China has probably already overtaken the US as the world’s premier emitter of greenhouse gases.

A research team from the University of California reports that while the US can still take pride in being a bigger per capita polluter (USA!USA!USA!), Chinese emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have been underestimated, and probably surpassed those of the US sometime in 2006 or 2007.

There’s really no positive spin to this story, but there is a whole bunch of interesting downside.

Firstly, since we’ve been wrong about Chinese pollution all along, that means that projected outputs used in climate change models are also low, and the real numbers will also be much greater than anticipated. Secondly, the Chinese government has been fairly blunt in the past about the fact that economic growth will take priority over reducing greenhouse gases, so don’t look for any change from that direction. Thirdly, the Chinese economy is expected to grow at a superheated, coal-powered 10% this year, which is good news if you own a factory in Shenzen, but bad news for a whole lot of other folks on the planet.

But wait, here’s the best part. The scientists project that the growth in China’s greenhouse gas emissions over the next decades will be “several times larger than the cuts in emissions being made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol.” If rich nations were even cutting emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, which so far they’re not.

From Green Daily.

Worst cities for allergies

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:43:54 +0000

Though he claims he never had allergies before moving here to my hometown 10 years ago, my husband came home after a recent allergy test with a sheet filled with items that he reacted to. While I doubt all of his allergies cropped up in the last decade, I do know that our area is bad for people who suffer respiratory illnesses. Though we have no intentions of moving, if we ever do, air quality will definitely be on my list of things to consider.

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recently named the worst cities for allergy sufferers in America. They ranked their cities by pollen counts, medication usage, and the number of board certified allergists per patient.

The top five include:

Lexington, KY

Greensboro, NC

Johnson City, TN

Augusta, GA

Jackson, MS

From That’s Fit.

How to chill a bottle of wine in under 10 minutes

Admin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:39:03 +0000

The dilemma:
It’s Friday night. You’re off to a dinner party. So you stop to pick up an obligatory last-minute bottle of wine, and show up on their doorstep with a totally warm bottle of chardonnay. Some guest you are — what exactly were you thinking?

The solution:
Ask to borrow some salt (and a measuring cup.) Then add a third of a cup of salt to a mixture of ice and water (you’ll also have to ask for an ice bucket.) Place your bottle of wine in it and in less than six minutes you’ll have saved yourself — who knows — this nifty little trick may even make you the life of the party.

Why it works:
Salt has many random uses that most of us don’t need to know. In this case, however, it might be useful to know that salt causes ice to melt at a lower temperature compared to ice that is just in fresh water. This results in water that becomes colder much faster. In fact, using salt water versus regular water cuts the chilling time by one third.

Who you’ll impress:
Everyone at the party, unless — of course — you use all the salt that was needed for dinner.

From DIYLife