11 Other Uses for Toothpaste

Besides keeping your teeth sparkly, toothpaste offers a wide range of cleaning, cosmetic—even healing abilities around the house. Just be sure to use the white pasty stuff, not gel. And for any of these tips that call for an actual toothbrush, just consider that tool off-limits for the mouth from here on out.

1. Perfume your palms

Cutting onions, cleaning fish, or handling garlic can leave a strong odor on your hands. Wash them with toothpaste to remove the smell.

2. Clean your Jewelry

Use a soft toothbrush with a tiny amount of toothpaste to brush dull metal jewelry, then rinse and polish it to a shine with a soft cloth. Soak seriously grungy metal in a cup of water with dissolved toothpaste. Don't use it to get a pearly white finish on actual pearls—toothpaste damages the surface.

3. Put paste on a damp sponge to wipe crayon off painted walls

4. Defog goggles

The mild abrasive in toothpaste is perfect for removing the crud that causes your sporty eyewear to fog up. As a preventative measure, just lightly rub toothpaste inside a diving mask, motorcycle goggles, or on a hockey helmet face guard. Wipe and rinse the surface clean. (Note: YMMV—toothpaste can remove special coatings like anti-glare treatments.)

5. Clear zits

Cover pimples with a dab of toothpaste before you hit the sack, then wash your face clean in the morning. This works for bug bites and bee stings too—just remove the stinger first. The paste will dry out and shrink your offending blemishes.

6. Do your nails

Toothpaste works on toenails and fingernails like it does on teeth. Clean your nails with a toothbrush and paste to make them strong and shiny.

7. De-funk a bottle

Wash baby bottles with toothpaste and a bottle scrubber, making sure to rinse them very well with water. The paste will get rid of that nauseating sour milk smell.

8. Remove soap scum

Rub a glass shower door with a damp sponge and a squirt of toothpaste. For heavy scum and soap stains, let the toothpaste sit on the door for several minutes before rinsing it off.

9. Polish chrome faucet fixtures

10. Hide drink rings

If you aren't fanatical about putting coasters under your drinks, then you probably have water rings on your wooden furniture. Rub them off with toothpaste and a soft cloth.

11. Remove stains

Scrub a carpet stain with toothpaste on an abrasive brush, then rinse with water. Tough stains require a couple of scrubbings. Toothpaste can also remove stains in cotton clothes, but it doesn't work for all types of fabric.

BlackBerry 10 Will Reportedly Include Screen Sharing

Now that RIM has shown a preview of BlackBerry 10, more rumors are surfacing about the updated OS.

The latest, from CrackBerry, claims that the platform will have a new screen sharing feature, which means you could show someone what's on your phone's display during a video call or while you're messaging. It's something you can already do on the desktop, as with Skype, for example, and it would be a very useful addition for mobile. Images of the OS also show that it will finally get a native Twitter app, something it desperately needs.

There are a few other tidbits that popped up on the forum, one being that the plug has been pulled on a 10-inch PlayBook. RIM has decided to focus its efforts on the existing 7-inch model. Additionally, a 4G version of the tablet should be released next month, as possibly well as updated Wi-Fi models, in order to support BBM.

And what about the first BlackBerry 10 phone? CrackBerry says it will be the BlackBerry Colt 2. The only problem is, there's no release date for the sleek new OS yet. More here.

Simple Paper Flashlight Folds As Flat As a Bookmark

LEDs are not only incredibly energy-efficient, but they're also small enough to be squeezed into the tiniest of gadgets. Or in the case of the Lite Lite, a simple piece of paper that folds into a working flashlight.

There is some assembly required, of course, but it's as simple as folding a piece of paper into a long square tube and slipping an elastic band around one end to hold it together. That's it. The$13 flashlight is powered by a single cell-sized battery which should actually keep it shining for a while, and turns on automatically whenever you grasp it. More here.

HTC Launches Kickstand-tastic One S Cases

Kickstand lovers rejoice! These come in four colors -- gray, granita (red), navy blue and black -- the latter featuring a tweaked design with an integrated kickstand. Unlike most third-party products, build quality is top-notch -- the accessories use a precision-molded flexible plastic shell covered in a soft touch finish. 

The kickstand is made of a metal alloy and is spring-loaded, but blocks access to the micro-USB port when in use. While the cases protect the back and sides of the One S, the front remains exposed to potential damage. Availability is slated as "soon", but pricing is $24.99 for the plain model and $39.99 for the kickstand version.  

Change the Shape of This Lamp With the Pull of a String

Overhead lighting is possibly the least flexible way to illuminate a room. Flip a switch, the bulb goes on, and light shines down. End of story. It you want to switch up the lighting for, say, a little more mood, you're out of luck. Unless you've chosen the impossibly clever Greta pendant lamp, which can throw light onto your ceiling with the pull of a drawstring.

Designed by Whatswhat, a trio of young designers who met at school, Greta began as a class project but is now a fully-realized piece which can add some personality to your living room. The 22-inch tall lamp comes in six colors and is priced like the attractive centerpiece it is. But some will find it worth it for the ability to see a room in a new light by pulling a string. More here.

Roll-Up Bottle Is Big

The Bübi Bottle may look like a normal plastic water container, but it's actually made from firm, yet supple, silicone. This means you can roll it up when you're done to save space, but we wouldn't suggest reaching for it in a bar brawl.

It's probably not going to help you win any fights, but it can certainly help you recover from one. The bottle's flexibility, combined with the insulating properties of silicone, means it can pull double duty as a hot water bottle for soothing your bruises. It's like getting two bottles for the price of one, or rather the price of two in this case seeing as it costs $30. More here.

Rovio Intros Angry Birds Facebook Share & Play

Granted it's not quite, you know, organ donation, but Rovio's offering up some Facebook magic of its own. The casual game maker has rolled out the Share & Play feature, which lets users embed their latest Angry Birds level onto their friends' Timelines for some slingshot-happy bragging rights. Sharing goes beyond just Facebook however -- you can embed the playable level on other sites as well.

PoP Video Peripheral Turns iPod Touches and iPhones Into Pico Projectors for $99

The PoP Video pairs up with iPod touches (3rd / 4th generation) and iPhones (4 / 4S) via Apple's proprietary 30-pin connector, essentially turning your device into an unorthodox pico projector. According to PoP's site, the 3.5 ounce peripheral's capable of 960 x 540 video output and can give you up to two hours of "playtime" on a single charge -- achieved by way of micro-USB. 

It all wouldn't be worth it without the free iOS app, though, which lets folks tinker with settings and do what it's intended to do: project videos, pics as well as browsing within Safari. The $99 PoP Video is up for pre-order now here.

Windows 8 Won’t Play DVDs as Standard

Microsoft has recently been dribbling out news of the media functionality of Windows 8, and little has been surprising. But here's something weird: unless you buy the Media Center version of the OS, Windows won't offer any native facility for DVD playback.

Of course, you'll be able to use a piece of free third-party software, like VLC, to watch a DVD. And to make it clear, we are only talking about video DVDs, not data DVDs. But, uh, it still seems like somewhat of a step back in time. So what gives?

The Windows developers justify the decision by explaining DVD use on computers is "in sharp decline", adding that it would have to spend "a significant amount in royalties" to offer support for optical media. Instead, online media is the focus for Windows 8: H.264, VC-1, MP4, AAC, WMA, MP3, those kinds of file types.

So, what seems like an odd decision is just a big money-saver for Microsoft. And it won't really affect end users, who can just download a piece of free software. But that doesn't stop it feeling plain weird.

Heat-Conducting Spoons Make Ice Cream Scooping Hassle-Free

There's nothing like a heaping serving of perfect, barely melted ice cream. But when you take the tub out of the freezer, it's so hard and cold, you have to use some serious elbow grease to force out a proper scoop .

You just can't wait, either. The good news is now, you don't have to. Japanese designer Naoki Terada has invented heat-conducting spoons that slice right through your rock solid ice cream, softening as it cuts through the frosty fare.

Tereada deserves some kind of medal for his innovative utensil, dubbed 15.0%, a reference to the Japanese regulation that requires ice cream to include 15 percent milk solids. With a wide handle, the spoon is designed with the shape of your hand in mind, in order to give you more power when you exert the brute force to required to extract your desert from the carton. More here.

Made out of aluminum, it comes in three styles specific to different flavor, each shaped for optimum bowl-scraping. The vanilla version has an egg-shaped tip, the chocolate model comes with an angular end, and the strawberry one is more like a spork. While the spoon is supposed to be sturdy enough to help you gorge on ice cream, you might not have the strength to resist.

Treasure Hunters Flock to California Searching For Pieces of Six-Billion-Year-Old Meteor

A stay-at-home mom was out walking her dog recently when she stumbled upon a weird, 17-gram rock. It turned out to be 4 to 6 billion years old. And from space. And it's worth $20,000. Is El Dorado County due for another gold rush?

Space rocks have been on the county's mind ever since a mini-van-sized meteorite exploded over it, creating a sonic boom. Tiny fragments of the rock—which predates the formation of the sun—were scattered all over the hills, setting off a red alert to fanatics of a certain stripe. the local CBS affiliate reports that thousands of geologists, scientists, and treasure hunters have descended upon the town from all over the world hoping to get their own piece of precious space rock. Brenda Salverson, the lucky local mom, isn't the first to find a chunk of the pie. At least one professional hunter found some fragments, and if people keep hitching their wagons for gold country—many other's will likely get lucky as well. More here.

Very Little Jogging Can Make Your Life Much, Much Longer

You probably go jogging because it makes you less fat and it is less humiliating than being yelled at through a 60-minute spinning class. But according to a new examination of the Copenhagen City Heart study, jogging less than two hours per week can add years to your life.

The Copenhagen City Heart study started in 1976, around the time that the jogging boom happened, and followed 20,000 men and women, aged 20 to 98. Of the group, there were 1,116 male joggers and 768 female joggers. When their mortality rates were compared with the main group, the men lived 6.2 years longer than non-joggers, and women 5.6 years longer. Even crazier? The amount of exercise needed to drastically increase your lifespan isn't much at all. Just one to two and a half hours per week, split over two or three sessions. More here.
Sure, folks who at least make the effort to run a little bit every week might also be taking care of themselves in other ways. The lesson? Stop being such a lazy turd. Or if you're already pretty active, you are probably going to live to be older than your lazy turd friends. Really, though, rippling abdominals aside, five or six years tacked on to the end of your life for a few hours' worth of effort a week is a pretty good deal.

Is This the World’s Most Expensive Bookmark?

You should never save your place in a book by laying it face down. When it's bookmarked that way, its spine breaks and the binding will never be the same again. But if you're reading next to this beautiful book table, you can probably get away with it.

Designed by German studio Voigt Dietrich, this table's design does two things very efficiently: it houses books while serving as a bookmark. Simply put the tome you're reading across its peak, and your page will be saved until the next time you want to read. The table also includes a flat surface for objects that need a level place to rest (like, almost everything.) More here.

Facebook's iPhone Messenger to get Video Chat, Enlarged Variant for iPad?

Been itching for Facebook's iPhone-dedicated Messenger app to make its way over to the iPad?  Maybe for the iPhone variant to finally reap the benefits of Skype video chat integration as well? Well, according to 9to5Mac, Camp Zuckerberg is testing both in-house, with the latter planned to hit iPhones this summer. 

According to the site, one of its trustworthy tipsters was able to grant it access to beta versions of the new apps, and it has the pictures to prove it. Unsurprisingly, the Messenger app for iPad is described as simply a sized-up port of the iPhone version, but surely the bump would be appreciated by many if it ever gets officially released. Perhaps more interesting, though, is having Skype video chat baked into the iPhone version -- tapping an arrow next to a contact initiates your video session, and9to5Mac reports that it's "smooth most of the time." More here.

This Warm-Water Shower System Will Make Camping Considerably More Comfortable

Nemo Equipment's Helio Pressure Shower just might be the gear that finally gets me to go camping. This small, freestanding pressure-pump shower derives its heat from the sun and travels light at just about 2lbs all packed up.

Helio's foot pump and spray nozzle (which comes at the end of a 7-foot hose) provide a steady stream of pressurized water for your warm outdoor rinse-off—which, if its 11-liter bag is full, will last for between 5 and 7 minutes.

Just in time for camping season, The Helio Pressure Shower will be available this June. More here.

Sticky Protective Skin Lets You Mount Your iPhone Anywhere

Uguard.me's adhesive skins provide a more svelte alternative to bulky cases for protecting your phone. But they're also made with a special resin material that's slightly sticky to the touch. So they provide a bit of extra grip in the hand, and will actually stick to a smooth surface like a window.

Here's the kicker, though. The skin doesn't hold indefinitely. So while you could stick your phone to your car's window for some hands-free GPS navigation, it would only be a matter of time before it lost its grip and fell off. So it's best to think of these skins as a game of Cupertino Roulette that could end up costing you a lot more than just $20. More here.

Keep Your USB Thumbdrive Safe the Way the Ancients Did

Wax seals have been used for millennia to guarantee a document's authenticity. If you got a letter with an intact seal, you could be assured that what you're reading was legit. The Top Secret USB does the same thing for your digital documents—literally.

The Top Secret is a porcelain USB drive available in 2, 4, or 8GB models. Its casing includes a small indentation where, once sensitive documents have been loaded onto the drive, a small amount of molten wax is poured and imprinted with an intricate design from the included metal stamp. Once the wax cools, there is no way to open the drive and access the files without breaking the seal—your recipient can rest assured that they are receiving the unadulterated files. The Top Secret is currently available here and is available for $46 (2GB), $52 (4GB) and $59 (8GB).

Billionaire To Build Full-Sized Replica Of the Titanic

Just a few weeks after the 100th anniversaryof the Titanic's only voyage, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has commissioned a Chinese shipyard to build a historically accurate replica of the colossal boat.

In addition to the Chinese builder, Palmer has hired a historical research team to mind all the details of recreating the nine-deck, 840-room cruise ship. The Daily Mail reports that like the original, Titanic II will have four towering smokestacks, but this time around they'll be entirely cosmetic. Instead of coal, Titanic II will be powered by diesel engines. Palmer says the ship will have gyms, spas and all the amenities people expect from luxury cruise ships. It'll also be outfitted with "21st-century technology"—presumably so that it doesn't sink on its 2016 maiden voyage.

At this time, Palmer says he has no idea how much the project will cost. We're taking bets on whether the bill will cost more than the political campaign Palmer also just announced. Yes,Titanic II Is obviously a stunt designed to promote Palmer's political career. But if you're going to spend a lot of money to get elected, you might as well build something huge and awesome. More here.

Does Chewing Gum Make You Dumb?

If you thought that chewing gum helped you concentrate, it might be time to reassess. While some old research has suggested that it can help you with abstract reasoning and logic puzzles, new research reveals that it can completely screw up your short-term memory.

The new study, carried out at the University of Cardiff in the UK, pitted participants against classic short-term memory challenges, with and without gum. The tests had the volunteers attempt to recall lists of words and numbers in the order they were seen or heard, and also had them identify missing items from lists after they had been read out.

The researchers found that chewing seems to impair our ability to recall items in the correct order, and also makes us worse at suggesting missing items from a memorized list. While in the past researchers have suggested that chewing promotes blood flow to the brain, in turn improving cognitive function, the researchers from Cardiff have a different theory.

They suggest that the periodic action that is chewing gets in the way of repetitious cognitive tasks. If you try and memorize a phone number while tapping your finger, you'll find it much harder than if you're not tapping—and they suggest the exact same thing is true of chewing. In fact, they even performed an experiment along those lines, and found that both tapping and chewing gum had similar results on short-term memory.

This flies in the face of some previous studies, which have suggested that chewing gum canimprove your ability to reason through complex problems and solve logic puzzles.

But there's a fundamental difference between these two cognitive processes: memorizing and accessing lists from short-term memory uses completely different processes and parts of the brain to logic and abstract reasoning. Logic is handled primarily by the neocortex, while short-term memory is dealt with all the way over in the pre-frontal lobe. Perhaps most interesting, though, is that the most recent studies have shown that any improvement only lasts for 20 minutes at best, anyway.

What this all means for your future chewing is difficult to say with certainty. If you use your short-term memory a lot at work, it might pay to kick the habit. If you're thinking through abstract concepts all day long though, the occasional quick chew might give you the boost you need. More here.

Forget Graphene, Silicene Is Here to Blow Your Mind

Remember how graphene, the single-atom thick layer of carbon was so slick it was going to change everything? Well it looks likesilicene is here to steal the spotlight. Researchers have just made the first sheet of single-atom thick silicon.

Silicene has been a work in progress for years, but they think they've finally got it down now, and it represents a tremendous breakthrough. Graphene is awesome, but it's proven a bit tricky to work it into components. Because silicene is made of silicon, which most chips are already made of, the integration process could be much simpler.

Patrick Vogt of Berlin's Technical University in Germany, along side researchers at Aix-Marseille University in France managed to create silicene by condensing silicon vapor onto a silver plate to form a single layer of atoms. They then tested the sheet and found that it closely matched the properties silicene was theorized to exhibit. The next (challenging) step will be to grow silicene on insulating substrates so that it can be fully tested and evaluated for potential future uses in electronics. More here.

Siri Will Cause Your iPhone 5 to Self-Destruct

Hey there, future person, you've misplaced your iPhone 5. Some nefarious person is trying to break in and steal all of your naked pictures. Not to worry, you've programed Siri to self-destruct Mission Impossible-style after three incorrect login attempts. Boom.

I just feel bad for the guy that thigh-dials three wrong logins in his pants pocket.

Hate Itchy Mosquito Bites? Building Up an Immunity Only Requires About 15,000 Bites Per Year

Meet Steve Schutz. Some might say he's very dedicated to his work. But others would call him downright crazy. You see Steve works in an insectarium, a place where mosquitos are born and raised. And to ensure its residents are well-fed and propagate, he serves up his bare armonce a week for dinner.

As a result, after a feeding the 50 red welts on his lower arm barely even register as a slight tingle since Steve has built up an immunity to the mosquito's saliva. Over the past 12 years he's been bitten over 150,000 times, since the warm fresh blood is basically what the insects feed on out in the wild. And it's just a heck of a lot easier than preparing 50 tiny insect-sized baby bottles full of blood. But it's all in the name of science, since the lab where Steve works studies the effects of pesticides on the bugs, to test if, and how quickly, they become resistant.

Temperature Sensitive Rug Changes Colors To Match the Seasons

When you decorate a room you're stuck with a single color palette all year round that doesn't necessarily reflect the changing seasons outside. So maybe we should look toSiren Elise Wilhelmsen's color-changing rugfor inspiration on designing a room that reflects, or contrasts, the temperatures outside.

Wilhelmsen refers to her Season Carpet as a "soft thermometer" and it's made from 100-percent wool dyed with special heat-sensitive pigments that change color depending on the ambient temperature. The rug is actually made up of three different colors that all shift their hues at different temperature ranges, so the pattern should actually be fairly unique as it transitions throughout the year. Unless your home's thermostat always maintains the perfect temperature indoors. In that case the rug's not going to put on a show for you. More here.

Samsung Overtakes Nokia as the World’s Biggest Phone Manufacturer

Samsung has just toppled Nokia's 14-year run as the world's biggest vendor of mobile phones in terms of shipments. In the first quarter of 2012 Samsung shipped 93.5 million handsets—36 per cent more than a year earlier—overtaking the Finnish phone giant who shipped a mere 82.7 million.

Bloomberg reports that it's Samsung's smartphones that have driven its sales, as it shipped a massive 44.5 million of the things in the first three months of the year. By way of comparison, Apple shipped 35.1 million units in the first quarter.

Nokia has been the world's biggest seller of mobile phone since 1998, a title which it snatched from Motorola. Remember those days, Moto? More here.

Keep Your Files Safe With Voice-Authenticating USB Drive

There are some sensitive documents that you want to ensure don't fall into the wrong hands, such as contracts or financial records. This voice-authenticating USB drive($50) will ensure no one's snooping into your sensitive stuff.

It looks just like a regular thumb drive, but using voice-recognition technology, it will only grant access to a password spoken by the owner. There's no installation required. Once you plug it in, it speak the password, and once it's authenticated you can start stashing your files. In the event you space on your password, it provides steps for you to reset. Get is here.

You Can Buy This $195 Million US Navy Stealth Ship for Just $100,000

If I had $100,000 handy, I would bid for theSea Shadow, the stealth ship that DARPA built for the US Navy in 1983. It's now for sale at GSA Auctions. The original price tag: the US Government paid $195 million to Lockheed Martin to build it. And you get a HMB-1 Mining Barge too in the package too.

THE EX-SEA SHADOW (IX-529)
YEAR BUILT: 1983
BUILDER: LOCKHEED MARTIN
OVERALL LENGTH: 164 FEET
WATERLINE LENGTH: 118 FEET
EXTREME BEAM 68 FEET
WATERLINE BEAM: 58 FEET
MAXIMUM NAVIGATIONAL DRAFT: 15 FEET
DRAFT LIMIT: 15 FEET
LIGHT DISPLACEMENT: 499 TONS
HULL MATERIAL: STEEL HULL AND SUPERSTRUCTURE
DIESEL ELECTRIC PROPULSION SYSTEM
NUMBER OF PROPELLERS: TWO

Needless to say, this ship would be perfect is you want to be a superhero or a supervillain.

The price will keep going up, for sure. It started at $50,000. But it will not get anywhere its original price tag. The reason: the US Government doesn't want you to keep it in its original form. If you want to buy it, you will have to destroy it! It has to be converted into scrap. More here.

THE EX-SEA SHADOW SHALL BE DISPOSED OF BY COMPLETELY DISMANTLING AND SCRAPPING WITHIN THE U.S.A. DISMANTILING IS DEFINED AS REDUCING THE PROPERTY SUCH AS IT HAS NO VALUE EXCEPT FOR ITS BASIC MATERIAL CONTENT.

The Perfect Fashion Statement for Photographers

If you're stuck for a gift for your closest camera-lover, look no further. These bracelets are custom-made from old camera lenses, providing a one-off piece of jewelery that any photography nerd is bound to love.

Made by Craig Arnold in South Australia, each one is different, in no small part because they display the wear-and-tear suffered by the lenses when they were in active service. He even makes some sterling silver replicas of old camera parts—like lenses and aperture rings—to complement them.

Such a statement doesn't come cheap, however: the bracelets all cost upwards of $200. Maybe you could try and make your own instead? More here.

Wipe Your Hard Drive DoD-Clean

You can reformat and overwrite that old hard drive as many times as you want before junking it—modern forensics software can still extract data from it. The Drive eRazer Ultra, however, can expunge your sensitive data to DoD specifications.

The Drive eRazer Ultra by Wiebetech is a standalone device for securely erasing hard drive data. It works natively with SATA and IDE/PAT drives, clearing them by overwriting every bit with a 0—there's simply nothing left to recover from the plate.

The process is relatively speedy, averaging about 7GB/min for newer drives. Its Secure Erase mode—one of many available, including user-generated programs—eliminates data left at the end of partly overwritten blocks, directories, partitions, and Host Protected Areas. And unlike, say a degaussing machine or a comically-large magnet, the drive remains usable afterwards. More here.

These Magnetic Bike Lights Look Super Sleek

Bike lights are massively important if you're cycling anywhere after sunset, but attaching them to your bike is a pain in the ass. These lights could be the perfect solution—provided you ride a steel-framed bike.

Designed by Copenhagen Parts, they're made of machined aluminium and have a magnet on the rear. There's no on/off button: when you plop the light onto the frame, it immediately switches on. That massively speeds up the process of getting lights on and off your bike. Lars Thomsen, one of the designers, explains:

"We had the idea some time ago and have spent the last 18 months getting them right. We now have them perfected and will soon be ready to launch this patented innovation."

In fact, the prototypes have been in testing for six months, during which times Copenhagen Parts have added magnets strong enough to keep the lights in place regardless of road service. Though they're not quite on sale just yet, they should be available later this year and you can pre-order now. More here. 

Carbon Fiber Bookshelves Are Novel Objects of Lust

You don't see it used in furniture very often, but Davide Anzalone's Aliante bookshelf, which took the top prize at Olympus RFP's2012 Carbon Fiber Design Contest, makes a strong case for using carbon fiber everywhere.

Looking like it could serve alongside the stealth fighter in the U.S. Air Force, you can actually fill the shelf's outstretched tipped wings all the way to the ends without them sagging. And let's not forget that when it comes time to move you could easily strap this thing to your back and barely feel the added weight. If only such a creation didn't come with a price tag that would require you to mortgage your new home. More here.

Safety Pin Flash Drive

Art Lebedev's studio is best known for its flashy glowing Optimus keyboards, but the firm dabbles in other clever designs too. Like merging a USB flash drive with a safety pin creating four gigs of storage you're unlikely to lose.

There's no word on whether or not the Bulavkus flash drive concept will ever actually be available for sale, but Lebedev's studio has certainly put more elaborate creations into production. So there's hope that you might actually be able to get your hands on one someday, and keep your files as secure as a pair of mittens tethered to a child's coat sleeve. More here.

Pointed Puppets to Spear Your Snacks

A company by the name of Fred and Friends has come out with possibly the most pointless product of our time. Food Fingers—the "FingerPickin Cocktail Picks"—are multicolored plastic caps that fit over your finger and end in a tiny three-pronged food spear. They seem almost like a good idea, for party platters and such, until you realize you'll still be eating with your slobbery hands, only they'll be hands covered in slobbery rainbow plastic. More here.

An Electric Beach Cruiser for the Supremely Lazy

Maybe this would be an acceptable form of transport for the likes of Marlon Brando or Alfred Hitchcock, but for anybody else it simply declares, "Hello world! I'm too lazy to pedal or balance!" At least it's only three grand.

The Beachcombing Electric Tricycle, besides being embarrassing to say out loud, by Hammacher Schlemmer is exactly what it sounds like—a beach cruising chimera with an added wheel and 20 MPH 350-watt motor. The Li-Ion battery can haul you for up to 30 miles of shame as long as you weigh less than 250 pounds. If so, the onboard storage can stow your "groceries, gym bag," or pride. It's even got a lower back rest for some reason. It retails for $3000 from the HS website. More here.

Microsoft Is Losing Mobile Subscribers Faster Than It Can Gain Them

When you run the numbers on Microsoft's mobile platform, it doesn't look good. Despite the debut of Windows Phone 7 about a year and a half ago, the company is losing mobile users faster than it can add them.

For a three month period ending in February, Microsoft nabbed a paltry 3.9 percent of the market, slipping 1.3 percentage points from November and 3.8 points from a year ago, the latest figures from comScore show. Redmond currently lags far behind even BlackBerry, which has been dealing with massive problems of its own, and snagged 13.4 percent of the space in February.

Microsoft's platform has been on a free fall since the end of 2007, the year Apple just about started digging graves for these second-tier platforms by introducing the iPhone. At that point, Microsoft still controlled 36 percent, according to comScore, but by the end of 2009, that figure had been slashed in half to 18 percent.

For the record, Apple and Google are sitting pretty, currently speaking for 30.1 and 50.1 percent of the OS share respectively.

So what, if anything, can Microsoft do to get it back? Or at least, can it stop losing ground? It's banking pretty hard on the new Nokia Lumia 900, and at $100 (with a new contract), the pretty little device is not a bad gadget to bet on. While it's a step in the right direction, Microsoft is on a downward trajectory, and it needs to do something drastic to get people interested in its OS. More here.

Bottle Opener + Sunglasses = Beer Goggles?

Unless you're into the whole Oakley look, the Brewsees aren't the most stylish shades you can buy. But damned if they're not the most functional, with each arm ending in a working bottle opener. Now you might be thinking to yourself that there's no way a plastic pair of sunglasses could be used to open a bottle. 

And you'd be right. That's why the openers on the Brewsees are actually made from 6061 airplane grade anodized aluminum. For $30 they even arrive inside a Brewsee-themed bottle koozie, and should be just as effective when it comes to hiding your drunken bloodshot eyes. More here.

How to Unlock the iPhone 4S Right Now

Hacker Loktar_Sun has discovered how to easily unlock your iPhone 4S—and any other iPhone. The unlock will free you from your carrier's tyranny, which is great news, especially while traveling or switching companies.

You will only need a jailbroken iPhone, see here how to. The rest is painless:

IMPORTANT: Before starting, make sure to have the latest iTunes. This process should be painless and easy but, like with every other unlock, proceed at your own risk.

Step 1

Go to Cydia and add repo.bingner.com as one of your app repositories. Search for Sam Bingner's SAM package and install it.

Step 2

Click on SAMPrefs icon.

Step 3

Go to utilities. Select De-Activate iPhone. Make sure your iPhone is deactivated under More Information.

Step 4

Click on By Country and Carrier in Method. Then select your carrier.

Step 5

Click on More Information again. Copy your IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) in SAM Details.

Step 6

Click on Spoof Real SIM to SAM.

Step 7

Go to the main SAM menu and change the Method to manual. Paste the IMSI in the field.

Step 8

Connect the iPhone to iTunes. It will reactivate your iPhone.

Step 9

Disconnect your iPhone when done and quit iTunes.

Step 10

Disable SAM in the SAMPrefs app.

Step 11

Connect your iPhone to the computer. iTunes will start up and tell you it can't activate the iPhone.

Step 12

Close iTunes and open it again.

Step 13

This time, iTunes will activate your iPhone and it will be unlocked! You will be able to turn off your phone and do whatever you want. The unlock will keep working, at least until Apple releases its usual countermeasures in a firmware update.

If your push notifications stop working, go to SAM again and click on Clear Push then connect to iTunes again. More here.

Skype For Windows Phone Is Now Official

It was a long time coming, but back in February Skype made it onto Windows Phone in beta. Now, testing is over, and you can get your hands on the full, official version from the WinPho Marketplace.

Unlike the beta, the app would work best with particular phones, no such caveats seem to have been put forward for this official release. As ever, the charms of video and voice calls over WiFi or 3G are hard to turn down—so cheap!—and it looks slick enough on WinPho, too. You can download the app here.

3DS Firmware Update Promises Folders, Less Cluttered Home Screens on April 25th

Are all those ambassador games crowding your 3DS' home screen? Sit tight, Nintendo's got a fix. During the outfit's Nintendo Direct conference livestream, head honcho Satoru Iwata announced that folder organization is coming to the 3DS. Fastidiously organized gamers can expect the firmware update to land on April 25th, bringing with it the joy of creating directories, stuffing them with up to 60 items and ascribing them fitting names. Iwata also detailed a handful of upcoming titles, including New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Tobidase Doubutsu no Mori (or, "Leap out Animal Crossing") for the 3DS and a Kirby compilation for the Wii. More here.

Hydraulics Let This Lightweight Roof Automatically Adapt To Changing Stresses

Engineers design structures to withstand the maximum possible stress loads. But building with the worst-case-scenario in mind can be expensive. So researchers at the University of Stuttgart created the SmartShell which is designed to be a more affordable building technique that doesn't sacrifice safety.

The lightweight shell is just 1.6-inches thick, but it's able to withstand tremendous forces thanks to hydraulic pistons located at three of its four corners. Thanks to an array of built-in sensors, as stresses on the shell change, like from the wind changing direction, the pistons instantly adjust its shape so the stress load is evenly distributed over its entire structure.

Eventually the technology could be applied to something like the roof of a large stadium. Allowing it to be lighter and cheaper to build, but just as strong since the added stresses of wind, rain, or even snow could be automatically minimized, instead of the whole structure just collapsing. More here.

RedSn0w Updated for Mac and Windows: Adds Corona A5 Jailbreak, Other Tools

What better way to finish off your night than by updating your favorite jailbreaking tool? Now, you'll be able to do just that after the whiz-kids from the iPhone Dev-Team have pushed out a new copy of their famed RedSn0w application. In what's perhaps the biggest inclusion, version 0.9.10b7 now adds implementation of that untethered Corona jailbreak for A5 devices, making it easier for the iOS 5.0.1crowd to do bits like reinstalling the tweaked software. 

In addition, the app's now capable of grabbing SHSH blobs (you know, those tiny files that grant your phone freedom) straight from Cydia, while also giving users the ability to see if their slab carries a vulnerable bootloader or if it's exploitable. RedSn0w 0.9.10b7 is out now for both Windows and Mac, and you can grab it here.

Google Patent Application Keeps Track of Your Moves to Automate Mobile Actions

A shimmy and a shake could be all it takes to launch apps in the future, that's if this latest patent application ever pans out. Filed back in October of 2011, the folks over at Google are looking to make accelerometers useful for more than just screen orientation. According to the claims, after a training phase where in this hypothetical program would associate specific application launches with geographic location data, your Pavlovian smartphone could then automate workflows and effectively anticipate your needs. 

Essentially, you'd have a mobile device that would know what to run wherever you were, hinging upon how you hold it. At least, that's the schematic covered in this USPTO document. Will it ever see the light of day? Hard to tell. Mountain View's just a-brimming with those 20 percent time projects. More here.

YouTube Wants More Videos to Have Background Music, Adds Audio Editor

Need something to fill in the awkward silence between your vlog's unscripted stuttering? YouTube's got your back. In yet another attempt to make your crummy videos just a little better, the streaming outfit has revamped its audio editing suite, giving users access to over 150,000 tracks and a simple sound mixer, to boot. Sure, YouTube's tracks may not be as catchy as your favorite Flaming Lips single, but at least you won't have to worry about copyright infringement.

Microsoft reveals the fourth version of Windows 8: Enterprise

As detailed in an official blog post, the new unique feature in Windows 8 Enterprise is Windows To Go, which is Windows on a stick. Basically it allows you to run your corporate image on a home PC or other personal devices -- the opposite of that USB disk you carry to work with portable versions of your favorite unsanctioned apps. 

Also new is the ability to automatically sideload internal Metro apps as well as enhancements to the virtual desktop client. Of course Windows 7 Enterprise features like DirectAccess, BranchCache and AppLocker are still there, but some features like BitLocker are now available in the Pro version of Windows 8 too. 

If you were thinking you might like these at home, don't forget that Enterprise is only sold with Software Assurance (Microsoft's perpetual upgrade program), but that does bring extra abilities too, like a free Virtual Desktop Access license -- you didn't think you got that for free did you -- and the optional Companion Device license that extends your VDI and Windows To Go rights to four more personal devices. 

Now, if it just included the ability to boot directly to the desktop, then most corporation's biggest concern with Windows 8 would be appeased. More here.

Electrons Can Split Into Two

Until now, electrons have been regarded as elementary particles—which means that scientists thought they had no component parts or substructure. But now, electrons have been observed decaying into two separate parts—causing physicists to rethink what they know about the particles.

The electrons split into two separate parts, each carrying a particular property of the electron. In layman's terms? The first, called a "spinon" carries its spin—which causes electrons to behave a bit like compass point. The second, called an "orbiton" carries its orbital moment—that's what keeps electrons moving around the nucleus of atoms. The result is reported in this week's issue of Nature. Jeroen van den Brink, one of the researchers, explains:

"It had been known for some time that, in particular materials, an electron can inprinciple be split, but until now the empirical evidence for this separation into independent spinons and orbitons was lacking. Now that we know where exactly to look for them, we are bound to find these new particles in many more materials."

The observations were made in the copper-oxide compound Sr2CuO3, a material peculiar because the particles in it are constrained to move only in one direction, either forwards or backwards. The electron-splitting was measured using X-rays to measure the energy and momentum of particles in the material.

Though the electrons can split, the resulting two parts can't escape the material in which they are produced. Regardless of that, the finding should transform our understanding of superconductivity—and could even eventually make high-temperature superconductivity a real possibility. More here.

How We Identify Single Voices in a Crowd

There are plenty of human abilities that we take for granted, but which are actually insanely complex. Like picking out a single voice buried amongst the noise of a crowded environment, a problem which has troubled scientists for decades. But now they've worked out how we do it—and it could revolutionize speech recognition technology.

The phenomenon—sometimes called the cocktail party effect—allows us to pick out the voice of somebody when all around us is noise. Now, a team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco has performed experiments on patients undergoing brain surgery to discover how that works. The findings appear in this week's issue of Nature.

During the surgeries, a thin sheet of 256 electrodes was applied to the temporal lobe—the auditory cortex of the brain—of the participants in order to record neuronal activity. Post-surgery, patients were played audio tracks with multiple voices, and asked to identify the words uttered by particular speakers while their brain activity was monitored.

The researchers then used software to reconstruct the brain's activity and assess how it varied when the patients were listening out for different speakers. Amazingly, the neural cortex only seems to respond to a single voice at a time when we're concentrating on making it out, effectively shutting out the rest of the acoustic environment which surrounds us. In other words, selective hearing is very much real—we only hear what we want or need to.

While it's a neat insight, the researchers are also hopeful that it could be a useful tool in assessing hearing impairment and attention deficit disorder. Not just that, they also hope to develop devices for decoding the intentions and thoughts from paralyzed patients that cannot communicate.

And then there's one last, and potentially very lucrative, application: voice recognition. One of the major stumbling blocks with Siri and its brethren is their inability to cope in noisy environments. If scientists can get to the bottom of how the temporal lobe itself filters out extraneous noise, consumer technology could make a huge leap forwards. More here.

This Is How the Tupac Hologram That Wasn’t Really a Hologram Worked

We already knew that the Tupac Hologram wasn't really a hologram but actually just a modern regurgitation of the old mid-19th century trick known as "Pepper's Ghost". If you were confused on how that illusion worked, be confused no more! Here it is.

Roxanne Palmer at the International Business TImes made this infographic that clearly illustrated how the whole hologram shenanigans worked. AV Concepts, the company behind the fauxlogram, used Musion Systems Ltd.'s Musion Eyeliner setup to project a 2D animated Tupac onto an invisible (to the audience) screen to make him look 3D. More here.

Why Friday the 13th Is So Unlucky

The origins of Friggatriskaidekaphobia (the fear of Friday the 13th) are a little muddled, but it's often associated with two ideas: that thirteen is an unlucky number, and that Friday is an unlucky day.

In numerology, the number twelve is favored for its association with completeness: twelves months in a year, twelve hours on a clock, twelve Apostles, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve gods of Olympus, etc. Thirteen, then, is the perversion of this perfect completeness; twelve's a party, thirteen a crowd. Some believe that seating thirteen people at a table will result in the death of one, a superstition inspired by both The Last Supper and an old Norse myth.

But why Friday? Bad end-of-week vibes can be traced back to as early as the 14th century, in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Stock market crashes and other disasters, since the 1800s, have been associated with Black Friday, and many believe it is inauspicious to begin projects, embark on journeys, or release products on––you guessed it!––Friday.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia affects an estimated 17-21 million people in the US, of which many are to scared to travel on planes, go to work, or even get out of bed. Either that, or it's just as good an excuse as any to play hooky.

Oakley Is Making Its Own Google Glasses

As dorky as you'll look wearing Google Glasses, the idea of augmented reality specs is dripping with potential awesomeness (and guaranteed hilarity). So it's not a surprise that Oakley, sunglass king, is working on its own Google Glasses competitor. Maybe they won't be as ugly as Google's?

If you're wearing glasses, it's a good idea to get the lenses right, right? This could work! Oakley told Bloomberg:

As an organization, we've been chasing this beast since 1997. Ultimately, everything happens through your eyes, and the closer we can bring it to your eyes, the quicker the consumer is going to adopt the platform.

The beast being Oakley's "heads-up" technology which puts smartphone features into glasses. According to Bloomberg, the glasses will function on its own while also working with a smartphone. The whole system might be controlled with Siri-like voice commands and is currently targeted for athletes first and branch out later. More here.

Prize Winning LED Lightbulb to Arrive Just in Time for Earth Day

Philips, the Netherlands-based lightbulb manufacturer who won a 2007 congressional contest to create an energy-saving replacement for the incandescent 60-watt bulb, plans to start selling their LED bulb (the "L bulb") in stores just in time for Earth Day, this Sunday.

It will retail for $60 at stores like Home Depot, with an instant $10 rebate to consumers, bringing the cost down to $50 for 30,000 hours of LED light. If used for four hours per day, that works out to 20 years of light! More here.

Magnetic Super-Paper Can Shrug Off Water and Bacteria

Without changing its physical or functional properties, researchers at Italy's Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia have created the superhero of papers that's waterproof, antibacterial, and magnetic. Which will completely revolutionize how your kids can stick their artwork to the fridge.

The secret lies with a special mixture of individual molecules, or monomers, in paper fiber and the future of seemingly all technologies—nanoparticles. The resulting compound, known as a polymetric matrix, is actually made with different types of nanoparticles, and when applied to regular paper it completely covers the fibers on the microscopic level, creating a protective shell.

When iron oxide nanoparticles are added to the mix, the resulting paper has magnetic properties. And when silver nanoparticles are added, the paper fights off bacteria and other microscopic organisms. The paper can even be turned fluorescent using the right particles, and is completely waterproof making it ideal for high security applications like bank notes, or for printing long-lasting historical documents. More here.