Wi-Fi-Blocking Wallpaper Protects Your Web Fortress by Keeping Neighbors Out

Scientists from the institut polytechnique Grenoble INP and the Centre Technique du Papier have developed a novel new product so gratuitous, it almost seems necessary: a silver-crystal coated wallpaper that can block neighbors from freeloading off your Wi-Fi network. The silver crystals are arranged in such a way that they are able to block certain wireless frequencies, not least of which is the same frequency as a WiFI router.

But, what about just setting up a password-protected network? I don't know. You most certainly can—and should—do that. But if, for whatever reason, an open network is what you desire, this silver snowflake-speckled wall-covering will have your back. Unless you have windows. They're still working on a clear coating with protective power equal to that of the paper.

Also, there will of course be somebody out there who will buy this, someone who both delights in a room covered floor-to-ceiling in metallic snowflakes and believes said remediation is superior to setting a password (which is free, mind you—this wallpaper, when it's released in 2013, will cost about as much as mid-grade conventional wallpaper). More here.

Hundreds Of Balloons Fall Victim to a Giant Laser

The laser in this video, not surprisingly, comes courteous of Wicked Lasers. Specifically, its 1W Spyder III Krypton which blasts through these specially weighted balloons like they were well: inflated balloons. But it's still fun to watch it tearing through 100 of them one after the other. And maybe next time they can fill the balloons with something more volatile than just air.

Your Chariot Awaits Your Snacks

Imagine loading this table up with snacks on the top shelf and beverages on the bottom, then rolling it out to your immaculately decorated modern living room for some serious hedonism—maybe a long movie marathon or a serious gaming session. Sure, there are lots of glorified TV trays that can do that. But few do it with the grace and sophistication of the Chariot table.

Designed by Italian designer Gam Fratesi for boutique Casamania, the Chariot's visual differentiation comes from its simplicity. There are few parts; the entire piece is comprised of acetate shelves, wooden wheels, and a metal handle to keep it together. But it's still visually striking: most food trolleys minimize the wheels, but this piece of furniture has wheels are comparable in diameter to your car's. It's available now, but the price is only by request. More here.

You Can Get Your Face Frozen In Carbonite Now

You no longer have to be a smuggler who drops his shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser to be frozen in carbonite. As part of its Star Wars-themed weekends, Disney World is now offering that service to all of its guests.

But you don't have to worry about how you're going to get home afterwards because they don'treally freeze you in carbonite. Instead, when you enter the 'Carbon Freezing Chamber' several cameras capture your facial features from all sides, and the resulting 3D model is used to create an eight-inch carbonite figurine featuring your likeness.

At $100 it makes for one expensive souvenir, and it takes four weeks for it to be delivered. Which makes sense given how long it takes to print a 3D model, but having to wait is still pretty lame. You can also order additional copies, but they'll set you back $75 each. More here.

Ruin Your Kid’s Rep with This Nerdalicious Math Sweater

For the parents who have obviously forgotten that most children are borderline sociopaths when it comes to teasing one another, this sweater will pretty much guarantee your kid will be bully fodder until he graduates from high school—probably college.

The Seven/Eight Year Math Sweater is hand-knit of machine-washable wool and designed to fit the average 1st or 2nd grader. According to Etsy shop proprietor Amarinalevin HandKnits:

The main body of the sweater is a pattern of adding numbers in block shapes. There are also little x's in black. Circling the bottom in green on a dark blue background are Fibonacci numbers. Also circling the bottom and wrists in dark blue on periwinkle is the symbol pi. The back and front are identical. The sleeves have descending and ascending blocks with the prime numbers. Circling the wrists in green on a dark blue background are the various mathematical functions of add, subtract, multiply, and divide. The neck, wrist, and bottom trim is varying shades of green with blue stripes.

It retails for $130 on the amarinalevin Etsy page.

The Future of Grocery Bags Is Here and It Involves Pockets

They might be helping the environment, but with everything banging around in that large re-usable shopping bag, your fresh fruits and vegetables don't always get from the store to the stove unscathed.

Made with a strategic combination of cotton, canvas, and nylon mesh, the Mercado bag's got six interior pockets and three large compartments so you can separate softer delicate items like produce, from harder items like cans and bottles. It's probably also the perfect bag for the obsessively organized, since you can spend hours at the checkout resorting your groceries until you find the perfect arrangement to get everything home safely.

But the best feature of the $25 bag is the adjustable over-the-shoulder strap that lets you carry everything home while keeping your hands free to answer the phone or fumble with keys. Why do most re-usable bags assume that everyone only has to carry them from the driveway to the kitchen? More here.

Fuel Cell USB Charger Resurrects Your Dead Phone Up To Fourteen Times

Unlike backup batteries which have to occasionally be plugged into a wall for hours like your various devices, the fuel cell charger uses small cartridges—about the size of a cigarette lighter—filled with butane to generate power. Pricing for the charger hasn't been revealed just yet, but the replacement fuel cartridges are expected to sell for roughly the same price as a Starbucks coffee. Possibly forcing you to choose between your addictions: caffeine, or browsing Facebook.

Each cartridge is able to fully recharge a dead iPhone from ten to fourteen times, which helps make the cost of the replacements more reasonable when you break the down the per-charge price. The charger should particularly appeal to those who travel a lot, since the fuel cartridges are allowed on planes just like cigarette lighters. And a few dollars to recharge your phone again and again is a far better solution than scouring airport lounges looking for an available outlet. More here.

Is Telephobia Really a Thing?

It's no secret that people are talking on the phone less. We're texting, we're emailing, we're Gchatting, we're Facebooking. There have been many articles bemoaning the death of the phone call in recent months, and Nielsen said in a December report that voice calls have dropped by 12 percent since 2009, while text messaging has absolutely blown up.

With no dearth of mediums on which to communicate, our attentions are divided. But is it possible that we've developed an actual fear of talking on the phone?

Salon's Sarah Hepola argues that this so-called Telephobia is a very real thing.

It's just plain scary to talk to other people. We avoid it not because people don't matter—but because they do. And each of us brings emotional baggage to to these interactions. when my phone rings, and I don't recognize that number—forget it. I'm too scarred by the years I spent dodging credit card companies to take that kind of dare. I also don't jump off cliffs, or do cartwheels on the highway. In fact, it's amazing to me that there was a time when the phone rang, and someone just answered it. Who could it be? Could it be the guy who was currently making your heart pound? Oooh, let's pick it up and find out! Now, when I see an unfamiliar number, I feel nothing but outrage.

A good portion of that is, in fact, crazy talk. We are constantly inundated with information about other people. Pictures from their vacations, posts about their ailing grandmothers, rants about their horrible bosses. Sometimes you just want to flip off the noise. Are we over-saturated? Yes. But are we actually so scared of human contact that we can't stomach a phone call?

Telephobia is hogwash. The truth is, it's an excuse for the fact that communicating has gotten easier, and a by-product of that is we've gotten lazier. More here.

The Real Reason the Avengers Assembled Was To Help Back Up Your Files

In The Avengers movie, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a hell of a time assembling the superheroes to battle an alien army attacking the planet. But convincing them would have been far easier for Nick Fury had they all known that joining forces would have spawned these awesome flash drives.

Available in four different versions including Thor's hammer, Captain America's shield, Iron Man's helmet, and the Hulk's decapitated fist, the 8GB flash drives include retractable USB connectors and can be yours for $40 a pop. Sadly, both Hawkeye and Black Widow are once again left out of the party, proving that unless you've got super powers or billions of dollars, you're just too hard to market to the masses. Get them here.

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.