First-Ever Mixer and Crossfader Dates Back Over a Century

In 1910, the French engineer Leon Gaumant demonstrated his sound-and-film synchronizing Chronophone system at the Gaumant Palace—a 5,500 seat reconstruction of the Hippodrome, which was at the time Europe's largest movie theatre—in Paris, FR.

At the time, moving pictures with synchronized sound were limited in length by the playing time of a gramophone records—the longest was 200ft, at 16 frames-per-second.

Gaument's Chronophone had two gramophone platters, between which a deft operator could switch back and forth—a clever solution! More here.

Microsoft Is Maybe, Possibly Launching Its Own Tablet Device Next Week

Mashable is posting about what is being called a credibly rumor of a Microsoft-made tablet, running Windows RT (a version of Windows 8), intended to rival Apple's iPad.

This is a big deal, maybe!

Hollywood blog The Wrap cites "an individual with knowledge of the company", who claims the software giant would be "making a foray into a new hardware category that would put the company in direct competition with rival Apple" - tablets.

Previous attempts at a Microsoft-branded tablet have been unsuccessful and short-lived. The most recent was killed before it even got out the gate, right around the initial launch of the earliest iPad.

If the rumors are true, this Microsoft tablet will be entering a climate of already-stiff competition. More here.

Windows 8 Has Deep Integration With Facebook, Twitter, Google

As part of its Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft has been releasing a small selection of apps for testing. One, called People, seems particularly interesting, acting as an OS-wide social and contact tool that integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Google, amongst others.

The cloud-based app is designed to keep contacts in order, sure, by syncing details from a glut of online address books. But it also lets users view and interact directly with their Facebook and Twitter accounts, retweeting posts or liking statuses, from within the app itself. The app is also designed to sync data from Exchange, Google and LinkedIn, and has a built-in conflict management system—a little like Windows Phone—which attempts to collate contact data. More here.

Shroud Your iPod Nano In This Adorable Little Black Book

If you're bored of wearing your iPod Nano on your wrist, or on your head, or wherever else, why not wrap it up in its own little handcrafted book that you can tuck away in the miniature library that is your pocket?

This adorable little iPod nano case is the smallest member of PQ's range of Little Black Books and it's rather predictably called the Littlest Black Book. It's made of a tiny wooden frame, which is leather bound, and it features a little book plate and ribbon, too. More here.

Do You Care if The Best Laptop Ever Is the Most Impossible to Repair?

The Retina Pro's unified construction not only means damage to the screen requires replacing an entire half of the computer, it means you'd have to risk destroying the entire thing to make changes. The RAM? Soldered to the motherboard. The hard drives? Proprietary and impossible to change.

With upgrading memory and hard drive space the two most common jobs you can do on a laptop, does the fact that these are now impossible make the Retina Pro less attractive to you? Would fabulous performance and the greatest screen in computing history compensate for Apple blocking you from upgrading your rig and requiring professional repairs to it? Or does it just look like an aluminum venus fly trap?

Why Smart People Are Actually Dumb

The human brain is a weird old thing. When confronted with a new, uncertain situation, it virtually always abandons careful analysis, and instead resorts to a host of mental shortcuts—that almost always lead to the wrong answer. Turns out, the smarter you are, the more likely you are to make such mistakes.

A new study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, suggests that you can be insanely intelligent, and still fall foul when it comes simple problems because of deviations in judgment—which are known as "cognitive bias".

To work all this out, a team of researchers form the University of Toronto gave 482 students a questionnaire of classic bias problems to complete. An example question runs along the lines of:

A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

If you're rushing, you might blurt out that the ball costs ten cents. It doesn't: it costs five. If you got it wrong, your brain made some shortcuts if thought made sense, but abandoned math along the way.

The researchers also measured a phenomenon called "anchoring bias", but what they were really interested in assessing was how the biases correlated with intelligence. So, they interspersed tests with with cognitive measures, like S.A.T. and Need for Cognition Scale questions.

Turns out that intelligence makes things worse, too. Writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology they explain that "more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots." In fact, that finding held across many different biases, and individuals who deliberated longer seemed to be even more susceptible to making mistakes. Double dammit.

So what's going on? Why are smart people seemingly so dumb some of the time? Sadly, nobody really knows. The best hypothesis yet suggests that it's tied up with the way we perceive ourselves and others. Basically, the way we process information, so some researchers suggest, makes it far easier for us to spot biases in other people than it is for us to notice ourselves making the exact same mistakes. More here.

What the Lines of a Red Solo Cup Actually Mean

Sipping too many adult beverages out of a red solo cup is a rite of passage in becoming a full-fledged human being. We've all done it. But have you ever wondered what the lines of a red solo cup mean? They're measurements for different types of alcohol.

That makes so much logical sense! A line for liquor, for wine and for a can of beer. It also makes like no real-life sense because the line for liquor is prick-specific pathetic, the line for wine would make you question why you're drinking wine out of a red solo cup and the line for beer is completely ignored, you're filling the carbonated deliciousness to the very top. Actually, let's be honest. The only line that really matters in a red solo cup is the lip line.

Anyway! The more you know. The lines have more purpose than design, grip or existing for beer pong. And even if Solo is sadly moving away from these iconic red cups for newer red cups, you can try and retroactively remember this for past house parties. More here.

Ray-Ban Foldable Aviators Make the Slickest Shades Even Better

Ray-Bans are some of the best sunglasses. The styles of are timeless and the lenses are quality. And while there have been foldable Wayfarers for years, now the classic Ray-Ban Aviators have gotten the same treatment.

A pair of these shades will run you between $195 and $295, depending on the style. Ray-Ban's been making Aviators since 1937, so they're something you can hold onto for a long time. Tom Cruise wore them in Top Gun and that was 1986, so they're not exactly going anywhere. They're coming soon on the Ray-Ban site, but in the meantime they're available in stores. There's just about nothing cooler than Aviators, and somehow now they're even better. More here.

Medieval Hoodie Makes You a Knight In Shining Cotton

One hit from a sword and you'll be dead faster than your social standing once you wear this out in public, but you won't find a more comfortable suit of armor than this plated hoodie created by Etsy seller Chadwick Dillon.

It comes complete with a fully retractable face plate and visor built into the hood, so you can be protected from attacking marauders, or just the rain—whichever happens to be your most pressing issue. Unfortunately you can't order one just yet, but once Chadwick (a perfectly matching medieval name) gets his Etsy shop in order, you'll be able to order thine self this fine garment and impress the damsels. More here.

Your DNA Changes as You Age

While our bodies age, scientists believe that our DNA at least remains constant. New research, however, reveals that, even though its sequence remains constant, subtle chemical changes occur to our DNA as we age—and it could explain why the risk of developing disease increases as we get older.

DNA is made up of four basic chemical building blocks, called adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. It's the sequences of those chemicals in a strand of DNA that determines what function a gene has, and one of the ways the resulting genes are controlled is a process called methylation. That just means that a methyl group — one carbon atom and three hydrogen atom—bonds to part of the DNA and subtly change its function.

New research, published in PNAS, however, shows that as we grow older our DNA's susceptibility to methylation changes. A team of researchers from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain, extracted DNA from white blood cells of twenty newborn babies and twenty people aged between 89 and 100 years old, then compared their respective degrees of methylation.

In a newborn baby 73 percent of cytosine nucleotides were methylated, while in centenarians that figure rose to 80.5 percent. An intermediary example, taken from a 26-year-old male subject, exhibited 78 percent methylation. It's not clear why it happens, but the researchers speculate that it could be due to extremely subtle age-related changes to the DNA.

But what does it all mean? Well, taking a closer look at the samples, the researchers discovered that a third of the methylated groups which were different in the elderly compared to the young are already known to be linked to cancer risk.

If you think about the DNA strand as "hardware" and the added methyl groups as "software"—which isn't actually a bad analogy—you can think of the inappropriately placed methyl groups as software bugs that accumulate with age. It's just that, for humans, those bugs leads to increased risk of terminal disease. Fortunately, these kinds of findings should help scientists troubleshoot our internal apps. More here.

Finally a Left-Handed Person Can Feel Normal on the Internet

Left-handed people have it tough. Scissors aren't meant for them, the average mouse isn't shaped for them and gloves aren't meant for them. Everyday life has been all backwards. But it's okay! You can be normal on the Internet now with this left hand pointer icon.

Silvio Lorusso created a Chrome plugin that flips the hand cursor in Chrome (the thing that pops up when you hover over a link) from the traditional right-hand, to a left-hand. It's a quick and easy install to hold on to your sanity left-handed people. Install it here.

Apple Announces First Retina Display in a MacBook, 220ppi with 2880 x 1800 resolution

Apple just announced its next-generation MacBook Pro, and it comes equipped with a gorgeous 220 pixel-per-inch 2880 x 1800 display. That's quite a bit shy of the 326 ppi LCD on the iPhone 4S and the 264 ppi density of the new iPad's display, but it's still a massive improvement over the 1680 x 1050 pixels found on Apple's previous-generation clamshell. 

The new Retina is, as Apple marketing head Phil Shiller not-so-modestly pointed out during this morning's WWDC keynote, the "world's highest-resolution notebook display." It's also soon to be the highest-res LCD in any household, offering three million more pixels than your 1080p HDTV.

Adjustable Dividers Ensure No Book Will Ever Topple While On This Shelf

Benson's Format bookshelf uses a series ofinfinitely adjustable sliding dividers on every level to keep books upright, and to visually break up its simple form. It's great news if you absolutely hate it when books fall over, but bad news if you're into collecting bookends.

You have your choice of oak or walnut wood finishes, and a black or white lacquer if you're looking for something more modern. But the smallest version, measuring just three feet long on each side, starts at a hefty $547. And the largest version tops out at over $1,600 before customizations. But still, it's a small price to pay for peace of mind that everything on it is going to remain upright. More here.

New Windows Phone Store Lets you Wear Your 'I Heart WP' on Your Sleeve

So you love Windows Phone, but how can you let the world know? Until now, you'd either have to wave your object of desire around, or keep showing colleagues those "Smoked by Windows Phone" YouTube videos. 

Now, you can simply wear your alliance across your chest, or favorite beverage, thanks to a new CafePress store. Revealed in a Window steamblog post, the shop will let you grab mugs, t-shirts, stickers, magnets and more emblazoned with "I Heart Windows Phone" in icons. Not only that, in case all those soccer moms didn't know which side of the fence you stood, you can clear up the doubt by snagging a bodysuit for your youngest. Credit card at the ready? More here.

Are Double Ears a Genetic Disorder Or a Freaky Fashion Trend?

Whoa. It's probably still way too early on a Saturday to fully comprehend what you're seeing here, but artist Percy Lau has created this trippy earring design which makes it look like you've got a smaller ear growing off your lobe. Freaky.

You can get a pair for yourself from her Etsy store for around $40. But only if you like constantly being stared at while you go about your day, and freaking out everybody who walks by you. More here.

What Color Were Tomatoes Before All the Dinosaurs Died?

New research published in Nature suggests that the very same meteor that crashed into Earth 60 - 70 million years ago—the one responsible for wiping out all the dinosaurs—may also be responsible for the red color of today's tomatoes.

Parsing Nature's tomato genome analysis, PhysOrg reports that about the same time as the meteorite crash and the solar eclipse, the distant ancestor of the tomato plant tripled in size—an drastic and important response, as it is indicative of stressful growth conditions for plant life at that time.

The ancestor tomato, explains Rene Klein Lankhorst, "reacted by expanding its genome considerably in order to increase its chances of survival." When conditions on Earth improved again, explains PhysOrg, this ancestor of the plant got rid of a lot of genetic ballast, "but the genetic base for fruit formation had already been developed," including the tomato's signature red hue. More here.

Guy Gets Double Arm Transplant, Does World’s Best Robot Dance Move to Celebrate

I love sad stories with happy ending. This gentleman is Gabriel Granados Vergara, a 52-year-old man lost both arms below the elbows, charred beyond repair in an electrical accident. But thanks to an unnamed 34-year-old shooting victim, he got them back.

The double arm transplant was performed by Dr. Martin Iglesias at the National Institute of Medical Science and Nutrition in Mexico City. Granados, who is a government agent working for Mexico City's prosecutors' office, was very happy: "This is wonderful that after being without hands for some time, all of a sudden I see new hands."  More here.

This Desk Only Needs Two Legs

When you think about it, a two legged desk makes sense. Most of us cram our home workspace up against a wall or into a corner anyways, so why even bother with two legs that are rather redundant?

If you can curb your paranoia of your desk coming off the wall and crashing down onto the floor, Margaux Keller's Le Scriban desk is a simple desk with a classic look to it, but features like the mural console along the back give it a look that will catch the eye of anyone passing by. More here.

Cronus Adapter lets you Play Xbox 360 with a PS3 Controller and Vice Versa

There's nothing quite so enlightening as a solution to a problem you didn't realize you had. Cronus, a little USB stick that the company promises will "change how you look at gaming." While the little USB adapter's functionality isn't quite so grandiose (same goes for the company's assertion that it's "the greatest invention in gaming since the controller"), the peripheral offers up an interesting proposition -- being able to control your Xbox 360 with a PlayStation 3 controller -- and the other way around. Oh, and Wiimotes are in the mix, as well.

The Cronus is a black USB dongle with a small single digit display on the top and a USB input on the rear. Plug it into the console of your choice, sync it up and you should be good to go. More here.

Chrome Will Be on Windows 8 Metro Soon

Google's Chrome browser will definitely be available as a Metro app in Windows 8. It works in both the Metro and Desktop settings, but not on the ARM platform, since Internet Explorer is the only browser Microsoft allows there. You'll be able to try it out in the next Chrome Dev channel release. More here.

The Desk You’re Acually Encouraged to Scribble All Over

If you're a brainstormer, or are prone to compulsive list making, then Miguel Mestre's My Desk is probably your type of design object. Centered around a giant 100x70 centimeter sketchpad, the desk will let you go back to the drawing board again, and again, and again, and again. Just don't put anything on it. Or spill your coffee. More here.

World’s Smallest Fingerprint Reader Borders on Adorable

Following in the footsteps of USB flash drives that have shrunk to meer slivers of plastic, Eikon's new Mini biometric fingerprint reader is barely noticeable as it hangs off your laptop. And the convenience of not having to remember passwords will cost you just $10.

It works with both Mac and Windows PCs, and includes all of the necessary software and drivers you need for unlocking your OS, and accessing secure websites, with just a finger swipe. You're not going to find a smaller or cheaper solution that's not already built in to your laptop. More here.

Exposure to Awesome Things Makes You a Better Person

"Awesome" is a word which is thrown around liberally these days. But a new studysuggests that things that inspire awe—that is, a feeling of respect mixed with fear or wonder—actually help make you a better person.

The research, carried out at Stanford University by Melanie Rudd, shows that a sense of awe expands people's perceptions of time, enhances feelings of well-being, and even causes people to behave more altruistically and less materialistically.

In particular, she explains in her paper that's due to be published in Psychological Science later this year, the most significant effects are achieved when people are presented with new awe experiences. While reliving previous awe-inspiring events or reading about imaginary ones has some positive effect, being there, as something amazing happens, is best for you.

But how can your inject more awesome into your life? Rudd has some suggestions:

"There are two things needed for a true awe experience: 1) Perceptual vastness (i.e., you need to perceive that you've encountered something vast in number, size, scope, complexity, or social bearing) and 2) A need for accommodation (i.e., you must feel that you need to revise or update your mental structures/the way you think/your understanding of the world in order to understand the perceptually vast thing/stimuli). So anything you experience in daily life that leads you to experience these two things can stimulate awe and its benefits. And the things that elicit these two things and, as a result, awe, can differ from person to person. However, there are some things that seem to more frequently elicit awe-experiencing nature, being exposed to art or music, and observing the accomplishments of others. Things like social interactions and personal accomplishments seem to be less likely to elicit awe. And I imagine that just putting yourself in new situations, in new places, and encountering new people would increase your chances of experiencing awe."

If ever there was a good advert for getting out there and doing amazing things, this is it. What are you waiting for? More here.

Windows Phone Has 100,000 Apps Now. Is That Impressive or Embarrassing?

Windows Phone just passed the 100,000 app milestone. Which sounds like a lot, until you think about it and then it sounds like a very small amount indeed. So which is it?

Well, iOS has almost 600,000, while the Google Play store has 500,000. Windows Phone took 20 months to get to 100,000, while iOS took 16 months, and Android took 24. So just about even growth-wise, right? Well, maybe. There are significantly more users and developers at this point than when the iPhone and Android were cutting their teeth, so maybe a steeper buildup should be expected.

WP fares worse when you look at quality: just 12 percent of apps have more than five US ratings. That number isn't awful awful, but it underlines the fact that there are very few quality apps, and Microsoft's had to resort to bribing bigtime apps to have third parties develop WP versions. Which of course backfires, because the apps usually turn out to be unreliable and abandoned.

New X-Ray Vision-Style Video Can Show a Pulse Beating Through Skin

Researchers at MIT have developed a crazy process called Eulerian Video Magnification that seems like it was pulled straight from a science fiction movie. It reveals the "subtle changes in the world" that are otherwise imperceptible to the human eye, like an artery pumping in a wrist. Spoiler: kinda gross!

So how does it work? It picks up on the very slight nuances in a video that you can't detect, such as the way a face reddens as blood is pumped through the body. It grabs these visualizations from a video sequence, and applies spatial decomposition then temporal filtering to the frames. Then it amplifies the color so these nuances become amazingly dynamic and easy to see. More here.

iOS 6 Might Get a Do Not Disturb Feature That Stops Annoying Notifications from Taking Over Your Phone

With WWDC around the corner, iOS 6 rumors are coming in waves. 9to5Mac is reporting that iOS 6 will have a super useful 'Do Not Disturb' feature, iCloud Tabs and Mail VIPs. Do Not Disturb looks especially useful, as it would be able to hide all alerts and banners from taking over your phone while you're playing a game or just don't want to be bothered.

All the features hail from Mountain Lion, Apple's next desktop OS and tie themselves neatly with iCloud. iCloud Tabs is a simple way to keep various versions of Safari (desktop, mobile) in sync, when you open iCloud Tabs on your iPhone, you'll see a list of tabs you have open in Safari elsewhere. Mail VIPs are just a simple star next to very important people who send you e-mails. Potentially useful in helping you quickly sift through your e-mails.

But perhaps the most useful new feature is a 'Do Not Disturb' toggle switch. When flipped on, Do Not Disturb will disable all your Notification Center alerts and banners. More here.

Corning Unveils Slim, Flexible Willow Glass

That is not plastic, it's glass. In particular it's Corning's new 100-micron-thick Willow Glass, a new ultra-thin and flexible substrate for LCDs and OLEDs. The extreme thinness of the glass should lead to lighter, svelter devices, but it also means that shape is no longer a barrier for design.

In fact, Corning expects Willow Glass will eventually lead substrates to be manufactured "roll-to-roll" instead of "sheet-to-sheet" -- similar to how newspapers are printed. Even though the glass as thin as paper (literally) it doesn't give up its patented Corning toughness.  

ROCCAT's New Lua Three-button Mouse is Thirty Dollars Away From Your FPS

How many buttons does a gaming mouse need? If you ask ROCCAT -- for today at least -- the answer is three. Evidently not happy with the current choice of tri-buttoned peripherals, it's launching a new "Lua" model at both Computex and E3. As well as the aforementioned triplet of clickable appendages, it houses a Pro Optic R2 sensor which will let you jack the DPI setting from 250 up to 2000 and back again on the hop, battlefield, or wherever you may be. The ambidextrous device launches internationally sometime in late July early August, with a $30 price-tag.

The Only Toolkit You’ll Need For the End of the World

First-aid supplies? Fresh water? Canned food? Sure, they're all nice things to have when the world as we know it comes to an end and zombies walk the Earth. But what you really need to survive the apocalypse is knives. Lots and lots of knives.

And this Ka-Bar kit delivers just that with four distinct blade designs named after the four horsemen of the apocalypse: Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death. Made from sharpened steel with distinctive green handles, each knife includes its own sheath and a smaller backup blade if things don't go as planned. You can buy them each separately for $60 a pop, but it's smarter to just get the whole set for $210, because you can never really have too many knives. More here.

New Smaller SIM Format Gets Standardized, Shrinks 40 Percent

ETSI has given the nod to a new SIM format standard, which will be 40 percent smaller than the existing micro-SIM design. Agreeing to the design in Osaka, Japan, the shape will be 12.3mm by 8.8mm and will measure the same thickness as existing SIMs at 0.67mm thick. The design promises to work with existing hardware and appears to fly closer to Apple's suggested size, following plenty of crossed wordsbetween manufacturers over the next iteration of the card.

Nokia has since put out a statement saying it will honor ETSI's decision and license out the needed patents on fair terms after the standards group made sure the vote was fair. There will be more than a small number of sour grapes from Espoo over having its own design rejected, though: it still sees Apple's nano-SIM as "technically inferior" and thinks the existing micro-SIM will still be the "preferred option." More here.

How a Looong Steadicam Shot Was Constructed in Hugo

Long Steadicam shots have become a staple of Hollywood movies over the past decade or so. Pulling it off involves complexities way beyond the seemingly simple task of walking through a room.

In this behind-the-scenes clip from last year's Hugo, you can see the coordination and movie tricks that go into a great Steadicam shot such as moving walls, precise queues, and an agile boom operator. Most important is an extremely skilled camera-man. Steadicam operators carry a lot of weight and must be adept at maneuvering the equipment.

You can hear the guy winded after the shot is over, and he probably has to do it over and over again.

Windows Phone 8 Phones Might Get Beautiful HD Screens

According to WP Central, Windows Phone might be ditching its dumpy 480x800 displays for new hi-res screens once WP8 hits.

WP Central piled onto the web analytics binge going around trying to dig up data about future Windows 8 devices right now, and in checking its own logs, found references to devices with 768x1280 resolution displays. Now, that's the rumored resolution for the 7-inch Google Nexus tablet. And we know Nokia is cranking out some kind of "hybrid mobile" device for Windows 8. But the LG Optimus TrueHD is 720x1280, and other phones are sitting around there as well, so the resolution itself isn't that much of a stretch.

A Windows Phone rep at CES wouldn't say whether WP would be bumping its specs all at once or gradually moving away from its unfragmented bubble, but he said "it was a total no brainer." Which, you know, seems like maybe we'll get a firehose full of upgraded standard specs for WP on the Windows 8 kernel. Or maybe not! Analytics extrapolations are notoriously random, so this could be one big false alarm. But hopefully not! More here.

Double-Sided, Transparent Touchscreens Might Be the Future of Gadgets After All

When transparent LCD technology started popping up as consumer tech prototypes a few years ago, it was quickly dismissed as gimmick, or something for a marketing kiosk. But looking at this touchscreen concept from Fujitsu—which is double-sided and transparent—makes you wonder if there isn't hope for this tech yet.

As the video shows, the implications for gaming are especially intriguing, since you could still control the action with your grubby little fingers, but not have to obscure your view in the process. It basically takes the idea of the PS Vita's rear touch panels one step further.

But of course, there's the issue of visibility and color depth, which, by the screen's very nature, makes it inferior to a standard LCD. Maybe someday, we can have the best of both worlds.

Can Exercise Actually Be Bad For You?

Not many of us actively enjoy it, but at least we know exercise is good for us. Right? Well, perhaps not: a team of well-respected scientists say that, actually, exercise might not be good for everyone after all.

The researchers studied how 1,687 people reacted to rigorous exercise. They found that 10 percent of the participants got worse, based on one or more measures of heart disease, including blood pressure and levels of insulin and HDL cholesterol. In fact, 7 percent got worse on at least two measures. Those results are published in PLoS One.

The weird thing is, nobody knows why. Claude Bouchard, one of the researchers and professor of genetics and nutrition at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, could only muster that the finding "is bizarre" when quizzed by the New York Times.

In fact, there's a bit of a problem with studies about the benefits of exercise on health. While many have shown in the past that exercise can have an affect on measures of health—usually in a way that we'd think of as positive—very few of them carry through the analysis to see if participants suffer fewer heart attacks or live longer lives.

It might shock you to hear that most of the guidelines that recommend how much exercise you should take are based largely on such studies. While they've shown that exercise causes somepositive change to some biomaker that in the short-term makes you medically "healthier"—they don't necessarily guarantee longer life.

Is that enough to stop exercising? No, absolutely not. This one study is interesting in so much as it may be the case that for a small number of people not exercising is better for them. But it's not a general rule.

In fact, even the authors of the study agree. As they explain, no medical intervention works for 100 percent of people. If you think of exercise as a medical intervention, then it's bound not work for a tiny percentage of the population—but for the rest of us, it can make a huge difference. More here.

Windows 8 Release Preview

Windows 8 Release Preview is among us and, boy, is it lovely. It's so much dreamier than the Consumer Preview, and makes the Developer Preview look like something cobbled together out of two-by-fours, electrical tape, and rebar. It also is quite boring.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's next-generation operating system, due to ship this fall. It adds lots of touch-based gestures to the old familiar Windows, and introduces an entirely new notion of how apps should look and run with its Metro interface, where single apps take over the entire screen and run free of clutter from buttons and menu bars. It's a dramatic leap forward. But while the Developer Preview was a grand unveiling, and the Consumer Preview was its first big meet and greet, this version of Windows 8 is all about refinements. The new Release Preview is an iterative update, inching us closer to final release. It's more mature maturity, increasingly refined, and already possesses a subtle elegance. Get it here.

Recycled Vinyl Records Become Bases for Beautiful Lamps

Brooklyn-based Orlando Dominguez of GIN Art & Design debuted his simple yet gorgeous lamps, whose bases are made of recycled 45 vinyl record, at the recent annual New York Design Week.

Picking up the colors in the vinyl—the glowing columns of light look almost like cut glass. More here.

Death to the Dock Connector Is Imminent, Suggests Apple Job Opening

Apple has posted on their jobs pages a job opening at Cupertino for a Connector Design Engineer, which only strengthens thegrowing speculation that the 30-prong dock connector we've all grown accustomed to is on its way out the door.

Rumors of a new iPhone with a smaller dock connector have proliferated recently, with images of alleged prototypes leaking out across the internet. And The job description itself all but confirms the rumor:

The Connector Design Engineer will be responsible for managing multiple connector designs and developments in support of the iPod product lines. Cross-functional development and consulting will be a major part of your daily work. As a Lead Engineer you be responsible for identifying appropriate connection technology requirements for new products and follow through with selection and development of suitable interconnect products. This will often involve adaptation of existing connectors or completee new designs. Interfacing with connector suppliers to direct and implement the necessary design changes or creation of completely new designs will also be a major part of your daily work.

A smaller connector doesn't seem like much of an upgrade, and actually it will be prettyannoying for those of us with a plethora of 30-prongs circulating amongst our devices. More here.

Is This Finally a Toughphone Worth Buying?

Sony has just announced that it's launching a new toughphone, called the Xperia Advance. Unlike previous examples of hardy handsets, though, this one actually looks normal—and its specs aren't too shabby either.

It packs a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 display, dual-core 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera and runs... well, it runs a Gingerbread version of Android. Android 4.0 will, apparently, find its way to the device soon though. One excellent little feature is something called "wet finger tracking" which means that the screen is still useable when it's raining or when your hands are covered in water. More here.

They’ve Finally Perfected the Ice Cream Scoop

This fine piece of gastronomical engineering could very well be the perfect ice cream scoop. And if you've ever battled to get ice cream out of a container with a more traditional looking scoop, you'll appreciate the extra thought that's gone into this one's design.

First off, the leading edge is serrated like a knife, so it can slash its way through even the most solid of frozen treats. And that fancy faceted design on the scoop? That's not just for futuristic looks. No, that texture prevents a scoop of ice cream from sticking like a suction cup, so it's easier to deposit onto a cone. You'd expect such innovation to be priced at a premium and only available to professionals who make their livelihood scooping, but you can get one for your own kitchen for a mere $10 here.

Early iPad Prototype With Two Dock Connectors Sells For $10,200

Since its launch in 2010 the iPad has only ever featured a single dock connector, despite being used frequently in landscape orientation. There were, just before launch, rumors that the device might have two connectors—and now a prototype which has just sold on eBay further suggests that such plans were considered.

This prototype 16 GB original iPad is plastered in prototype identification numbers and, while it's always difficult to say for certain if such items are real, the accompanying documentation and images certainly make it appear to be a genuine Apple prototype. Certainly, one person was convinced enough to spend $10,200 to secure the item.

It does raise the question as to whether two dock connectors might have been a good idea. It would, of course, have taken up more internal space, and looked ugly and asymmetric—but would the extra convenience have been worth it? More here.

Watching Injections Makes Them Hurt More

If you're one of the hard core of hospital-goers who chooses to watch while hypodermics are shoved into your arm, here's some news that might make you reconsider: the act of watching an injection actually makes it more painful.

A team of researchers from St. Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, has been investigating how we react to the pain of shots based on what we're looking at, and the results are extremely interesting.

In a series of experiments, researchers simulated needle pricks by giving participants a small electric shock on their hand. At the same time, the volunteers were shown videos of a needle pricking a hand, a Q-tip touching a hand, or nothing happening to the hand at all.

Across the board, participants who saw a hand being pricked by a needle found the pain of the shock far more intense. Not just that, though: in extra experiments, if participants were told that the Q-tip would cause more pain than the hypodermic, the Q-tip video was associated with higher levels of reported pain. Essentially, seeing something that you're primed to think will be painful makes the experience hurt more. More here.

A Clever Pot Holder That Disappears Before Your Eyes

A kitchen gadget is only as useful as it's easily accessible while you're cooking. So with that in mind, designer Chih Ching Yang created this adorable Gasper pot holder that's designed to forever haunt your kitchen counters.

When not in use, Gasper looks like a cartoon ghost floating next to your stove. But since he's made from soft, heat-resistant silicone, when you place a pot on him he'll easily flatten into a safe place to put your hot cookware. So in addition to protecting your countertops, he takes up a minimal amount of counter space when not in use. More here.

Specially Sculpted Pot Creates a Whirlpool When Cooking So You Never Have to Stir

A Japanese dentist, of all people, has invented a sculpted pot that will automatically stir its contents as they heat up. It promises to completely revolutionize cooking, at least for the world's laziest chefs.

The Kuru-Kuru Nabe (aka the 'Pot Round and Round') was invented by Hideki Watanabe, who came up with the design after experimenting with dental plaster at his practice. The pot relies on thermodynamics to create a whirlpool motion as liquids heat up. It not only saves you from having to stir, but it allows for a more efficient and even heating process, and has the added benefit of compacting foam so the pot is less likely to boil over.

It's certainly not going to work for particularly thick recipes, like say a pot of chili, but for soups and such it seems downright genius. More here.

Ice Cream Sandwich Maker

Slapping a dollop of ice cream between two cookies is the best thing to happen to that frozen treat since chocolate syrup. But there's nothing quite as satisfying as the soggy chocolate wafers of an ice cream sandwich, which this brilliant machine lets you churn out by the hundreds.

It might look like one of George Foreman's grills, but this machine is all about packing on the pounds with indents for making round or rectangular chocolate wafers. For $25 it also comes with moulds for your ice cream so it's perfectly shaped to sit between the cookies. More here.

Solar Impulse Takes off for Morocco on First Sun-powered Transcontinental Flight

The sun-powered Solar Impulse plane is gradually working up to a trip around the globe, with the most recent benchmark being its first international flight in 2011. Now Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg are taking the jumbo jet-size plane on its first transcontinental journey. The Solar Impulse set off for Morocco, and its pilots will stop in Madrid along the way. 

The goal is to complete the 1,554-mile trip by next week, and the big challenge will be crossing cloudy regions like the Pyrenees mountains separating France and Spain. In a 2010 test flight, the Impulse's 12,000 solar cells soaked up enough rays to keep the plane going through the night, but in case something goes wrong this time, the pilots are prepared with parachutes. If all goes well on this trial run, Piccard and Borschberg will be just one step away from their goal of circumnavigating the world in 2014. More here.

iOS 5.1.1 Untethered Jailbreak Is Out Now

So here's some good news: The Chronic Dev Team has released the untethered jailbreak tools for all of the post-A4 Apple devices. That means your iPhone 4S, 2012 iPad, iPad 2, and other, older devices can be jailbroken without having to boot into "tethered" mode (connecting to your computer) every time you restart.

Untethered jailbreaks are much more convenient, but also take longer to code after a release. Further, the newer devices like the iPad 2 and 2012 model, and the iPhone 4S, do not have the same hardware defect that allows super fast tethered cracks for older devices. That means folks with newer phones and tablets have to wait longer for their jailbreaks.

As always, back up your phone and data before moving to a new jailbreak. Full instructions for the process can be found here.

Behold the Meatiest Sandwich in Human History

Genghis Khan. Alexander the Great. Dagwood. Men of insatiable appetites, all. But none of them came close to creating—much less consuming—a sandwich of this magnitude.

British chef/madman Tristan Welch created the flesh-pile in honor of the UK debut of Man Versus Food, a popularish US show that features a large, affable man who travels from town to town, engaging in food challenges while being cheered on by locals who are excited to be on television. It's a triumph of conspicuous consumption, and there really couldn't be a more fitting tribute than a sandwich the size of a three year-old human person. More here.

The full rundown of ingredients:

120g Ndjua
260g roast beef
120g boiled ham
160g Proscuitto
150g honey-roast ham
90g cooked turkey
155g cooked chicken
155g garlic chicken
180g smoked duck breast
120g cooked pork
120g roast ham
280g corned beef
150g German salami
150g Italian sausage
240g cured ham
80g French peppercorn salami
70g Saucisson Sec de Provence
70g herbed Saucisson Sec de Provence
360g chorizo
70g serrano ham
80g pastrami
140g pancetta
150g bacon
70g garlic salami
70g Italian salami
80g dry-cured Proscuitto
380g Bratwurst sausage
150g breaded ham
100g Mortadella
100g Speck
150 Parma ham
65g Jambon Iberico de Bellota
140g Finocchiona
70g wild boar pork salami
100g smoked venison
250g beetroot, sliced
110g assorted salad leaves
1 large red onion, sliced into rings
680g gherkins, sliced
1 large loaf of bread

A Single Strap Can Turn Your Bike’s Frame Into a Basket

If you've ever wished for some more storage space on your bike without resorting to adding a hipster basket on your handlebars, you'll appreciate this alternative solution from designer Yeongkeun Jeong. It's a simple strap system that turns the bike's own frame into extra storage.

A long elastic strap is strategically woven around the inner triangle formed by the bike's frame, which creates a basket that's flexible enough to let you insert and remove items, but strong enough to keep them secure while you're riding. And to ensure the straps don't shift over time, a set of soft silicone stickers are used wherever it makes contact with the frame so they aren't able to slide around. As long as you don't overstuff it so it interferes with your pedaling, it's a rather brilliant idea. More here.

Calcium Supplements Double Your Risk of Heart Attack

Calcium supplements—previously thought to help prevent heart disease and stroke—have now been shown to almost double the risk of heart attack. Doctors are now warning that such supplements should be taken with caution, and even then only for vital medical reasons.

The new finding is based on a large-scale study of 23,980 men and women in Heidelberg, Germany. The participants were part of a cancer and nutrition study, but the results also allowed researchers to assess how calcium supplements were linked to heart disease.

The team of researchers, from Zurich University's institute of social and preventative medicine, found that people who used calcium supplements regularly were 86 percent more likely to suffer a heart attack than those who did not. Those who obtained their calcium just from supplements were 2.7 times more likely than non-users to experience a heart attack. The results are published in the journal Heart.

While calcium is required for bone growth, it is also used by other organs such as the heart. While there is clear evidence that some calcium supplements should be taken to protect bones—in certain medical situations—this new research points to the fact that such action should be taken only under close consultation with a doctor. Dr Claire Bowring, of the UK's National Osteoporosis Society, explained to the Guardian:

"This study further highlights the need for care when considering taking calcium supplements. If you get all of the calcium that you need from your diet then a supplement will not be necessary. Boosting calcium beyond recommended levels has no extra benefit for bones.

"Supplementation may be warranted if you are unable to get enough calcium in your diet, but it needs to be done with consideration."

The message is clear that patients should consult a physician before taking calcium supplements—especially if they are at risk of a heart disease or heart attack. More here.

R2-D2 Hoodie

Some Star Wars apparel requires a bit of 'courage in a bottle' to purchase and wear in public. But not this forthcoming R2-D2 hoodie from Mad Engine apparel.

Available sometime near the end of August for $70, the hoodie features a full-zip design so you can even recreate R2-D2's cyclops dome when it's completely done up. But how you're actually supposed to walk around dressed like that without avoiding objects using the force is a mystery. More here.

The Curious Case of the Upside Down Apple Logo

Joe Moreno spent nine years working at Apple during the Steve Jobs era. Today, he writes about something that bothered Steve Jobs for a long time: the problem of the upside down Apple logo.

Why was upside down from the user's perspective an issue? Because the design group noticed that users constantly tried to open the laptop from the wrong end. Steve Jobs always focuses on providing the best possible user experience and believed that it was more important to satisfy the user than the onlooker.

Obviously, after a few years, Steve reversed his decision.

Opening a laptop from the wrong end is a self-correcting problem that only lasts for a few seconds. However, viewing the upside logo is a problem that lasts indefinitely. More here.

Grow an Indoor Garden on Your Wall With a Sleek, Magnetic Planter System

From its humble beginnings as an—ahem—Kickstarter project, Urbio has parlayed a successful fundraising drive into actual indoor gardening products that actual people can buy.

On display at ICFF 2012, the Urbio system makes use of planter bins and wall tiles formed of polypropylene, and held together by neodymium magnets, the Urbio system combines a clean look with modern lines, resulting in a product that will fit in most homes. Fill em with your favorite succulents, or inanimate objects; either way, it'll look great. More here.