Crazy Hacker Wants to Save Bitcoin by Blasting a CubeSat into Space

Jeff Garzik is a dreamer. You know, the kind of guy who probably thought that he could fly with his red cape when he was younger. (Note: As a toddler, I unsuccessfully tried to fly several times.) But now Jeff Garzik is looking higher. He's looking to space, and he wants Bitcoin to live there.

No, seriously. Garzik recently proposed a plan to send a Bitcoin computer into space with an inexpensive CubeSat, so that there would always be a node in the network that hackers couldn't crack. The CubeSat would be able to communicate with Bitcoin computers on Earth by radio.

It sounds crazy, but it's actually not a bad idea. As Wired's Robert McMillan points out, Bitcoin computers are vulnerable to so-called Sibyl attacks. "It could give criminals a way of spending their bitcoins more than once," he explained in a recent blog post, "and it's also part of the so-called selfish miner scenario that Cornell University researchers described last month, saying it could bring down the entire system." Bring down the entire system? That can't be good.

Garzik is serious, and he's already raised 37 Bitcoins—about $37,000 at current exchange rates. Trips to space are more expensive than that, of course, but the dreamer thinks he can get everything together and have a Bitcoin computer in space in only three to five years. It's not the first such plan, either. More here.

Stone-Tipped Spears Pre-date the Human Race

Spears feel very much like a human weapon of war—so it's surprising to find out that, in fact, the stone-tipped projectiles pre-date our species by a bewildering 85,000 years.

A team of archaeologists from University of California at Berkeley have uncovered remains of the oldest known stone-tipped throwing spears, and their analysis suggests they're 280,000 years old. They were found at an Ethiopian Stone Age site known as Gademotta, and are reported in PLoS One.

But that age means that they're far older than Homo sapiens—which either suggests we're wrong about how long our race has existed, or that our predecessor species were smart enough to make weapons. Yonatan Sahle, one of the researchers, explains:

"Technological advances were not necessarily associated with anatomical changes.. The advances might have started earlier... High-quality raw materials were nearby, so those could have allowed for the full expression of technological skills... [and there] was a mega lake at the site. It might have attracted stable occupations there, further fueling technological advances."

It seems most likely, then, that intelligence existed before us that was enough to assemble some crude, stone-tipped weapons. Most likely, say the researchers, they were put together by Homo heidelbergensis—Heidelberg Men to their friends—who lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia from at least 600,000 years ago. And clearly had a little bit of an aggressive streak. More here.

Make Yourself Known With a Bike Light That's As Loud As a Car Horn

If the ringing of your bicycle's bell isn't getting the response you're after from motorists—namely, please don't hit me—it might be time for an upgrade. Sixty-five bucks will get you the Orp, an LED headlight that easily lashes and unlashes from your handlebars and emits a loud shriek that can be heard inside a running car—even with the windows rolled up.

The Orp actually has two different horns to choose from. A polite and subdued 76-decibel chime to alert pedestrians of your approach, and a more obnoxious—though effective—96-decibel shriek to let drivers know you're nearby.

It's completely waterproof, and of course rechargeable—the 87-lumen LED headlights run for a solid three hours on a charge (and even longer if set to flash). It's a little on the expensive side—no doubt there—but can you really put a value on not getting creamed by a distracted driver who didn't know you were there? More here.

An Accordion Shelf That Grows With Your Knick-Knack Collection

You can forget about allen wrenches and magnets altogether—at least if you're in the market for a new shelf—because Meike Harde has come up with a pre-assembled storage unit that unfolds like an accordion to accommodate whatever you need to store.

The hinged zig-zag design of the Stockwerk Shelf's walls allow it to collapse for easy portability. But it also gives the shelf support and stability when unfolded, without the need for extra braces or assembly. It can be as tall or as short as you require, and as your collection of knick-knacks and tchotchkes grows and demands more space, the shelf can easily grow with them. More here.

McLaren Is Using Fighter Jet Technology for Wiper-free Windshields

Anyone who's ever driven in a southern thunderstorm knows that windshield wipers suck. They smear water more than they remove it, and, my God, is that "whip-flick" sound annoying.

Well, worry no more. McLaren says it's doing away with wipers altogether in favor of fighter jet technology that keeps windshields clean. The British supercar company isn't revealing too many details, but experts have a pretty good idea of how the new system will work. The fighter jet technology to which McLaren is referring is likely a high-frequency electronic system that pumps sound waves through the windshield, effectively creating a vibrating ultrasonic force field that deflects water, mud, and even bugs.

If that sounds wildly futuristic and out of your reach, don't be too hasty. The same system that will go on McLaren's $250,000 sports cars by 2015 could be available for the rest of us for as little as $15 on mass market vehicles within a few years. And just think of all the money you'll save on wiper blades. More here.

NASA-Developed Moonglow Material Keeps This Watch Glowing All Night

A built-in battery-powered light is the easiest way to check the time on your watch in the middle of the night. But what if your watch doesn't have a battery? Schofield's newBlacklamp Carbon features a hand-wound movement, but still manages to stay visible in the dark of night thanks to a material developed by NASA called Moonglow that glows much longer than the stickers you decorated your ceiling with as a kid.

The watch also features a small Tritium gas light—a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that gives off a faint glow as it decays—but it's the strip of long lasting Moonglow, running all the way around the rim of the dial, that will have night owls enthusiastic for the timepiece.

And as the watch's name and that telltale pattern on the bezel allude, the Blacklamp Carbon is actually made of a newly developed material called Morta that's based on carbon fiber. So it's strong, lightweight, and of course, incredibly expensive. The watch, limited to 101 pieces, sells for just over $16,000. More here.

China's Rover Has Reportedly Landed On the Moon

China's state-run television network is reporting that the unmanned Yutu lunar rover has successfully soft-landed on the moon.

The Chang'e-3 landing craft carried the rover to the smooth Bay of Rainbows region of the moon after a voyage launched December 1st. The rover, named Yutu (Jade Rabbit in English), is a 260lb six-wheeled solar powered explorer with a top speed of 660 feet per hour. For the next three months, it will conduct tests on the lunar surface and set up a telescope to study earth's plasmasphere.

An earlier Chinese spacecraft successfully orbited the moon, collecting data before being intentionally crashed into the moon's surface. The next mission in the Chang'e program is intended to bring back rock and soil samples from the moon some time before 2020. More here.

This Magical Table's Electromagnetic Field Turns On Nearby Light Bulbs

The table was designed by Florian Dussopt, a French product designer who describes it as Here's how The Guardian once explained what's going on inside the bulbs:

A fluorescent tube glows when an electrical voltage is set up across it. The electric field set up inside the tube excites atoms of mercury gas, making them emit ultraviolet light. This invisible light strikes the phosphor coating on the glass tube, making it glow.

In other words, the table is harnessing the power of wireless energy—a feat that has proved so elusive to those who would harness it on a larger scale, like Nikola Tesla, whose doomed Wardenclyffe Tower was an attempt to transmit electrical power across great distances.

In fact, the base of the table looks remarkably similar to the structural framework of Tesla's 1900 tower, making it a kind of tribute.

How To Make a Terrifying, Spinning, Ferrofluid Buzzsaw

There are almost as many fascinating ferrofluid videos on YouTube as there are clips of kittens being cute. So it's rare to come across one that offers anything new and interesting. But CrazyRussianHacker has done just that with this simple trick that turns ferrofluid into some kind of nightmarish liquid metal spinning saw blade.

The secret here is to magnetize a large bolt stood on its end, and then gently pour a bit of ferrofluid on top of it. Gravity will pull the liquid down the bolt along its spiral thread, and the magnetic field will create those terrifying spinning spikes you see. Simple, but no less wonderful once you know how it's done.

The Awesomely Weird Biological Shoes That we will Wear in 2050

London-based designer and researcher Shamees Aden has a vision for the future of footwear. It's a future where shoes are 3D printed out of synthetic biological material that responds to your every step and can regenerate overnight. She's even made a prototype.

Behold the Protocell sneaker. The shoes are customized for the wearers foot so that they fit like a second skin, and in its own way, the protocell technology that they're made of works like skin. Protocells aren't alive, but they act like they are which is how the shoes get their responsive and self-healing qualities.

"The cells have the capability to inflate and deflate and to respond to pressure," Aden told Dezeen. But they special material requires a little extra care, as you have to store them in a jar full of protocell liquid. Aden explained, "You would take the trainers home and you would have to care for it as if it was a plant, making sure it has the natural resources needed to rejuvenate the cells."

Who wouldn't want half-living shoes that make it look like you have alien feet? Unfortunately, the project is only in the concept stage now, and Aden thinks it could be nearly four decades before we see this kind of technology on the market. More here.

Sticky Notes On a Roll Let You Decide How Much You Need

You can already get sticky notes in a few different sizes, but for those who want even more control, you can now get them on an endless roll—letting you tear off the perfect size as needed. After all, some days you just need a few groceries, while others you need to completely restock the pantry.

Available in yellow, blue, or pink, the Pensée (French for "thought") includes sixteen feet of sticky notes in a plastic dispenser complete with a perforated cutter. And the entire back of the roll is covered in a low-tack adhesive, which means wherever you stick it, it's going to stay put until you tear it off. They're just $9 a roll—and the handy grid that helps keep your handwritten notes neat and tidy is included at no extra charge. More here.

World's Thinnest Mechanical Watch Is as Thick as Two Stacked Quarters

You don't think it's only laptop, tablet, and smartphone designers that go the extra mile to make their devices thinner and thinner do you? Watch makers are constantly battling each other for the same notoriety, and now Piaget has reclaimed the title of 'world's thinnest mechanical watch' with its new Altiplano 38mm 900P that measures in at 3.65mm—making it thinner than many digital alternatives.

Snatching the title from Jaeger-LeCoultre, Piaget managed to shave a full 0.4mm off the thickness of the previous record holder. But the company's watchmakers did it in a very clever way. Normally a mechanical watch features a movement—all the gears and mechanisms that make it tick—inside a case. But with the Altiplano 38mm 900P, the movement is built right into the actual watch's body.

So the watch is just as much a technological and engineering achievement as it is comfortable to wear. Every single one of the Altiplano 38mm 900P's 145 components had to be manufactured with extreme levels of precision, which, not surprisingly, contributes to its wallet-thinning price tag. When available, the watch will sell for between $20,000 and $30,000, but eventually you can expect to see the innovations that made it possible trickle down to other more affordable pieces. More here.

A Full-Size Hybrid Vacuum You Can Charge By USB

When you hear the words 'vacuum' and 'USB' used in the same sentence, you probably picture a tiny keyboard cleaning tool with barely enough power to suck up crumbs. ButPanasonic's hybrid MC-HS700G—now available in Japan—is a full-sized vacuum cleaner strong enough to lift a bowling ball that can also be charged from a USB port giving you up to 20 minutes of suction without a tether to a wall outlet.

For most of your indoor cleaning needs you'll want to keep the MC-HS700G plugged into an AC outlet to take full advantage of its dust sensor, cyclone-action suction, and built-in headlights for spotting dirty areas on your floor. But for cleaning your car, or areas in your home too far from an outlet, the vacuum's rechargeable battery boasts up to 20 minutes of cleaning on a single charge.

Of course, that's with minimal suction. Battery life dwindles to a mere six minutes at full power, so you may want to reinstate that 'no eating in the car' rule. And the vacuum is a hefty $700, making it more expensive than even Dyson's high-end models. But looking over at the tangle of cables on the floor, a rechargeable vacuum that can outperform a dustbuster and share our smartphone's charger is still very, very tempting. More here.

Insane Seattle Bus Crash Captured On Google Street View

Fansite Google Street View World today found that Google Maps has a Street View pictureof a Northwestern Trailways charter bus hanging somewhat precariously over Interstate 5 following a crash.

No, it's not a fake. According to TV station KATU, this happened back in December 2008. They called it a "bizarre incident" in which two charter buses collided while nosing down an icy Seattle hill, sending both of them crashing through a metal railing above the freeway. The bus in the photo hang 30 feet above the Interstate before it was towed to safety.

The Google camera car must have just been in the right place at the right time, I guess. More here.

You'll Actually Be Excited For Snow With This Gorgeous Toboggan

Is there anything more soul crushing than waking up and checking the weather on your phone, only to discover that there are inches of snow outside waiting to complicate your morning commute? Snow in the forecast doesn't always have to be a letdown, though. With this steam-bent wooden toboggan from Lucky Bums, you'll embrace every flake that falls.

Plastic sleds with brakes and steering have come to dominate snow-covered hills over the years, but there's just nothing as thrilling as climbing onto an old-school wooden toboggan, lining up your path of descent, and then hoping you won't hit anything on the way down. If you do, this made-in-the-USA toboggan's padded seat should help you ride out the worst of it.

At $200, it's certainly more expensive that other sledding options you can get your hands on. But remember, like a set of skis, with a little bit of wax a wooden toboggan can send you rocketing down a hill, leaving other higher-tech sledders eating your snowy dust. More here.

Apparently People Will Buy Cans of French Air for $7.50

Money doesn't grow on trees. You can't get something for nothing. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Except all of these cliches are apparently false, because Antoine Deblay, a student who lives in southwest France is actually making money selling cans of air from his town.

For €5.50, or about $7.50, Deblay is shipping 250ml cans of air called "Air de Montcuq" for his hometown. This summer he raised about $1,000 on KissKissBankBank, a French crowdfunding site, which allowed him to make a website and get the tins/packaging he needed. Deblay told Business Insider that in the first three weeks he received a thousand orders and has already made thousands of dollars with a 60 percent profit margin.

The appeal of the cans comes from a pun that is inherent in the name of Deblay's town. Montcuq can be mispronounced "mon cul" or "my ass," meaning that "Air de Montcuq" can be translated as "the wind of my ass." Novelty gift? Sure, why not.

Because he apparently is not afraid of taking the whole thing too seriously, Deblay is only selling 10 liters of air per week so he doesn't put a strain on his supply, and when he hits that limit he puts a warning on the website that orders are done for the week. Deblay told Business Insider, "Of course I knew it was going to sell, but not so much in so little time!" Of course!  More here.

Researchers Discover Huge Freshwater Reserves Under Ocean Floors

As earth's population surges, mankind faces an increasingly limited supply of fresh water. Thankfully, Australian scientists report this week that they've found vast new fresh water supplies. Unfortunately, it's in one of earth's least accessible places: under the ocean floor.

Published in this week's Nature, the research compiles mounting evidence that fresh groundwater reserves exist off the shores of Australia, China, North America and Africa. The researchers estimate that 500,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water is trapped in aquifers under the ocean floor — more than 20 times the volume of water in all five Great Lakes.

Getting to the water without contaminating it presents an enormous challenge. But with 40% of the world's population already living in conditions of water scarcity, it may prove to be necessary. More here.

Mind-Boggling Spherical Gear Made from 3D-Printed Moving Parts

Proxy describes the project as just "the first in a series of kinetic, 3D-printed objects designed to explore the limits of 3D printing as an art form":

Created in a one­-shot fabrication process, Mechaneu #1 features an elaborate network of interlocking gears and support structures. Spin one gear and the entire sphere is catalyzed with the rotation. The effect is mesmerizing, a visualization for the eye and a tactile experience for the hands. The Mechaneu design explores the limit case of commercial 3D printing; all aspect of the design are calibrated to the minimum thicknesses and maximum detail levels.

But it's the insane, nested spherical rotation of this thing—or, rather, the fact that it works, and that it came from a 3D printer—that blows my mind.

Avoid Injuries With Smart Sneakers That Tell You How To Run Properly

A daily run can be great for your health and fitness, but it can actually be harmful too if not done properly. Of course the right shoes are an important part of the formula, especially thissensor-laden pair developed by the Fraunhofer Institute which provide real-time feedback on your running style, and how to improve it.

So what makes these sneaks so smart? Built into their sole is a biometric sensor working alongside an accelerometer and GPS hardware. Together they collect data on the runner's speed and technique, and transmit it to a smartphone app via Bluetooth which analyzes the information and makes suggestions to improve the wearer's running style or routine.

One day it might suggest you try rolling off your foot differently to improve your stride, while others it might recommend running on a softer surface like grass. The shoes and software can even make intelligent recommendations on when you need to give your feet a break. The only feature that might be lacking is giving you the motivation to get off the couch and out the door to begin with. More here.

The Navy Just Launched a Drone from a Submarine—While Underwater

If you thought launching a drone from an aircraft carrier was impressive, you're going to be blown away by this: After six years of development, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has successfully launched a drone from a submerged submarine.

That's right. A submerged submarine. Submerged under the ocean. The picture above is real: a composite of time-lapse photos taken during the launch. You can see the wings swing out like a pair of scissors as the drone takes to the sky.

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory really outdid themselves this time. Their Experimental Fuel Cell (XFC) unmanned aerial system was just fired from the torpedo tube of the USS Providence. The so-called Sea Robin launch vehicle system then floated to the surface, where an all-electric, fuel cell-powered drone with foldable wings took to the sky where it performed an hour-long test flight before landing at the Naval Sea Systems Command Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in the Bahamas. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, this is just the beginning. The XFC launch doesn't come as a huge surprise because we've known for a few months now that DARPA is working on a submarine "mothership"that can launch both unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles—all kinds of drones. Dubbed as the Hydra program, this initiative will enable sailors to send remotely piloted, and someday perhaps fully autonomous, craft into battle zones virtually undetected. It'll also scare the pants off of unsuspecting fisherman. More here.

iPhone Anamorphic Lens Lets You Shoot Wider Than Widescreen

Even though 35mm film dominated the film industry for years and years, the majority of movies released to theaters were much wider than the stock's 4:3 aspect ratio. But instead of sacrificing resolution and simply cropping off the top and bottom of a frame to make it widescreen, filmmakers used special lenses that squeezed a wider vista onto the 35mm film stock, and then unsqueezed the images when they were being projected. They were known as anamorphic lenses, and soon you'll be able to get one for your iPhone.

What looks like one of the many external lenses you can get for your smartphone is actually one of the first to do an anamorphic squeeze on your footage, letting you shoot video that's approximately 33 percent wider than the iPhone's standard field of vision.

So if you're shooting video in an old-school 4:3 aspect ratio, when the footage was unsqueezed in your video editor it would have a wider 16:9 vista. And if you're shooting in 16:9 to start with, the resulting footage would have an even wider and more majestic 2.4:1 aspect ratio. For still images the iPhone's panoramic mode easily accomplishes this, but this is currently the only way to pull it off for video.

The anamorphic adapter lens is currently raising funds on Kickstarter, and with a pledge of $85 or more you can claim one of the first production units when they're available sometime closer to March of next year. More here.

Great Gifts You Can 3D Print

The best gifts are the ones that aren't obvious. Oh you're going to get your sister another pair of earrings? Nah. This time you should go for a set that were 3D printed instead. In order to wow your family and everyone on your list this year, here's are some magical presents that came out of a printer.

Now, you may be thinking, but I don't have a 3D printer. But no printer is no problem. You can easily order something that has already been designed and 3D printed for you. So now that you know how easy it is, what are you going to print for your friends and family? Maybe you can find some inspiration here.

Spin Around a Mountain in Super Speed like Superman

Things that usually spin really, really fast: a top, the wheel of fortune wheel, other wheels, circular objects, knobs and other things of that nature. Not a mountain! Well, unless you're Superman and can fly around it. Newsflash: we're not Superman. However! Kevin Parry and Andrea Nesbitt of Candy Glass Productions might be. They created a mountain spinning flyby effect in a sick hyperlapse of Mt. Hood.

Nesbitt told PetaPixel that creating a hyperlapse of the spinning mountain took a lot of careful planning along with "miles and miles of hiking, and some terrifying driving/exploring". I think it was totally worth it.

A Tiny Stamp Brands Your Can To Make Sure No One Steals Your Drink

Is there anything worse than being at a party and having someone steal your drink? Sure! Taking a long swigg on a can only to realize it isn't yours. But now you can avoid both situations with this keychain-sized stamp that lets you brand an aluminum can with a permanent message, leaving no debate as to its ownership.

The aptly named CanStamp features a set of raised letters spelling out messages like mine, in use, fuel, and 1 more. And branding your beverage is as easy as pressing that stamp—and its message—it into the ridge just below the top of an aluminum can. Admittedly debates over ownership could flare up if more than one person brings the $8 CanStamp to a party, so you might want to skip this one until they come out with a version you can personalize with your name, or a more specific threat. More here.

Australia's Using Pop Radio to Track Space Junk

Space junk is a serious problem: it threatens satellites and spacecraft, and can plummet unpredictably to earth. Australia's Murchison Widefield Array is a high-sensitivity radio telescope that tracks space debris as small as 1 meter across, by observing how the objects reflect FM signals from Australian radio stations. It's listening to pop music from space.

The array, part of western Australia's Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory, was built as a precursor to the proposed Square Kilometre Array being jointly undertaken by Australia and South Africa. As it stands right now, the Murchison Widefield Array consists of 2,048 individual antennas arranged in 128 four-by-four tiles. A single tile is pictured above.

When FM broadcast radio signals traveling out into space encounter debris, some of the radio waves are reflected back toward earth. The Murchison Widefield Array can pick up signals from objects as far as 620 miles away. So the next time you hear Gotye or Keith Urban on the radio, just think — in Australia, they're helping monitor space junk. More here.

A Paper Shopping Bag That Transforms Into a Hanger Back Home

If you get lucky, the clothing store where you bought that new sweater or shirt might toss in the plastic hanger it was on free of charge. Otherwise, you'll have to scrounge one up yourself—at least until this wonderful redesign of the shopping back becomes a reality. With a few folds the Hangbag transforms into its own hanger, strong enough to support everything short of a lead-lined suit.

The bag is the brainchild of designers Parin Sanghvi, Shruti Gupta, and Mohit Singhvi, and it takes the less-used reuse approach. Instead of encouraging shoppers to just toss the sack in their recycling bin, it includes instructions on how to use some basic origami techniques to turn it into a very functional hanger. And while it might not be the prettiest hanger in your closet, the important thing is that it's free, it works, and it finally makes paper bags as useful as their plastic counterparts. More here.

Ugh, Who Invited Math To the Rubik's Cube Party?

The simplicity of the Rubik's Cube puzzle is what makes it so devilishly difficult to solve at times. It's just a bunch of colored squares, but getting them to group together can be a life's pursuit for many people. So who in their right mind thought that taking the Rubik's Cube formula and adding mathematical patterns of numbers into the mix was a good idea? Clearly someone with a deep love of mathematics, or a sincere hatred for humanity.

At first glance you might assume the rules of Sudoku might come into play here, but they don't. Solving the six sides of this puzzle cube instead requires you to group the numbers into well-known mathematical patterns or collections—including a Fibonacci series, a prime number series, and even the digits of Pi. In other words, unless you've memorized these numberical formations, solving this puzzle will be all but impossible for anyone other than practising mathematicians. But it's great news for anyone with a math professor on their holiday shopping list, and a $20 limit. More here.

Why Your Thanksgiving Meal Makes You Tired

Today, you're gonna shovel one hell of a lot of turkey and pie down your throat, then collapse in a food-coma in front of the TV. But why does your huge meal make you feel like snoozing?

As you'd expect, science has some answers. It turns out that there are two big factors that make you fancy a snooze soon after the pumpkin pie is polished off.

First, when the food starts to arrive in your belly, the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system increases and the activity of the sympathetic nervous system decreases. Huh, what does that mean? Well, the sympathetic nervous system provides our fight-or-flight response. The parasympathetic system gets your organs ready for digestion. Basically, your body wants you to stay still in order to sort out the contents of your stomach. That's why you choose not to move too much after your meal.

Next, when you start digesting your food, you get a big rush of glucose into your blood stream. If you don't have diabetes, your body creates insulin to help the body's cells absorb the glucose. The insulin works by affecting the uptake of a bunch of amino acids in the body — stick with me here! — except for one called tryptophan. So the concentration of tryptophan increases relative to other amino acids. Turns out that in the brain, tryptophan is converted to serotonin, which is itself converted to melatonin — both of which result in sleepiness.

Voila! Your nervous system and your brain both want you to sleep. So I say go with it.

Incidentally, there's a myth that turkey contains a lot of tryptophan. That's kinda rubbish, though, as turkey doesn't contain any more than chicken, beef, or plenty of other meats. So don't blame the turkey too much. Blame your gluttony instead. More here.

A Multipurpose Key That Will Unlock Your Inner MacGyver

In addition to opening doors, that set of keys in your pocket also serves as makeshift knives, prybars, and even ice scrapers. But why risk accidentally bending a key and losing access to your home when this key-sized multi-tool can do so much more?

What you're looking at here is actually five tools in one including a box cutter, a bottle opener, a metric and imperial ruler, a multi-sized wrench, and a flat-head screwdriver. But that's just its official uses. With enough imagination this can come in handy for countless other uses, even gaining access to your home if your actual key's gone MIA.

And it's just $5. Break that down and you're paying just a buck for every tool this little wonder emulates. You can't even buy a decent screwdriver for that much, and especially not one that will sit as comfortably in your pocket as this one. More here.

Chrome Is Finally Getting Hands-Free "Ok Google" Search

Even if your family gets bored and stops listening to you this Thanksgiving, at least your computer will still have open ears. Just in time for the holidays, Google has officially released voice recognition for Chrome browsers in the form of a Chrome extension.

To enable the new Voice Search Hotword ability, all you need to do is head to the Chrome Web Store and download the extension. At that point, you'll be able to talk to your laptop totally hands-free, like it was a Moto X or an Xbox One. To activate the feature, simply say "Ok Google" followed by your search or command. You know the drill.

Whether you need to start a timer, look up unit conversions, or dates, or whatever, Google's voice command will listen, and relay back to you out loud. See, the holidays don't have to be so lonely after all, kind of. More here.

Astonishing Picture of Earth Compared to all its Water and Air

This image really gives you a perfect idea on how fragile our planet is by adding all the air in another sphere. The density of the air pictured here corresponds to its density at sea level (one atmosphere.)

Here's the high resolution image made by Globaïa's Félix Pharand-Deschênes, based on a concept by Adam Nieman for the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

Considerate iPhone Thief Returns Handwritten List of Stolen Contacts

What really sucks about losing your phone—besides losing the phone—is that you also lose a whole bunch of your data. But to help ease that pain, a iPhone thief in China copied down a list of all his victim's contacts (by hand!) and returned it to its rightful owner. All 1,000 of them.

According to the Independent, victim Zou Bin lost his iPhone when he split a cab with a robber, who managed to snag it off him. As soon as he got to another phone, Zou texted the stolen handset and demanded that the robber return it to the home address stored inside. It didn't quite work; big surprise.

But Zou didn't wind up empty-handed. A few days later, he received a package including his SIM card, and more impressively, an 11-page, hand-scrawled list of all 1,000 some contacts that had been stored in the phone.

It's not exactly a happy ending, but getting back a SIM card back is definitely better than notgetting a SIM card back. And as for the contacts? Those were probably stored in the cloud anyway, but that list must have been a serious pain in the wrist to write. And with a wrist that cramped, that new stolen toy is going to be hard to use at least. More here.

You Can Buy Bacon Deodorant

The bacon-everything craze has mostly passed, thankfully, and things seem to be getting back to normal. The constant barrage of bacon Band-Aids and bacon office supplies is over. Bacon personal care products are apparently another story, though.

Bacon cologne appeared in 2011 and bacon soap is definitely out there. But bacon deodorantcan't possibly be useful for keeping clean and smelling good. Can it? J&D Foods also sells bacon lip balm, bacon shaving cream, and maybe weirdest of all, bacon sunblock, so $10 bacon deodorant isn't without precedent for them. Most people who buy this stuff are probably just looking for gag gifts. But maybe, just maybe, there's someone out there who is actually slathering on bacon deodorant before a big date. More here.

It has more or less become fact that when you pay money to travel on an airplane, you're subscribing yourself to probable gropage, uncomfortable seats, shoddy service, a few degrees of recline comfort and nuked sludge as food (if there is food). It's not pleasant. It's not futuristic. It's not fun. What if airplanes were a little bit more adaptable? Starting with the seats.


This concept design for airplane seats, designed by Seymourpowell, show an economy seat that can be re-arranged, flexed, fit and morphed to your liking. The idea is to provide something more customizable than your usual stodgy seats. Seymourpowell writes:

It is still a standard product, but it can adapt to the changing needs of the passenger. Morph uses smart architecture to adjust both the width of the seat, and individually control seat pan height and seat pan depth to suit varying sizes of passenger.

It might work. But judging from the incompetence of most airlines, it probably never will. More here.

How Teeth Whitening Strips Attack Stains Like Tiny Spaceships

You pop on a goopy strip, and a short while later you've got teeth as white and gleaming as polished tile. But how do those strips work? Wired explains, and when you zoom in to the individual ions flying around, it looks a lot like a sci-fi space attack.

Turns out, there's a lot of powerful chemistry inside each one of those whitening strips. From floor cleaner to diaper absorbent, it's stuff you wouldn't generally think to put in your mouth. But mixed properly, and applied in the privacy of your own bathroom, the stuff works its magic, without having to sit through your dentist's annoying metal-on-tooth scraping. 

Google's Getting Serious About Prescription Glass

Google really knocked everybody's socks off when it revealed Glass last year—everybody except glasses-wearers, that is. As the company prepares to bring the device to market, though, Google doesn't want to leave anybody out, and that means creating Google Glass with prescription lenses.

A new Wall Street Journal report says that process is well underway and that Google is actually in talks with VSP Global, a vision benefits company—to get Glass in optometrists' offices pronto. That would include making a prescription version, one that could be ready as early as next year. The paper says it's part of a broader effort to keep Glass "from becoming just a niche product for nerds."

Well, I've got news for you, Google. Glass is a computer that you put on your face. It's going to be a niche product for nerds for quite a while. More here.

Scientists Discover Three Galaxies Merging in the Dawn of the Universe

NASA has published an incredible photo that shows a "far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth." What's amazing about this is that you are looking at something being created in the Cosmic Dawn, the period "when the universe was first bathed in starlight."

Those are the words of Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena:

This exceedingly rare triple system, seen when the universe was only 800 million years old [which is cosmic terms is the equivalent to the first 3.8 years of our lives], provides important insights into the earliest stages of galaxy formation during a period known as 'cosmic dawn,' when the universe was first bathed in starlight.

Back in 2009, astronomers only could see one ball of hot gas. But now, combining images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope in Chile and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, they have been able to see its true form.

NASA says that Himiko—a legendary queen of ancient Japan that gives name to this space object—"it's possible the trio will eventually merge into a single galaxy similar to our own Milky Way." More here.

A Little Vitamin B Is All That Makes This Worm Glow Bright Green

This might look like the result of some wild nuclear accident, but in fact this worm is perfectly healthy. It just happens to glow bright green when exposed to certain wavelengths of light.

A team of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Californiahas discovered that it's a humble splash of vitamin B—riboflavin to be precise—which causes the parchment tube worm to glow.

Interestingly, if you prod and poke the beast, it spits out puffs of mucus that glow bright blue light, too—but it's not clear yet what creates that particular hue. That piece of research is, apparently, next on the list. More here.

After Two Years of Nuclear Crises, Japan Opens Its Biggest Solar Park

This month, Japanese electronics company Kyocera launched the country's largest solar plant. The facility can power 22,000 homes—and, maybe more importantly, it poses no risk of melting down, injuring workers, or spewing radioactive water into the Pacific ocean.

Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant—the facility's proper name—is located in an inlet at the very southern tip of Japan, which means it's fairly safe from threatening storms or tsunamis—although it does sit in the shadow of Sakurajima, an active volcano. But no matter what crises may come over the next few decades, Nanatsujima poses almost no threat to the surrounding community. More here.

Mount Etna Just had its first Spectacular Eruption in 20 years

Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, erupted into life this past weekend, sending lava bombs about one-meter-wide soaring into the sky for the first time in over 20 years.At 11,000-feet-high, Etna is also Europe's tallest active volcano, whose history of eruptions has been traced all the way back to the days of ancient Greece. Etna has been particularly active recently after about a half-month of no activity, so there will likely be several more shows to come—hopefully all without any damage.

Someday, Doctors May Test Circulation With Blood-Boiling Sonic Blasts

Currently, doctors use ultrasound to measure blood flow in the body. Doppler effect, just like bats! But it can't detect flow in the small, slow-moving vessels where diseases often start. The solution? Sonic blasts that heat up a tiny drop of blood, then watch where it goes. Science!

While this might sound like a comic book villain's torture device, according to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, you'd only feel a slight warming sensation from the focused ultrasonic blasts heating up your vessels. Meanwhile, infrared laser pulses bounced off the warmed blood would be picked up by the ultrasound, delivering real-time flow data.New Scientist likens it to dribbling a drop of ink in a stream of water to determine the speed and direction of flow. Except, y'know, with hot blood instead of ink.

In experiments, the technique accurately measured blood flow as slow as a quarter-millimeter per second. By comparison, current ultrasound technique can't accurately detect anything under 10 millimeters per second. Next up: human testing. And apparently it won't hurt a bit. More here.

Laser Holograms as Thin as a Hair Could Be the Future of High-Res

Holograms are cool enough on their own, but amazing things happen when you make them incredibly small. A team of Army-funded scientists from Purdue did just that with the development of tiny holograms—smaller than the width of a human hair!—made by shining lasers through a metasurface. This could change display technology forever.

The new hologram set-up uses a metasurface made from thousands of V-shaped nanoantennas hammered into a gold foil. When a laser light shines through the bottom, it projects a hologram just 10 microns above the metasurface. Incredibly, the researchers who built the technology were able to display "PURDUE" in a space narrower than a human hair. The ability to make shapes as intricate as letters means that this technology could also be used to form pixels for future displays, even 3D ones. Changing shapes is as easy as rearranging the nanoantennas on the metasurface.

So if you think Apple's Retina display is impressive, well, you ain't seen nothing 'til you've seen nano-sized holograms. More here.

London Will Start Testing Fifth Element Style Multipass Next Year

All of a sudden, it's the 23rd Century. The UK's government innovation board has just approved funding to begin implementing an all-in-one train/bus/subway/airline pass in 2014. And yes, the actually named it MultiPass after the thing from the Bruce Willis movie.

The plan revolves around a passcard with an e-ink barcode display that would replace a plethora of current travel fare cards. Supporters envision it being used to pay for every aspect of travel, including parking and snacks along the way. The MultiPass company even says the cloud-based system will always give users the lowest fare, no matter where or how they're traveling — which is apparently rather challenging in the UK's current system.

Two pilot tests will begin in 2014, in London and Glasgow, with the full rollout anticipated in the following year. Plenty of time to practice your pronunciation. More here.

This Double Decker Glass Table Moves Desktop Clutter One Level Down

There are those of us who prefer working at a desk that's clean, free of clutter, and devoid of anything but the work we're focusing on. But that doesn't necessarily mean we're ready for a monastic lifestyle where we have to give up all of our wordly possessions. Instead, this double decker Pili Table designed by Ricard Mollon is a fair compromise, keeping all our unneccessary crap a few inches below the desktop.

At over $3,500 it's admittedly an expensive alternative to simply cleaning your desk and stashing unneeded paperwork in a filing cabinet. But it's one of those rare times when form and function seem perfectly balanced. And it seems like a great way to keep crumbs and food off a keyboard by moving and using it on that lower level. More here.

These Pencils Eventually Sharpen Into Spinning Tops

What do you normally do when you've sharpened a pencil down to a nub—just throw it away? That's the most likely outcome, but if you opt for these wonderful Spincils, you're instead left with a spinning top to add to your collection of desktop distractions.

But the Spincils are beyond just recycled toys; they're individual works of art. Each one is actually a solid piece of wood that's been hand turned in a lathe to get that large bump on the end—there's no mass production done here. So don't expect them to come cheap. But on the plus side, the Spincils work like a top after just the first sharpen (albeit a little on the tipsy side) so you don't have to grind them down to a nub to play with them right away. More here.

A Travel Bag That Keeps Your Clean and Dirty Clothes Separate

Cramming as much clothing as you can into as small a suitcase as possible is a fine art. And with Outlier's new Doublebag, now any traveler can be a Michelangelo of packing. It not only lets you compress your clothing for maximum capacity, it also doubles as a laundry bag that keeps your smelly worn garments quarantined from the clean.

Using a clever double-walled design, both the clean and dirty sides of the $48 bag can expand or shrink as needed. So at the start of a trip the entire bag can be used to stash your clean clothes, but as the days drag on, the capacity of the dirty side can be expanded to accommodate your ever growing pile of laundry. And while the Doublebag is sealed shut, you've got yourself a comfy travel pillow that still probably smells better than your hotel's offering. More here.

These New Graphene Supercapacitors Could Finally Power An Electric Car

A team of South Korean scientists has developed a new graphene supercapacitor that can store almost as much energy as a lithium-ion battery, but charge in only 16 seconds. This makes it an ideal material to store braking energy and could be exactly what the electric car industry needs.

Scientists from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea made the breakthrough by creating an especially porous form of graphene. (See below.) Incredibly, a single gram of this specialized graphene has the same amount of surface area as a basketball. This greatly increased surface area enables the supercapacitor to store far more energy than previous versions of the material, which had been keeping graphene supercapacitors out of the running as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. Because they don't use chemicals, graphene supercapacitors also have a much longer life than lithium ion batteries.

Finding success in the lab and bringing a product to market are two very different things, so it's unclear how quickly we might see this impressive technology at work in electric cars. The South Koreans say that these "supercapacitor energy storage devices… can be scaled up for manufacturing in the near future for electric vehicle applications."

So that's something. But only time will tell whether these supercapacitors take over before Tesla manages to build its famously ambitious lithium-ion factory. More here.

How the GoPro Became the Best Selling Camera In the World

The GoPro is an amazing action camera that lets people record extreme sports, daredevil feats, and other spectacles. Just a few years ago, it would have been impossible. But, today, it is the best-selling camera in the world.

In a short 60 Minutes profile, Anderson Cooper runs through the story of the rugged camera from the beginning, when the company was founded by a young surfer and failed entrepreneur named Nick Woodman 12 years ago. The first GoPro product? A simple waterproof film camera. 

Since then, the company has doubled its sales yearly, to revenues of more than $500 million per year. Never underestimate the potential of a simple, effective, inexpensive tool. More here.

Your Face and Name Will Appear in Google Ads Starting Today

It's party time, ladies and gentlemen. Exactly one month after announcing the move, Google has updated its terms of service, allowing the company to use your profile information in ads. That means your face, name and personal details will start popping up all over your network. Yay!

Well, that might not be a reaction you share. As we learned from Facebook's foray into social ads, plenty of people don't like their face and name to show up in ads, so much so that they sued the company (and won). But fear not! You can opt out by unchecking the box on the bottom of this page. You can also read more about the new Terms of Service here. But seriously: opt out here.