Google Earth For iOS Goes Underwater

Google Earth for iOS just got an update that adds a host of underwater and ocean surface content, as well as spiffing things up for the Retina Display. I consider it the only safe way to explore the ocean.

PlayStation Move Controller is a Cheap Cellphone, Minus Calling Capabilities

On one hand, the Move controller is a very pricey gaming controller. On the other paw, a tear-down revealed "it's quite the bang for the buck," with a processor, accelerometer, gyroscope, Bluetooth, vibrating motor and MEMS compass tucked inside.

iFixit's rip-apart didn't reveal much that we didn't already know about the spec, but apparently it was dead easy to open it up—good news for home-tinkerers. While the vibrating motor can be peeled off somewhat, it's still fastened down to the motherboard, along with the LED, charge contacts and EXT cables. The 1320mAh lithium-ion battery, however, can be disconnected.

Human Fiber Optics Could Give Senses to Artificial Limbs

DARPA, working with the Southern Methodist University Neurophotonics Research Center, is currently developing a system of wild new fiber optics that could give a sense of pressure and feeling to artificial limbs.

Aside from the obvious benefits that a future amputee victim might experience, the implants could also curb tremors, manage pain or treat spinal cord injuries—just to name a few.

Beyond that, DARPA (and SMU) has once again has found a way to blend the present with what was once science fiction:

"Science fiction writers have long imagined the day when the understanding and intuition of the human brain could be enhanced by the lightning speed of computing technologies. With this remarkable research initiative, we are truly beginning a journey into the future that will provide immeasurable benefits to humanity." - Dean Osark, SMU Lyle School of Engineering.

A Facebook Phone?

According to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington's sources, Facebook is creating its own cellphone. As the story goes, they're building the OS, and have tasked a hardware manufacturer to build everything else. Anyone else think this sounds like a Facebook-flavored Peek?

Scared by Google's impending Nexus One (which was announced back in January of this year), Facebook supposedly began planning their phone. Something that would integrate Facebook contacts more deeply than anything Android or any other platforms had done before.

Arrington scribed on a blog post this morning that two Facebook employees, Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos are leading the charge on the OS, using their previous careers as Firefox browser creator and Chrome OS builder (respectively) to launch something Facebook can be proud of. Whether the rest of the world would be proud carrying a Facebook phone is another matter entirely—though I don't have any doubts that this would be a very affordable phone aimed at the young 'uns, if it does amount to something other than speculation.

How to Protect All Your Precious Stuff

From your latest gadgets to your expensive big TV and even your car, here's a complete guide about how to protect all your precious material things from thieves:

Will We Discover An Earth-like Planet By May 2011?

Using math way more complicated than I fully understand, a scientific paper predicts that we will find a potentially habitable Earth-like planet by early May 2011. Oh.

Sam Arbesman and Greg Laughlin, the authors of the scientific paper, used the history and dates of previously discovered exoplanets to develop their system. What they did was:

Using the properties of previously discovered exoplanets, we developed a simple metric of habitability for each planet that uses its mass and temperature to rate it on a scale of 0 to 1, where 1 is Earth-like, and 0 is so very not Earth-like. Plotting these values over time and taking the upper envelope yields a nice march towards habitability.

Using a simple bootstrap sampling analysis, we calculated when a logistic curve fit to such an upper envelope would get to a habitability of approximately 1. And the likeliest time is early to mid-2011, or more precisely, early May 2011.
And if not then, their data shows that there is a 75% chance that the discovery will happen by the end of 2013 (many astronomers predict this timeframe as well). In February 2011, NASA's Kepler mission will release a boatload of data that I'm assuming will help in find this Earthy planet. The universe is so big I'm surprised I didn't realize discovering another Earth-like planet was inevitable. There goes thinking that I'm a unique snowflake.

The Most Powerful Colors on the Web

These are the top 100 web brands—from computer companies to search engines to social web sites to porn sites—ordered by color. Apparently, the "top brands within categories tend to use similar color palettes."

I don't see the tendency myself, but I don't care. Rainbows are pretty!

Jebus Chris T. VS Budd A. App. Rejected by Apple

I've only skimmed Apple's App Review Guidelines, but I'm pretty sure that Moral Decay isn't exactly designed in accordance to them. But who knows, maybe Apple will approve aniPhone game that involves Jesus Chris T. gunning down sumo wrestlers, aliens, and other bad guys.

After all, it's perfectly possible that Apple will overlook that the Moral Decay app has the potential to be offensive to a group, portrays realistic violence, has realistic depictions of weapons, is probably designed to upset some users, and contains potentially offensive references to a religion.

Ah, who am I kidding. That video above is probably the closest we'll get to playing this game.

Boeing's New Spy Plane Will Fly For Five Years Straight

The SolarEagle is Boeing's winning design for an unmanned plane capable of continually flying for five years on reconnaissance and commutations missions above 65,000 feet. The solar-powered, propeller-driven UAV will begin test flights in 2014.

The Boeing UAV was the winning bid in a DARPA contest named Vulture II. It's another one of those peculiar projects with high ambitions designed to encourage the next level of technological development. With a goal of flying at stratospheric height for five years, Boeing's SolarEagle only has to achieve a demonstration flight of 30-to-90 days by 2014.

A product of the same Phantom Works lab behind the hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye, this slimmer eye-in-the-sky's actually propeller-driven and uses electric motors set into a "high-aspect-ratio" 400-foot wing designed to capture the sun's rays while providing little drag from the earth's atmosphere. With a 1,000-pound payload it won't be dropping bombs anytime soon, just helping the people who drop the bombs figure out where to put them.

House Your Wireless Apple Products in a Nice, Wooden Tray

Keep your wireless keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and Apple remote neat, perfectly placed, and right at your fingertips. For those of us who don't have the full collection, there are three variations of this black walnut keyboard tray, so no worries.

They keyboard-only tray runs for $69, keyboard+trackpad is $74, and the model pictured is $79. If you're on the eco side, you'll be glad to know that all parts of the tray's design and production were created using sustainable practices.

Are You Reading This During Sex?

Our undying love for the Internet has gone a bit too far, according to a recent study claiming that almost a quarter of US residents think it's acceptable to be online during sex. Are you one of them?

The study, conducted by computer security firm PC Tools, surveyed 1,012 U.S. adults in a random phone poll.

PC Tools' study also highlights some other disturbing trends in Internet connectivity. According to the poll, 29% of Americans think it's ok to be "plugged in" during a honeymoon, 26% stay connected during fancy dinners, 8% surf the web during religious services, and 6% are online during weddings.

 Is PC Tools trying to tell us that nearly a quarter of Americans are simultaneously getting it on and reading work emails? Or are they just watching Internet porn?

Pretend Your iPhone Is Just a Really Impressively Modded NES Controller

Instead of buying this $5 decal and pretending that your super-sophisticated 21st century smartphone is an old Nintendo controller, why not pretend that you just happen to have a magical NES controller that can run apps and make phone calls?

Kinda make phone calls, anyway—and hey, it's only an NES controller, after all! The decal, which can be had for $5 on Etsy, is made for the iPhone 4 and has a little hole for its camera.


All of our stickers are printed using solvent ink on quality vinyl and then passed through one of our giant plotters and die cut. This isn't cheap sticker paper from an office supply store, this is certifiable vinyl powered awesomeness. Rated 5-7 years of outdoor life.

I just hope that these so called angry birds don't cause my seven-year-old self to neglect that adorable Italian plumber.

Ultraviolet Laser Turns Humans Into Zombies

Apparently, firing a 405-nanometer ultraviolet laser beam to your face doesn't kill you. It just turns you into a creepy zombie, using a system called Fade Out. This is how it works.

Invented by Japanese artists Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi, Fade Out creates images that glow in the dark using a 405-nanometer laser beam. First, their software analyzes the source image, turning it to grayscale and determining the intensity of each pixel. Then it fires the laser to different points in the canvas—in the case above, on a face—timing the firing so the pixels fade in synchronization. By the time the last pixel is fired, the ones fired at the beginning have already faded to the point in which they are almost gone. The process creates the highlights and the shadows necessary to create the image.

You can see it more clearly in this other video:

According to the artists, the process could be used in entertainment. Because firing ultraviolet lasers at your face is a whole lot of fun!

When and Where Can You Buy the HTC Desire HD and Z Phones?

Interested in getting one of the new HTC phones? Read on for some launch details in Europe and the US.

Vodafone was first with support of the phones, announcing at the event that they would sell both the Desire HD and Desire Z from mid-October, in Europe. While they haven't announced tariffs, it's expected to be the usual free up-front phone, on monthly plans starting at around £30 (in the UK at least).

TechRadar has reported that they've heard the Desire HD will be available on all of the UK networks except for O2, though that could change. T-Mobile has confirmed that they'll be selling the Desire HD from £40 a month—pricey, but then knowing from experience T-Mobile is generally pretty good at bargaining with.

Despite initial thoughts that these phones would be non-US launches, we heard from HTC US, who confirmed the Desire HD will be "shipping in North America later this year." No word on the Desire Z, but then it's far too similar to the G2 to warrant a launch there.

Back to the UK, and both phones will of course be sold through The Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U, plus Amazon, Play.com and various other online retailers. Amazon UK has confirmed it will cost £499 from October 18th, whereas Play.com has undercut them by £30, offering it for £470—with an earlier release date too, of October 11th.

The Desire Z is listed on Play.com for £430, with the same release date expected, and unfortunately Amazon hasn't improved its pricing for their offering of the Desire Z, which will cost £499 from the 18th.

We've waiting to hear back from all the UK networks about pricing, but if anyone spots any more deals, do get in touch.
Clove.co.uk is going to sell the Desire HD for £493.50 and the Desire Z for £434.75.

Handtec.co.uk will offer the Desire HD for £489.96 and the Desire Z for £433.56. While the exact release date isn't mentioned, they do say that stock is expecting "week commencing 4th October."

Expansys.com will have them in-store (online) for the 11th of October, with the Desire HD and Desire Z being £500 and £450 each.

Beam Your Laptop to Your TV With Veebeam

Veebeam does not do anything new. There are a variety of ways to get content from your computer to your TV. But the Veebeam does it easily. Web? Games? Movies? Hulu? With a Wireless USB dongle and receiver, you're set.

By plugging the $99 Veebeam's antenna into your computer's USB port, whatever is on your screen is shot over to your TV via composite or HDMI-connected receiver. Simply as that. No cords and no software. The cleverness here is that you don't need to worry about the permission of content providers to watch whatever online content you want on your TV. Hulu? Bring it on. ABC streaming episodes? Sure. If you can play it on your laptop or view it in your browser, it's all gravy.

Wireless USB, which powers the Veebeam, uses Ultra-WideBand technology, which, for our purposes, means those scenes from Mad Men get streamed smoothly (and in HD, if you're willing to pay an extra $40). If you don't feel like waiting around for AirPlay (or don't have any Apple devices to use it with), this might simplify your couch vegetation habits.

To Hold HTC's Desire Z Is To Love It

I've personally been waiting so long for the Desire Z, I felt like my mind would explode once I held it. Luckily I'm still alive to tell the tale of how beautiful the phone is to hold.

It's the thinness which does it for me. With its new "Z hinge" slide-out process, HTC has managed to keep the waistline down on the Desire Z, with the shaped corners helping make it appear even thinner than it is—much like the MacBook Air does.

But beauty isn't everything, as you will have noticed. Running the newly-improved HTC Sense on top of Android, the whole experience is as fast as you've come to expect from HTC's Android phones, and the responsiveness of the touchscreen is high.

A Chandelier Fit For a Mad Scientist's Lair

No, that's not a sentinel hanging from this family's ceiling. It's one hundred petri dishes attached to 15,000 feet of fiber optics, perhaps pausing for a moment before reaching down to strike at those dining below?

Bacterioptica, as the chandelier is named, is designed to be a growing, changing household organism. By interchanging different sized petri dishes, adjusting the lighting intensity, and altering stem and arm lengths, the chandelier can be reconfigured infinitely many ways. If you look closely, you can see how it would make a kick-ass Alien. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

Dell's Inspiron Duo Is a 10" Netbook/Tablet Transformer

What, pray tell, is this? It's Dell's new Inspiron Duo, a 10" tablet that opens up and twirls its screen to transform itself into a netbook. Craziest of all? They're saying it'll be available before the end of the year.

Dell showed off the crazy little guy, which runs Windows 7 Premium and packs a dual-core Atom N550 processor, at the second day keynote of Intel's IDF conference. There's no word if they've made any concessions to make its version of Windows 7 more tablet friendly, but this Inspiron gets kudos for audacity alone.

Is Steve Jobs a Closet Ninja?

This is probably just unfounded gossip, but Bloomberg is reporting on a story about Steve Jobs getting stopped at the Kansai International Airport last July, after security found ninja stars in his carry-on luggage. And boy he got pissed-off.

This is where I tell you that he took out his Hattori Hanzō sword and killed everyone in the airport lobby, running away with the shurikens in his Quinjet. But according to Bloomberg's translation of Japanese SPA! magazine, this is what happened:

Jobs said it wouldn't make sense for a person to try to hijack his own plane, according to the report. He then told officials he would never visit Japan again, the magazine reported.

Bloomberg claims that a Kansai Airport's spokesman confirmed the episode... but he wouldn't reveal the name of the passenger involved in the incident. The spokesman said the private jet passenger trashed the shuriken at the security point, but declined to disclose his name because of the airport's privacy policy. Bloomberg also says that the airport doesn't have a separate boarding for private jet passengers, which explains why this unidentified man had to pass through the usual security point.

Apple declined to comment, which could mean two things: This rumor is so ridiculous that it doesn't need commentary or this rumor is so ridiculous that it doesn't need commentary. Or a third: It may be true. I want to believe it is. If any of you have any photos of Steve trashing his ninja stars at the security point, send them to me.

In any case, if any of us appear dead with a sai up our most tender parts, another rumor would be confirmed: Steve has been watching too many Teenage Mutant Turtles episodes on his Apple TV.

The Facebook Movie is "One of the Must-See Films of the Year"

An early preview of The Social Network has had reviewers foaming at the mouth, with /Film's Peter Sciretta declaring it as his "favorite movie of the year (so far)." Yes, this is the film about Zuckerberg creating Facebook.

While it wasn't the final cut, the movie was screened for a few select publications, and casting a quick eye over their initial thoughts, this could very well turn out to be an award-winner. 

Sciretta wrote that "after returning home from the screening, I was tempted to read the screenplay - that's how good it is."

The Sydney Morning Herald was equally complimentary. "This is an astounding film about one of the most important seismic shifts in communication in the modern age, and the way innovation and ethics are not often related."

Acknowledging that the content could scare people off with visions of coding and typeface arguments, Cinematical said in their preview that "with The Social Network, director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin turn some fairly dry, nerdy content about fairly dry, nerdy characters into one of the must-see films of the year, and they don't waste any time getting right to it."