A Lego Segway Is as Ridiculously Wonderful as You'd Expect

Lego whisperer Simon Burfield has a knack for taking the plastic building toy well past the limits of what it was intended for. His specialty is building rideable creations including a full-sized wheelchair, and now a rather brilliant Segway clone.


It can easily support his weight, and even turns with a pivoting handle. The current version doesn't self-balance—yet—but that's totally within his grasp since the 'Legway' already has four Mindstorm NXT control modules on board. And Burfield claims he's already started construction on a larger version that promises to be even more amazing. Can you imagine the size of the box these sets would come in? The building instructions would be as thick as a phone book.

A Simple Design Tweak Makes Sleeping Bags Less Like Straitjackets

A tapering mummy-style sleeping bag is easier to travel with since they can be compressed extremely compact. But if you suffer from even a smidgen of claustrophobia, spending a night in one can be like sleeping in a straitjacket. To make them more comfortable and compatible with those of us who toss and turn, Nemo has created a spoon-shaped sleeping bag which provides extra space where it's needed, without sacrificing portability.

The $230 Rhythm 40 bulges at the knees and elbows to allow the occupant to easily roll over during the night, or strike a more comfortable sleeping pose that doesn't have them just lying on their back. The sleeping bag's also waterproof, for unanticipated leaks and floods in the night, and has a pocket in the hood for stashing a pillow. Suddenly, camping seems a bit less like roughing it. More here.

Intel's Prototype Thunderbolt Flash Drive Is the World's Fastest

You can officially stop bragging about how fast your fancy new USB 3.0 flash drive is. At the Computex show in Taipei Intel was showing off this hacked together prototype of adedicated Thunderbolt 128GB flash drive boasting data transfer speeds of 10 Gbit/s, or about twice as fast as USB 3.0's max. And now that Thunderbolt 2 has been introduced, waiting around for large files to copy to your flash drive could be a thing of the past.

Of course Intel had no word on when consumers could get their hands on the Thunderbolt flash drive, if ever. But there was plenty of interest in it, and as the protocol becomes more popular, it's safe to assume at some point these will move past the prototype stage—hopefully with that adorably compact form factor still intact. More here.

Sonar Could Let Your Body Talk to Machines Better

Sonar. Subs use it. Dolphins use it. And someday your own body might use it to detect and treat what ails you. Echolocation unlocking the quantified self.

Given that the human body is mostly water—about 60 percent—researchers at the University of Buffalo are currently developing miniaturized sensors that use ultrasounds to communicate with other embedded devices, like pacemakers, in the body to figure out what's going on under all that flesh.

What's different about this type of "body area network" is that it isn't relying on a series of sensors that use electromagnetic radio frequency waves but instead uses ultrasound, which Tommaso Melodia, PhD, UB associate professor of electrical engineering, says is far more efficient given the body's mostly liquid composition. Radio waves, you see, have a hard time penetrating through the human body, much less water. A cluster of devices sending radio waves back and forth to each other also generates a significant amount of heat, which isn't really something you want happening inside your body. Melodia's theory has garnered a five year, $449,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to further investigate this idea.

So, for example, if you're a diabetic and have embedded insulin pumps that are connected to a blood glucose monitor, the two could communicate via ultrasound to regulate insulin levels in real time.

We're obviously still years away from Melodia's ultrasound network becoming a reality but it's this type of wearable technology that will one day make the quantified self a reality. the NSF grant will allow Melodia and his team to begin modeling and experiment with an array of ultrasonic, wireless body sensors. More here.

Can We Invent Technology to Record Our Dreams?

Do you remember the dream you had last night? Last week? Last month? Probably not. Our sleepy imagination just vanishes without a trace. But... what if we could record our dreams? Like invent some sort of dream DVR. Then we would never forget.

AsapSCIENCE delves into the mysterious world of dreaming to answer the question of whether or not we can invent technology and software to translate our dreaming brain into actual recordings. It's sort of mind blowing how close we already are.

Watch Every Single Version of Windows Ever in One Exhaustive Video

A very patient soul spent hours and hours of his life installing each version of Windows from 1.0 to 8.0 Pro, then sped up the footage. The result? The entire history of the operating system condensed into just over an hour. Bonus points: Daft Punk's Random Access Memories as the soundtrack.

It's fun to see how antiquated Windows 1.0 looks against Windows 8's clean, Metro design, and the hour-long ride gives you a nice, big picture look at how far Windows has come (with a quick break for Doom and Reversi). More here.

The World's Thinnest 1TB Hard Drive Is Just 7mm Thick

If you're in the market for slimline storage, Western Digital has just the hard drive for you: it's latest offering, WD Blue, crams 1TB into a case that's just 7mm thick.

Small enough, in fact, to make it the world's thinnest 1TB hard drive right now. The small frame doesn't mean it skimps on features, though: it has motor shafts at each end to reduce vibration and improve tracking, secure parking to keep the heads away from the plates during shocks, and both electromagnetic and piezo actuators for more precise movement.

For $140 with a two year warranty, it seems like a pretty sweet deal—and should help all those exciting new Haswell ultrabooks stay as slim and slinky as possible. It's available as of today, for both OEMs and consumer alike. More here.

Vine for Android Is Finally Here

Vine, the very popular way to splice together six-second video vignettes, is now available for Android. Here's the Google Play link, which is live for your video-sharing enjoyment right now—after some initial delays, it looks like the download link is finally operational.

Twitter purchased Vine when it was still just a nothing startup late last year, and launched . Despite some early controversy, and questions about how fun/useful Vine actually is, the service has really blossomed over the last half-year into something both fun and useful, dragging millions upon millions of regular users into it's whirlpool of erratic filmstrips. (Vine claims it's got some 13 million users in tow.)

A Lamp Made of 200 Traffic Cones Is the World's Craziest Hazard Light

The minds behind "Planet: Under Construction" (PUC), on the other hand, put some 200 cones to a use that's awesome.

Made from a big, spherical metal frame work with a high-powered lamp in the middle and the 200 cones bungie corded on around the outside, PUC was created by the international architecture firm Woods Bagot for Vivid Sydney. It'll mark the entrance point to the festival at large until June 10th, suspended in the air by cables like some construction-working sun. Beats a shirtless dude waving an orange flag any day. More here.

Electrified Wolverine Claws Are Fabulously Ill-Advised

I think it's safe to say that we all want Wolverine claws. Sure, working out some of the logistics would be tough at first, but come on. You would feel invincible! And you could open plastic packaging really easily. To this end, Master James made a set of great looking claws at a machine shop. But they weren't awesome enough. So he electrified them.

Inspired by "Thor's Hammer," a Hack A Day project, James hooked his claws to the transformer from a salvaged oil furnace and let the sparks fly. He notes that he has no sense of how high the voltage is, which just makes the whole thing stupid amazing. Safety and the internet have never really mixed and this makes it all worth it. More here.

Unique Photo Shows the Ridiculous Size of America's First Spaceships

One of the things that always shocks me when I go to the Kennedy Space Center is the tiny size of the Mercury (left) and Gemini (right) capsules—the missions that jumpstarted the American space exploration program. This unique photo clearly shows how ridiculous these tin cans are.

It also shows how big the astronauts' gonads were. Look at them! These guys were actually strapping themselves to oversized photo booths attached to metal cylinders full of a few tons of explosive fuel. Even Gemini—designed to carry two humans and rendezvous in orbit—looks stupidly small. More here.

How Big Would an iPhone Be If You Combined All the iPhones Ever Sold

Very, very big. Like way bigger than the new World Trade Center big. Like almost double the world's tallest tower big. If you combined all the iPhones ever sold into a single gigantic monolith of a phone, it'd be 5,059 feet tall and 2,846 feet across. Ridiculous!

In Animal's very silly series Stupid Calculations, Josh Orter figured out the size of a ginormous iPhone by doing simple math with a lot of numbers. It's delicious arithmetic, to be honest. Here's a tasty sampling:

305,160,600 older models x 5.65 square inches=1,724,157,390² inches
51,131,400 iPhone 5’s x 6.83 square inches= 349,227,462² inches
TOTAL 2,073,384,852 square inches (14,398,506 sq ft or 330.54 acres or 0.516 square miles)

That was the calculations to figure out the area of the beastphone but to calculate the dimensions, he needed to jump through more hoops. Comparatively speaking, the giant iPhone would be wider than Central Park (2,846 feet vs 2,640 feet) and its surface area would dwarf the new World Trade Center (330.54 acres vs 23 acres).

Hell, if you wanted to pave a standard highway with all the iPhones ever sold, you could do so for 227 straight miles. Read the rest of the fascinatingly (but admittedly useless) report  here.

Radiation Makes a Manned Trip to Mars Impossible with Current Tech

Though Curiosity the rover can explore and see Mars up close, curious men and women of Earth will have to wait a bit longer. NASA reports that a manned trip to Mars is likely impossible with current technology because of radiation.

Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) was able to measure the radiation of Mars from inside the spacecraft and found data that makes NASA reconsider the effectiveness of current radiation shielding. Specifically:

The findings, which are published in the May 31 edition of the journal Science, indicate radiation exposure for human explorers could exceed NASA's career limit for astronauts if current propulsion systems are used.

Two forms of radiation pose potential health risks to astronauts in deep space. One is galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), particles caused by supernova explosions and other high-energy events outside the solar system. The other is solar energetic particles (SEPs) associated with solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun.

Right now, spacecrafts do a better job at shielding against SEPs than they do GCRs. GCRs are highly energetic and penetrate the shielding on current spacecrafts. In order to protect astronauts from being exposed to radiation, NASA might have to invent better shielding. Or invent better something.

Exposure to radiation, which is measured in units of Sievert (Sv), increases the risk of cancer. We know that. Exposure to 1 Sv over time is associated with a five percent increase in risk of developing cancer. NASA's acceptable limit for its astronauts is a three percent increase in risk. Curiosity's RAD instruments measured an average of 1.8milliSv per day on its trip to Mars. The accumulated dose of the trip, according to Cary Zeitlin, lead paper in the findings and a principal scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, would be equivalent to "getting a whole-body CT scan once every five or six days". Yeah, that's too much.

But knowing this doesn't prevent a manned trip to Mars from ever happening. Knowing this helps protect the men and women who will take that manned trip to Mars. More here.

Loop Tea Strainer Reduces Dirty Dishes in Your House

Multifunctional tools can help in reducing the amount of dirty dishes in your house, checkout this Loop Tea Strainer. This tool allows you to have smart tea preparation, no spoon is required and this stick-shaped tea strainer can be used as a scoop. Open the sliding mesh lid and fill with tea leaves, close it, and place it in the hot water in your tea cup.

Nowadays, we’ve been trying to reduce dirty dishes in any way, from eating directly from the container to using paper plate. This product is a smart way to serve a cup of tea. More here.

Clever Mug Catches Coffee Drips Before They Become Stains

Harnessing the complex hydrodynamic properties of surface tension, this brilliantly re-engineered mug features a strategically engineered reservoir running around the circumference of the vessel's outer wall. Or, in other words, designer Kim Keun Ae added a groove that cleverly catches drips before they hit the table.

Cleaning the mug takes a little extra effort to get that groove sparkling, but otherwise it's a simple innovation that goes a long way to improving the coffee experience, particularly if you hate coasters. And while you can't buy one just yet, it won't be terribly difficult for someone to implement this simple improvement. More here.

Leaked Windows 8.1 Screenshot: Oh, Hello, Start Button

Over on the Windows SuperSite, Thurott has dumped a few, choice screenshots from the upcoming, free update to the operating system. And chief among them is that one featuring everybody's favorite Start Button. It should go without saying that this button launches you to the Metro Modern UI Start Screen, and not into some sort of Start Menu, but the button's back. Interestingly, there seems to be no way to turn it off either. Not that you'd really want to.

Along with the start button, Thurrott's reporting that 8.1 also comes with a Boot To Desktop option (disabled by default) and the ability to use the desktop wallpaper of your choice as the background on the Start Screen.

And, of course, while this seems like a pretty credible leak, it's still a leak. But it's seeming more than ever like the real deal. More here.

Heatsink Coasters Cool Hot Beverages While Protecting Your Furniture

If they're good enough to keep temperatures under control inside your electronics, it only makes sense that a simple aluminum heatsink would be just as effective at taming a piping hot cup of coffee. Not to mention providing plenty of tiny channels for condensation to collect instead of dripping onto your furniture and leaving unsightly rings.

These Fin Coasters feature a thin cork underlay further protecting the surface of your tables from scratches and excess heat. And since this is a highly engineered way to deal with hot beverages, it only makes sense that a set of two—available in silver or black finishes—will set you back $65. A tad bit pricey, but your furniture will thank you for splurging. More here.

Finally, A Wrinkle Reducer That Is Also The Embodiment Of Evil

Our superficial, beauty-obsessed culture is pretty scary. People starve themselves or have serious surgeries so they can look a certain way. But for better or worse (definitely worse) we're all pretty used to hearing about those beauty interventions. Which is why it's unusual to see a new wrinkle-reducer and immediately want to shit your pants or run away. Or both. But behold.

The Facewaver Exercise Mask uses stretching and tightening action for "kneading out wrinkles, lines and sag." The site recommends you use it for five minutes a day to get younger-looking skin. The problem is that during those five minutes you will send anyone you encounter into cardiac arrest as a result of their general shock and terror. Or you yourself will be killed because people will assume that you are a zombie. And frankly, if you choose to wear this they won't be totally wrong.

Some products from the Japan Trend Shop can be very soothing, but this just isn't one of them. It's scary enough to see someone wearing one of those green face masks before bed or even just using a Shake Weight. When will the madness end? More here.

Fight Bad Breath and Bathroom Clutter With This Toothbrush Cup

Counter clutter can be even worse in a bathroom which is typically a lot smaller than a kitchen. And if you find yourself constantly battling to find room to store things around the sink, you'll immediately see the genius behind this flippable cup that doubles as a way to rinse your mouth and a convenient spot to store a toothbrush.

Available in a small selection of decor-friendly colors, the $11 Flip Cup also features a contoured rim that allows air to get in when flipped upside-down so it dries quickly preventing germs and bacteria from finding a home. So say goodbye to halitosis and goodbye to awkwardly trying to rinse your mouth directly from the faucet. More here.

Listen To Music Through Your Cheekbones While You Swim Laps

It's hard to listen to music while you're swimming because even waterproof earbuds that actually stay on try to conduct sound through air to reach your eardrums, and there's not a lot of air underwater. The FINIS Neptune works on this issue by sending sound waves straight into your face. Total bombardment. In a good way.

The Neptune speakers rest on your cheek and make the bone vibrate so that the vibrations can be relayed to your cochlea, allowing you to hear music. The process is called "bone conduction," and is also used by some marine mammals. Since the music is going straight into your head, you don't have to deal with anything in your ears while you're trying to swim.

The Neptune is an updated version of FINIS's years-old SwiMP3, which had 128MB of memory and sold for $180. Now at 4GB, the Neptune costs $160. A quick PSA, though: Just because you feel the music in your bones, does not mean you should engage in any type of swim-singing or swim-dancing unless you are totally sure no one is watching. More here.