The Future of Cargo Transport Is a Slow UFO

The future of heavy cargo transportation looked positively eco-friendly and blimp-like earlier this summer, so it's really no surprise that Australia's Skylifter cargo blimp is making the Internet rounds this weekend.

Theoretically capable of lifting about 150 tons, this massive 500-ft prototype blimp features a flying saucer shape so that it can combat heavy winds and still deliver its cargo at a breakneck speeds (playful sarcasm) over distances of up to 1,200 miles.

Skylifter, which is also the name of the company that builds it, plans on having these airborne within the next three years.

3D Hologram App For iPhone 5

Chicken Nuggets Are Made From This Pink Goop

This is mechanically separated chicken. Chickens are turned into this goop so we can create delicious chicken nuggets and juicy chicken patties. It's obscenely gross and borderline alien but it's not going to stop me from eating nuggets. They're too good.

The process works a little something like this:


There's more: because it's crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial color.

Yeah, that's just disgusting. But I can't shake my roots.

The Verizon HTC Merge Is a World Phone With a Slider Keyboard

Android Central got their hands on a new Android phone: the HTC Merge, an 800 MHz Android 2.2 phone headed to Verizon. It's a World Phone that uses HTC Sense and has a sliding keyboard similar to the T-Mobile G2.

Truthfully, the Merge isn't anything out of the ordinary. Other than having a decent looking physical keyboard, the Merge's specs—3.7" screen, 800MHz processor, 5-megapixel camera, 720p video—seem to be in line with the average Android phone. On the software side, it's running HTC Sense and because it's on Verizon, it uses Bing for search. I'd be smitten with this device if I loved Sense and needed a physical keyboard, though.

It's sort of amazing how many Android devices Verizon has and continues to put out, you'd think they'd be overlapping each other by now. But unlike the other phones, the Merge can be geared towards world travelers since it comes with a rest of the Earth-friendly SIM card slot. As the Merge hasn't even been announced yet, there's no release date or price point set.

16 Year Old Internet Addict Beaten to Death in Chinese Boot Camp

After refusing a direct order, 16 year old Chen Shi was beaten to death at a boot camp for troubled youth in China. And it's not the first time this has happened to teenage internet addicts.

A day at a typical Chinese internet addiction boot camp begins with a 6:20am wake up call and morning exercises. The day continues with a strict regiment of military drills, lectures, martial arts training, and sessions with psychologists. Lights out is at 9:30 sharp. Some boot camps employ the use of electric shock treatment, while others, like the Beiteng School in Changsha that Shi unfortunately attended, enjoy beating their students with a plastic pipe, a wooden baton, and handcuffs. And parents pay thousands of dollars for this.

Internet addiction among Chinese youth is a bit of an epidemic—1 in 10 teenage internet users are estimated to suffer from the problem. US internet addiction rates run at 3-8% for the entire population (which, apparently, is mostly comprised of our Giz readership).

Shi's mother had initially been informed that he was in critical condition after "possibly" suffering from a sunstroke. He had been enrolled in the program due to his fear of hardship, weak willpower, and lack of self-confidence. It seems that a change in attitude, an increase in parent-child interaction, and some harsh regulations are in order to prevent more such deaths from occurring in the future.

Sh*t Talkin

AT&T Selling Windows Phone 7 Devices Nov. 8th?

The WSJ reports that you'll be able to get your hands on a Windows Phone 7 device in the US the week of November 8th. That's a month after WP7's official unveiling, and weeks after the rumored European launch.

As for hardware, AT&T will feature offerings from Samsung, LG, and HTC from day one.

Those of you on Verizon and Sprint wondering when your WP7 devices are rolling through are going to have to sit tight; Microsoft's not pursuing a CDMA version of the phone until next year. And those of you on AT&T wondering why—apparently—Europe gets first digs? Well, chalk that up to life's unremitting unfairness, I guess.

Facebook's Rolling Out High-Resolution Photo Sharing

As big fans of photo-sharing site Flickr, one of the most frustrating things about the popularity of photo sharing on social-networking site Facebook has always been the relatively terrible quality of Facebook's highly compressed photos. Starting today, that's changing.

Over the next few weeks, Facebook will be rolling out support for high-res pictures for free to every user:

We're increasing the size of the photos stored from 720 pixels to 2048 pixels on the largest edge, for an 8 times increase overall. I'm really excited to be launching this feature. To see the quality of these pictures, you can view National Geographic's "Top-Rated Your Shot Photos (September)" album or Sports Illustrated's "Football Across America" album. Download high-resolution photos by clicking the "Download" link.

They're also updating their photo viewer with a new lightbox interface (think Flickr's new galleries—dark background with the image popping out in the forefront). Chances are you're not seeing any of the updates in your account yet, but the rollout starts today, so if you aren't, you can expect it in the near future.

A Gift For The Sexy Geek In All Of Us

Play chess, or masturbate? We love both activities so much, sometimes we just can't choose. Thankfully, with Kiki de Montparnasse's vibrator chess set, we can have both at the same time...we just have to find $7k to buy it.

This May Very Well Be the First New Earth

You are looking at what could be the fourth planet on the Gliese 581 star system, 20.3 light years from Earth. If the NASA artist rendition looks very much like our Earth... it's because it is similar to Earth.

Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star. A starship traveling at near the speed of light would only take 20.3 years to get there, which is not that much. Until now, astronomers had discovered five planets around this star. Some of them were too close to it, making them too hot to be habitable. Others were too far and too cold. But now, a sixth planet has been discovered right on the "habitable zone", the fourth in distance from the star: Gliese 581g.

If the discoveries from the planet hunters at University of California Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington are right, Gliese 581g could be habitable.

Now, before you jump into the Enterprise and go there camping, roast some marshmallows, and get back leaving a lot of beer bottles and crap behind, being potentially habitable doesn't mean that we can just go there and thrive. It doesn't even mean that this planet is full of little green men or buxom big blue women. It just means that this is a planet that could sustain life, with liquid water and an atmosphere.

Gliese 581g has three to four times the mass of Earth, orbiting the star at an zippy 37 days. According to data gathered by the Keck I Telescope HIRES spectrometer, it's a rocky planet with a "solid surface and enough gravity to hold to an atmosphere."

More importantly, according to Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, not only their "findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet" but "the fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common."

In other words, the chances of the Universe being bubbling with life of all kinds and forms just jumped beyond our most optimistic hopes.

OMG U R NOT SERIOUS: Justin Bieber Gets His Own Headphone Line

Dr. Dre, what hath ye done? As if 3% of Twitter's racks weren't enough, tween demigod Justin Bieber can now lay claim to his own headphone line—part of the Beats by Dre series of audio gear. Totes adorbs!

The JustBeats series (geeee-eeet it?) is available in earbud or cans form—but only in purple, Justin's fave color! The press release for the phones, clearly written by someone with a strong sense of irony, laments that young music fans have "never been exposed to high-quality sound." Yes, and Justin Bieber will be the solution to this social ill. We only hope they fit snugly enough for Segway getaways.

What Facebook and Skype Integration Would Mean For You

Facebook and Skype integration! That's the rumor. But beyond the intermingling of two major tech companies, the important question is: how's this going to affect you?

Video Chat With Facebook Friends From Skype

Just to be clear: this wouldn't mean that you'd be able to Skype video chat through Facebook. Not yet, anyway. Instead, when this supposedly goes live in a few weeks with Skype 5.0, you'd be able to connect with your Facebook friends list through Skype. Still pretty handy! And in-browser video chat is apparently seen as a "logical progression" to the partnership, meaning it could well happen down the line.

And Text Them, Too!

According to the WSJ, the deal would also include SMS, which definitely wouldn't get annoying after a while.

Facebook Phone's Own FaceTime?

Facebook denies that they've got a phone in the works—much less two—but that's a product that would definitely benefit from deep Skype integration. Skype's currently only available on Verizon phone.

A Google Voice Alternative

Specifically, an alternative to making calls in Gmail. That's not to say that a Facebook/Skype VoIP solution would be better, necessarily. But if you for some reason want to break free of big G, or don't have a Google account to begin with, you'd have a viable alternative. Choice is good!

You'll Actually Use Skype

As wonderful as Skype is, less than a quarter of its 560 million members are active. When they add what's arguably your most comprehensive Rolodex—your list of Facebook friends—you might be tempted to actually use other parts of the service once in a while. And eventually maybe even cut that cellphone voice plan loose.

Insulate Your Brain and Body in This Sealed Off Mini-Room

If you're unfortunate enough to live in a region cursed with bitter winters (I know I am!), you know the pain of keeping your pad heated. One solution? Build an insulated room within a room to stay focused and toasty.

German architectural firm Davidson Rafailidis created this prototype, constructed out of plastic and wood, that hooks up directly to a window for both light and warmth. Probably not a great space for the claustrophobes out there, but might make for an excellent place to get some work done without having to put on a sweater. Or hide some bodies. Y'know, whatever's your thing.

Rent the Balancing Barn at Your Own Peril

Architects took on gravity and won, and now daredevils can pay almost $300 a night to stay in the "balancing barn," where 50 per cent of the building dangles precariously off a slope.

Thankfully it doesn't appear that a swing was built-in under the barn as the concept pictures suggested last year. Everything else about the Suffolk, England-located barn however matches up perfectly—albeit, scarily. The website describes the house as being "clad in elegant silver tiles," however I'd watch out on a sunny day if I were you—they look capable of reflecting some mean sunlight.

Construction has just been completed, and already the website is taking online bookings from next month. Stays of four nights cost £725 ($1,150), which works out to a little below $300 a night for the eight person-sleeper. I'd suggest packing a first aid kit just in case.

Fanboys, Time to Get Your Very Own 8-Bit Steve Jobs Bust

Come on. You know you want it. I dare you. It's only a fraction of the price of your spankylala Macbook Pro. And unlike your iPhone 4, you can hold it and caress it in any way you want.

Not only is it Jobs' bella figura, but it will be digitally created for you, on demand, using Shapeways' 3D manufacturing machines. I tell you, $128 for spending the rest of your life watched by his Steveness? That's nothing.

Video Box Battle Royale: Who Should Be Your TV's New Best Friend?

With new offerings from Roku and Apple, and the grand impending entrance of Google TV, the crowd of little plastic boxes that all want to stream your video is getting packed. And confusing. But we're here to help you compare.

While you know an MP3 player will play MP3s, and a DVD player will do its thing, the new breed of boxes don't wear their functionality on their sleeve. Set-top boxes, media boxes—we know they're boxes, yes, but what's inside? What are these boxes going to do for you? Some want to make renting movies a cinch, some want to help you stream the movies you already have—and some seem like they want to try to do it all. So take a look below, and see what matters most to you.

It might feel like comparing apples to oranges to turkey legs, but every device listed on the plate wants to help replace your TV.

Magnets Could Turn You From a Rightie to a Leftie

I don't know why you'd want to be a leftie, but at least we know the choice is out there if now. The magic causing the change of dexterity is called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and is specifically intended for right-handers.

When magnets are applied to a specific part of the brain (the posterior parietal cortex region, which is involved with planning physical movements), researchers at the University of California Berkeley found that their 33 right-handed guinea pig volunteers started favoring their left hands for smaller tasks instead.

While people weren't beginning to write with their left hands, they did find that they started picking stuff up with their other hand, or pressing an elevator button.

The potential here is obviously vast, and I'm not just talking about which hand we use. Imagine if magnets could make us favor healthy food over fattier food? Earlier mornings instead of long lie-ins? I can almost see horror movies being planned using unauthorized TMS technology, that's how big this could get.

Still, it's only early days for the team in California, but I doubt I'm the only one who's on the edge of their seats over this one.

Ultimate Tablet Showdown: iPad vs. PlayBook vs. Galaxy Tab vs. Slate

The iPad's finally got some competition; in the past few weeks, the HP Slate made a brief appearance, the Samsung Galaxy Tab debuted, and just BlackBerry unveiled its business-minded PlayBook today. Here's how they all measure up:

It should be noted that there are still some things we don't know about the PlayBook, and the HP Slate specs are taken from a leaked internal document that hasn't yet been officially confirmed.

Still, the battlefield's a lot more clearly defined than it was when we first compared tablets—both real and rumored—back in January. And as its rivals catch up, the iPad's looking increasingly outgunned.

That's just on the hardware side, though. Apple's still got three major advantages that opponents haven't made up much space on: iOS, the App Store, and a huge head start. It's going to take more than a pair of HD cameras to overcome that.

Deceptively Packed Dalcans Lollypop Cabinet Boasts Hidden AV Goodies

The simple lines of the Dalcans high-end "Lollypop" unit hide a host of features one would not readily associate with an AV cabinet. For instance, it smells.

Yes, smells. As in fragrance. Inside the cabinet, you see, are four diffuser capsules. If you're wondering why such soothing scents would need to be emanating from your television set, you obviously did not see Steve Buscemi's sex scene in last week's Boardwalk Empire pilot on HBO.

With a starting price of $38,629 it's certainly not Glade scented candles we're talking about, of course, but in any event here's a laundry list of the other items Dalcans has crammed into their minimalist cabinet (in case you're looking):


42" HD LED TV with mirror screen
Crestron amplifier
iPod dock
Odyssée acoustic speakers (2×200W)
Four HDMI ports
mini jack stereo + VGA
USB
network connectivity (Ethernet and wifi)

The price above is for the basic "classic" version, if one could seriously consider the price of a low-level luxury car "basic." An "automated" version sells for $51,117 and may very well control space and time for all the explanation they give about what the hell "automated" means.

Segway Company Owner Dies After Driving Segway Off Cliff

Just like the countless innovators, explorers and fine people killed in a Frankensteinian way by their own inventions, the current owner of Segway—not Dean Kamen—died yesterday after he rode off a cliff and into a river in England.

Jimi Heselden, aged 62, was found at 11.40am yesterday by the River Wharfe in North Yorkshire, with his X2 Adventure (pictured) by his side. Police believe that it was just a freak accident, with nothing suspicious about the man worth $262m falling to his death.

It's particularly poignant as his company had only just purchased the Segway company in December 2009. He sounded like a really nice guy according to reports, a chap who left school at 15 to work in the mines, but was fortunate enough to develop some interesting-sounding defense systems which made him millions.

He was one of those rare philanthropists who had given away millions to charity but didn't like to talk about it—at least £23m ($36m) in the last few years alone, it's thought.