Shimano Showcases the Ultegra Di2 Electronic Bike Gears

How much would you spend for an upgrade to smooth shifting on your next road bike? If $8,000 is in the ballpark, then Shimano-powered electronic shifters may be in your future. Outfitted with the company's newest Ultegra 6770 Di2 series of gears, the shifters give a taste of technology normally reserved for Tour de Francers -- at new, more affordable pricing. So what was it like to be the envy of cyclists everywhere?

Many aspiring Lance Armstrongs will tell you that the future of bike technology is all about electronic gear-shifting. Unlike the traditional lever shifter, the electronic variety uses a motorized derailleur to move the chain from cog to cog. Thought by many to be faster, smarter and easier to use than a regular shifter, the electronic version only requires the click of a mouse-like button. The handlebar controls move both the front and the rear gears, giving the rider enhanced control over the ride with minimal effort. The shifter is powered by a removable lithium ion battery, which requires a 90-minute charge every 1,250 miles or so.

Even an amateur bike rider will be able to feel the difference between Shimano electronic gears and those on a standard road bike. The super sensitive shifter only requires a light press to move the chain in the front or rear derailleur and find the perfect gear. There's no sticking or bumpy shifting, making the action smooth and effortless -- getting the shift right every time. Of course, moving between gears may not be that big of a deal for those of us used to a Huffy, but when it comes to winning triathlons and road races, a smooth shifter is one of the key components to copping a gold medal to compliment your Lycra bodysuit. Expect to see Shimano's new line of electronic gears in various bikes in the coming months.

 

 

Impossible to Destroy Hardshell Backpack

This super slick hard shell backpack, called Solid Gray and made in the Netherlands, is cut and shaped from a single sheet of polypropene block copolymer. It's supposedly so strong that even if you bend it a million times it will never break or tear.

The material made to create the Solid Gray backpack was previously only used for industrial purposes but is now finally being used in a consumer product for the first time. The Solid Gray backpack has a special strap to hold a laptop in place (15.6" and under) and is water resistant. Get it here.

Sunken Pedestrian Bridge Parts The Waters Without a Miracle

Designed for tourists visiting a fort in the Netherlands, instead of being a means for the ancient Israelites to escape the Egyptians, this Moses Bridge sits below the water line of a moat so it visually disappears. Recreating what the fort and surrounding area would have looked like back in the 17th century,

Originally built in the early 1700s to protect the Netherlands from invasion by France and Spain, Fort de Roovere was surrounded by a shallow, muddy moat that prevented armies from crossing it, even with boats. But now that those threats are mostly gone, the fort is opened to tourists. And since an elevated bridge would have taken away from the aesthetics of the fort's design, this sunken bridge was designed instead.

It's made from sustainable Accoya wood treated with a non-toxic waterproof coating that protects it from decay, and since the moat is too shallow for boat traffic, there's little risk of waves splashing up over the side. But, it also finally provides both France and Spain with an easy way to cross the moat, so I'm hoping that the Netherlands hasn't let their guard down too early.

 

 

Apple iPhone 4S now Available for $99 in Puerto Rico

Sure, you can now purchase an unlocked iPhone 4S within the US officially, but folks in the outlying territory of Puerto Rico have some tempting options if they'll go the long-term contractual route. The region's division of carrier, Claro, is now selling the Siri-packed device starting at the low, low price of $99 for the 16GB model on-contract -- those scared of commitment can also snag it unlocked, albeit for a slightly pricey $670 (which as 9to5Mac points out, is up $20 from Apple). 

The carrier also lists the 32 and 64GB variants as "expected soon," marked to sell at $199 / $299 with a two-year commitment and $770 / $870 unlocked. Notably, you'll have a choice of four monthly plans featuring unlimited talk and text ranging from about 65 to 85 bucks, with data allotments starting at 250MB and peaking at "unlimited." Apparently, Claro isn't offering the 4S for purchase online, but it does list a number of retail locations you can grab one from if you're interested. More here.

 

 

These Keychain Multi-Tools Prove That Nothing Is Cooler Than Milled Titanium

I couldn't tell you why, but CNC-milled titanium seems to invoke the same testosterone pumping response as watching a grizzly bear fight a bald eagle. 

At first glance I'm not quite sure what to make of these supposed 'multi-tools.' Despite having edges designed for prying and a nonadjustable wrench on the Barbar, neither of them have any dedicated screwdrivers, pliers or even a blade. So they don't appear to be particularly useful as actual tools. But at the same time, they're friggin' beautiful! It's as if someone gave Picasso a CNC machine, a chunk of titanium, and told him to make a keychain. Plus, there's a bottle opener, and let's be honest, that's the only tool you really need. Get them here.

 

 

Genius Vented Candleholder Provides Easy Access For a Lit Match

Since your fancy gooseneck lighter always seems to be out of fuel, you might want to pick up a set of these vented tea light holderswhich are a stroke of genius. They feature a slit down the side that lets you easily light a candle with even the shortest of matches, reducing those burns that have become a holiday tradition for me.

Created by Form Us With Love, the Match Candleholders are fortunately actually available from Design Within Reach in green, blue, purple, and grey. But unfortunately, a set of four will set you back a whopping $75. So with an ever growing credit card bill around Christmas time, I think I'm going to stick with bandaged fingertips and an extra $75 in my pocket this year. Get them here.

 

 

HTC Rezound Starts Shipping Early Because you can't Stop the Beats

When HTC took the wraps off the Rezound, it tipped us all off to a November 14th launch for Verizon'sBeats Audio-branded device. Now, it appears that those of you who jumped on the pre-order bandwagon are getting premature access to the red-and-black-tinged goods, with some units arriving as early as today. 

How'd this come about? Well, it seems a few eager beavers lucked out during the purchasing process, selecting overnight delivery and receiving the phones toute de suite. I have a feeling Dr. Dre would approve.

Why Do Crocodiles Eyes Shine So Beautifully at Night?

Those little bright lights belong toyacarés—caiman latirostris. They are broad-snouted caimans, crocodilian reptiles typical of eastern and central South America. Why do their eyes shine in such a pretty way?

It's the crystals inside their retina, inside a layer called tapetum. This tissue reflects light in such a way that makes these yacarés and the rest of the crocodiles have night vision. Oh, little crocodiles, you are so pretty!

These were photographed by Daniel Fox at the Yacaré Pora farm in Ituzaingo, Argentina. He probably thought they were too pretty to ignore. Lewis Carroll agrees:

How doth the little crocodile
Improve upon his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

Next time you are in the zoo, don't forget to put your hand between the bars of the crocodile cage and give them whatever food you have. They like it all and they are such gentle, grateful beasts!

It’s 11:11 11-11-11! You Know What That Means

In binary, 1111 11 11 11 means "The world is ending right now and I'm still in bed wearing my Wolverine underpants." Good bye my friends.

Apparently nothing happened. Maybe it will mean that tonight at 11:11pm. STAY TUNED.

Adobe Releases final Flash Player Version for Android, BlackBerry PlayBook, Promises Future Updates

When Adobe announced the death of Flash Player on mobile devices earlier this week, it did so while promising to issue a final version for Android devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook. Now, that promise has come to fruition, with the release of version 11.1. Like pretty much every Adobe update, this latest refresh promises to patch up a host of security flaws -- 12 "critical" ones, to be exact. More intriguing, however, are Adobe's plans for future security support. 

In a blog post published Wednesday, company exec Danny Winokur confirmed that Adobe will "continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations." This sentiment was echoed in a Twitter post yesterday from Brad Arkin, senior director of product security and privacy: "Adobe will continue to ship security updates for Flash Player mobile after the final feature release." But neither Winokur nor Arkin have specified how long this patch distribution will continue, and the company has yet to offer any sort of timeline for future tablet and smartphone updates. For more information on the latest release, check out the source link below, or hit up the coverage link to grab the Android version for yourself.

 

 

Pork Molded into a Piglet Is Disgusting and/or Awesome

I love pork. I like pigs. They're cute, and fun to eat, and intelligent among mud-dwelling beasts. But what I don't like is for my dinner to artificially resemble the killed animal from which it was derived. This is gross.

Or is it amazing? The shrink wrapped pseudo-pig, a pork roast molded into the vague form of its prior self, is certainly a feat of food engineering. I'd expect nothing less from Costco, the Ikea of edibles. But will pork taste more like pork when it's compressed into animal form? Chicken nuggets are absolutely better in dinosaur shape, but there you have a sort of perverse species incongruence. Would the pork roast be delicious and aesthetically acceptable if it were molded into the shape of, say, a cat, whale, or amoeba? Does anyone out there have a hydraulic press and an ample supply of raw meat?

 

 

Stanford Is Building the World’s Biggest Digital Camera

So just how much can a digital camera the size of a Hyundai see? Hopefully, if you're the Stanford team building it, enough to answer some fundamental questions about our galaxy.

It will be the world's largest digital camera by a good margin, built by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope—a large aperture survey telescope designed to find and photograph faint astronomical objects from its perch high atop a Chilean mountain. Specifically, the LSST will investigate astronomical phenomena including dark energy, dark matter, and near-Earth asteroids, as well as inventory the solar system and explore the transient optical sky.

The features and specs of the new LSST surpass any current telescope, either land-based or orbital. Its 8.4-meter-diameter mirror will be able to scan large swaths of the night sky while generating 3D maps via 800 15-second exposures every session—nearly 50 times as much area as the moon takes up in the sky. The LSST's 3.2-gigapixel camera will consist of 189 CCD ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light-sensitive sensors, cost roughly $170 million, and have enough resolution to spot your car's headlights at a distance of 400 miles.

 

 

Apple Says Siri Never Coming to Older Phones

If you've been looking forward to a non-jailbroken build of sassy Siri to land on your old iPhone, abandon hope. Apple officially has no plans to take Siri beyond the 4S, says Michael Steeber. It's Apple bullshit, but totally expected.

After one Cult of Mac reader pestered Apple tech support over a paid Siri upgrade for non-4S iPhones, he says he received this in response, which he forwarded to CoM's Steeber:

Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue:
Siri only works on iPhone 4S and we currently have no plans to support older devices.

Which, as noted, is bullshit—we've seen proof that Siri can run just fine on older hardware. Apple's 4S restriction is an arbitrary roadblock. But should we expect anything else? Siri is the big 4S hype factor, and without that, Apple would have a hard(er) job convincing anyone the upgrade is worth it. Without any physical difference between the 4 and 4S, being able to bring up Siri at a party and ask her to count your farts is the 4S owner's only way of standing out. Apple's not going to give that up.

Tango Video Calling app Prances its Way into Windows Phone Marketplace

The video calling service finally hit the Marketplace today, more than a year after launching on iOS and Android, and barely a month after expanding to PCs. Compatible with Windows Phone 7.5 or higher, Tango for Mango allows users to make free phone and video calls over 3G, 4G and WiFi connections, including free international calls to fellow Tangonians. Users can also chat with Tango members across other operating systems and platforms, which should help tide them over until that Skype integrationbecomes a reality.

Ziiiro Celeste Watches Tick off the Hours in Multi-hued Fashion

Ziiiro is one of those companies that consistently finds its way on to the wish lists with watches like the Orbit and Gravity. Celeste is its latest offering, which represents your linear travel through the fourth dimension as a pair of overlapping colored disks. As the partially transparent bands circle about, they blend together to create dynamic hues of blue and gray, on the Mono models, or green and blue, on the Colored editions. The watches are housed in matte-finished stainless steel in chrome, gunmetal or black. You can pre-order the Celeste Mono and Celeste Colored now for €149 ($205), and they'll start shipping on November 18th here.

 

 

Scientists Create the Definitive Flu Killer

University of Texas Southwestern's scientists have created a new flu vaccine that can protect us against any kind of flu, not just one type. Unlike the current type of vaccines, this can even protect us if the virus mutates.

That's the big problem of the current vaccines: every year, medical experts guess what's going to be the dominant flu strain and create a vaccine using a weakened version of that virus. When it gets injected, our body gets to know the weakened virus safely, producing cells that can neutralize that virus if a real attack occurs. The problem is that, if that virus mutates, this prevention becomes useless. That is why people may get the flu even when they are vaccinated.

The team led by Dr. Beatrice Fontoura took a completely different approach:

What we are doing is something different. We are actually stimulating our own response which is already there – boost it – to fight an infection.

Their solution boosts our natural immunological system, targeting a protein in our bodies called REDD-1. Fontoura's team discovered that, when REDD-1 levels are low in a cell, the flu virus can easily infect the cell. The vaccine increases the protein's levels, creating a shield that is impossible for the virus to penetrate.

According to the team, the new vaccine is so effective that it can even protect us against the Spanish Flu, the H1N1 influenza virus that killed between 50 and 100 million in 1918, mostly healthy young adults. Another deadly H1N1 virus was the Swine Flu, which may have infected 11% to 21% of the world's population in 2009.

Sadly, the vaccine is still not ready for mass distribution yet. They have to complete the usual FDA procedures to be introduced in the market, a process that may take years.

 

 

HAL Suits Could Help Support Nuclear Cleaners

A Tungsten vest provides its wearer fantastic protection from radiation's damaging effects. Problem is—said vest also weighs about 132 pounds. So how does the Haz-Mat crew of tomorrow gird their loins in this radiation-resistant element? Exo-suits, obviously.

Cyberdyne (the real Japanese company, not the fictional LA firm responsible for Skynet) has adapted their Hybrid Assistive Limb, or HAL (oh, come on), to support these heavy tungsten tunics. HAL suits monitor the body's electrical impulses and attempt to support the user by anticipating his movements. "This new type of HAL robot suit enables their wearers to work on the site without feeling the burden," the company said in a statement. "It is hoped that this will reduce risks of working under harsh environments and contribute to early restoration operations by humans in the wake of disasters."

And, when used in conjunction with the conventional Tyvek suit, which is designed more for keeping radioactive materials from melting into your skin than protecting you from actual radiation, workers will be effectively protected. The company has not said whether these devices will be used at the Fukushima plant where roughly 2,000 workers daily struggle to sanitize the site.

 

 

EZmouse Packs a Backup So It Never Runs Out of Batteries

They lost their annoying USB cables, but in the process wireless mice also gained an appetite for batteries. Recently they've been put on a power diet, but Digitz's EZmouse goes double deuce on the rechargeable batteries so you never need to hunt down a fresh AAA ever again.

The mouse's main rechargeable battery is good for about four to five weeks of use before it needs to be removed and connected to a USB port on your computer for charging. And to ensure you can keep on wirelessly mousing while the main battery's powering up for two hours, a smaller, non-removable backup provides up to three days of additional use. When the main battery is topped off and re-inserted into the $50 mouse, the backup then automatically recharges itself so it's ready for the next time it's called upon. A feature I wouldn't mind seeing added to digital cameras and other devices with removable rechargeable batteries.

 

 

LG's thin and Mighty P330 Laptop Surfaces at Korean Retailer

The Core i7 processor has been replaced by an i5-2435M running at 2.4GHz, but that's hardly a deal breaker -- and it's possible a higher specced variant will eventually see daylight too. The other key credentials are all intact: an NVIDIA GeForce GT555M taking care of the visuals, a 40GB / 640GB SSD and HDD combo for snappier performance, and an IPS display built into an all-metal 1.7kg (3.6-pound) chassis. The price is listed as ₩1,364,000, which converts to a hefty $1,220

iOS 5 Battery Help Is Almost Here

A few days ago, Apple admitted that there's an unknown issue with the iPhone 4S's battery performance, and two days ago it seeded a beta for iOS 5.0.1 to developers to try to address the problem. Now Beta 2's already been pushed out, which shows that Apple's taking this battery business seriously.