Yes yes, we already know about that photographer who had his Canon 5D Mark I airbrushed with a military camouflage pattern. But about this spruced up Pentax K-m dSLR? (shinyshiny.tv)
Tags: bling, K-m dSLR, PentaxShare This
Source:Shiny Shiny Pentax dSLR
Take some optical fibers, integrate them into cloth, and what do you have? Something similar to what LumiGram’s offering right now. The website’s catalog offers varied luminescent items, from bags, cushions, to the top pictured here. The fibers are powered via battery, which is thankfully detachable when wash day comes.
All I’m thinking right now is: [...]
Boy Genius just unveiled shots of what is very likely the Kindle 2. Notice the follow-up to the snowspeeder-like original Amazon e-book reader is more rounded, more early-iPod in its proportions, but still white with the same basic screen. The cool sparkly LCD status bar seems to be gone, a joystick has replaced the clickwheel, and the other buttons are smaller for fewer accidental page turns. No word on the availability of this baby, of course. As you might expect, Boy Genius has quite a few more pictures, and more details too, so feel free to drop on over there to have a look. We’ll be here when you’re ready to comment. [BGR]
CrunchGear got their meaty hands on the new HP HDX16 Blu-ray notebook we previewed back in September, and it’s pretty shiny. And I say “meaty” because they damn near broke some of those flashy, flush buttons during the initial feeling up. Keep those paws away from the 16:9 high def widescreen and I think we’ll be OK, fellas. [CrunchGear]
Source: First Look at HP HDX 16 Almost Breaks It [Hp Hdx 16]
Pioneer showed off their new Floating Vision technology at CEATEC this year. It’s a system of layers: first, an LCD with built-in computer, then an array of 3D lenses, and finally the “space sensor,” or virtual screen, where you can wave your fingers around and watch the 3D animations react accordingly. But the space sensor can also distinguish between and interact with different objects, like the Microsoft Surface: hold your phone under a falling object, say, and it’ll appear on your phone’s screen with a coupon for that item. Second video after the jump.
Source: Pioneer 3D Floating Vision: Half Wii, Half Surface, All 3D [Ceatec 2008]
Unbeknownst to most of the world, the late super rich adventurer Steve Fossett had started work on an amazing flying submersible that would one day theoretically touch the stars. More importantly, however, was that the design would have allowed adventurers and scientists alike (and most importantly Fossett himself, of course) to venture into the deadly depths of the Mariana Trench, some 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. Sadly, the design was put on hold immediately after Fossett went missing about one year ago, but that hasn’t stopped San Anselmo inventor Graham Hawkes from detailing the project that Fossett tapped him to create two years before his death.
Called the Deep Flight Challenger, the submersible would have been “part spacecraft, part airplane and part submarine,” Hawkes said. And somehow, thanks to the stuff street racers use to trick out their dashboards, the Challenger would have been capable of withstanding pressures of 20,000 pounds per square inch, (approximately 15,000 times the atmospheric pressure), he said.
The “stuff” we’re referring to is carbon fiber, and Hawkes said he opted for that material over conventional technologies, which use titanium.
“The best and strongest materials such as titanium will only get you about halfway down to the ocean floor. We used carbon fiber that’s laid down filament by filament under computer control, the same as what’s used on rocket motor nozzles,” he said.
Fossett’s remains were found amidst his plane’s wreckage last week, confirming what many people had already suspected about the doomed billionaire adventurer. The fate of the submersible is unknown. Currently, the design belongs to Fossett’s estate. [Marinij]
Source: A Look at Steve Fossett's Super Secret Flying, Diving, Space Bound Submersible [Submersibles]
I’m starting to believe in those Apatow movies about nerds suddenly becoming popular without having to shed their nerdiness. According to NoiseAddicts, a dude name Paul Slocum—who I’m picturing looks exactly like Michael Cera of SuperBad/Juno/Nick & Nora fame—hooked a crappy old amp to his little laptop, told the laptop to continuously calculate the digits of the magical constant pi (digits that run to infinity to the right of the decimal point) and turned those digits into synth commands for surprisingly danceable house music.
I’m old(ish) now, but I remember being in clubs with one song jumping to the next while the beat keeps on going and going, with everybody just kind of bouncing along (with alcohol and other fuels to speed them along). That’s pretty much what it’s like hearing Slocum’s music. As you might predict, Slocum himself explains it, well, like one of Michael Cera’s characters might:
The software progressively calculates the sequence of digits in pi, starting at 3.14 and progressing towards infinity. As the program calculates the digits, it feeds the results into an algorithmic music generator containing my structural criteria for house music. The resulting piece of house music is infinitely long and static and never repeats itself.
Hear that, party people? Infinitely long. It might kill you, but at least you will never have to go home!
If you want to check out the music for yourself, or read more about Slocum, pop on over to NoiseAddicts, where you can download long and short versions in MP3, and find out a lot more about the technical side of Slocum’s creation. [NoiseAddicts]
Source: Music Based on Pi Keeps Bodies Movin' Forever [Power Of Pi]
newVideoPlayer(”/meridiist_giz.flv”, 506, 300,”"); 
Watchmaker Tag Heuer has put up a teaser video for their forthcoming Meridiist phone, and boy is it a slap in the face to everyday Joe Sixpacks like you and me.
The phone isn’t really, as one suit in the video notes, “A very nice… a very nice PIECE OF ART,” but when the big innovation is bringing the stunning features of wristwatches to mobile phones (that’s right, the Meridiist has a built-in clock!), you can’t blame them for reaching a bit. The phone’s selling points: made from the finest rubber (?) and alligator skin, creating a “sensual experience,” and to top it off, it is “in some way the first pocket watch of the 21st century!” Never mind that it looks like the obese offspring of my first Nokia candybar from 1998 and an HTC Touch Diamond, conceived in a French executive’s board room— it’s expensive and so you must want one. [Thanks, Nebosja!]
BusinessWeek reports that counterfeit hardware has been found to be the cause of several malfunctions in high-level military machinery. The phony infiltration has a distinct possibility of leading to espionage or sabotage. In other words, move over, Meizu M8: you’re not the biggest faker in town anymore.
Several crashes of military aircraft can be attributed to knockoff chips, but more insidiously, internal military data might be at risk. Melissa E. Hathaway, a head of cybersecurity at the FBI, says, “Counterfeit products have been linked to the crash of mission-critical networks, and may also contain hidden ‘back doors’ enabling network security to be bypassed and sensitive data accessed [by hackers, thieves, and spies].” Robert P. Ernst, who investigates counterfeiting for the U.S. Navy, estimates that 15% of the spare or replacement microchips bought by the Pentagon are fake. Where do these parts actually come from?
Made in, as BusinessWeek colorfully puts it, the “Chinese hinterland,” a lot of these components are made on the cheap and sold to the government for much less than name-brands can offer. To be fair, no evidence of terrifying espionage has been found; all of the problems are due to crappy chips failing to work at the worst times, which really should have been expected, since the military has been paying half the price for the same product.
But you can start to take off that tin foil hat, because steps are being taken. After the inquiries the military has decided to effect a rule requiring the source of all chips be ascertained before they place a bid. I’m satisfied, aren’t you? [BusinessWeek]
Far be it from us to be criticize something like this, but RIM has been spilling some serious beans lately. The newest (and pehaps tastiest) comes to us from CrackBerry, where they’ve uncovered a few screens of the BlackBerry App Center. They’ve also got a wealth of information about the service, which will unfortunately be available for Storm users only.
RIM’s take on an app store is much less ambitious than Apple’s for one fatal reason: the store will be run on the carrier’s side, which will give your mobile provider the chance to veto an app even after it’s been approved by RIM. The apps — and this is pretty weird — are actually downloaded through the device’s browser, as the App Center is only able to search, monitor and delete programs from the device. Yeah, that’s right: the App Center program can’t directly install apps.
The interface looks clean and simple, and its different behaviors remind me more of Linux’s many package managers than of Apple’s App Store. That similarity extends even further with the odd choice of using the green install/update/delete radio buttons from popular open source Debian/Gnome package manager Synaptic. CrackBerry expects to hear more about this at BlackBerry’s October 20th Developer Conference, and they’re probably right. [CrackBerry]
Source: Leaked Screens Show BlackBerry's Own App Store [Research In Motion]
