This Eraser Can Save Your Memories [USB]
It looks and acts like an ordinary eraser until you open it and discover it is also a USB memory stick (and part of a campaign for Alzheimer’s awareness). [Ads of the World via Likecool] More &…
The Compass iPad Stand [Ipad]
The Joule stand was my favorite iPad stand until I saw Twelvesouth’s Compass. Now my heart is divided. I really like the angular design and its portability. But what I really like is its price: Just $4…
Some iPhone 4 Displays Have Yellow Bands and Spots [Iphone 4]
There is a problem with the iPhone 4′s Retina displays: Some screens have a yellow tint across its surface. 27 cases [Updating Live] and counting. In some, it’s a yellow band. In others, yellow spots. …
The Most Detailed View of the Dark Side of the Moon [Astronomy]
This is the hidden face of the moon like you’ve never seen if before, as captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s LOLA instruments. Despite its appearance, the picture wasn’t processed by NASA sc…
This Three-Person Bathtub Is Made From a Single Rock Crystal [Design]
I love big bathtubs and crazy jacuzzis, but this thing defies imagination. It’s an 8.3-feet diameter bathtub made from a single rock crystal. If Superman had a tub in his Fortress of Solitude, this wou…
TheXchange: Will This Porn iPhone App Survive the Apple Banhammer? [IPhone]
Here you have another proof that demonstrates why Apple’s iTunes App store approval process is screwed: theXchange, a new iPhone application to put people in contact to have sex, photos included. As you can imagine, the content gets extremely strong.
Hottest Girls was the first one to appear, disappearing within hours of its launch. Then BeautyMeter, which was pulled shortly after introduced
Why is Apple approving these apps in the first place, knowing they are going to pull them down later?
And since these applications get their content via the internet, should Apple take Safari or Mail out of the iPhone too? Or Beehive, which can be used to send pictures on the fly to other users? And Facebook too? My camera?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. This is stupid and has to stop. Either you apply the same filter to everything, or you open the application market for real. Just make sure things work, and are not illegal on its own, not because of the potential content they may fetch from the internet. [Krapps]
Giant Gas-Powered Vortex Cannon Destroying Shed Filmed at 1300fps [Cannons]
This is what happens when you build an extremely powerful vortex cannon, loaded with “one of the most dangerous gas mixes in the world,” to fire it against houses made of straw, sticks, and bricks, like the big bad wolf.
Looking at the video—filmed at 1300 frames per second—it seems like the big bad wolf would have had a chance against the three little pigs, and eat the suckers roasted in a wood brick oven, with just salt and a bit of water. If the third pig didn’t use cement, that is.
Otherwise, the 200mph cloud—which is formed by the pressure inside the air vortex condensing the water above the lake—seems powerful enough to knock down a man. Certainly more powerful than the candle cannon. [BBC YouTube Channel via Makezine]
Swedes Drive 400 Miles In the Opposite Direction Thanks to GPS Mistake [GPS]
I do love the Swedes. Most of them. Maybe not the couple who drove 400 miles away from their destination because they misspelt its name—typing the industrial city of Carpi instead of the island of Capri—into their GPS.
The couple wrote Carpi and, without questioning the weird 400-mile detour the GPS was showing and the fact that they were looking for an island, off they went to this city in northern Italy:
instead of getting here, to the paradise of Capri, which is located in exactly the opposite direction, in the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of southern Italy:
As a Carpi tourist official declared after the Swedish couple asked for the famous Blue Grotto: “Capri is an island. They did not even wonder why they didn’t cross any bridge or take any boat.”
Remember, swedes and everyone else: Do not follow technology blindingly, especially when technology could always fail because of our own human failures. That said, I have a (very) soft spot for people who drive aimlessly in the wrong direction, especially without GPS. [BBC News via Techdirt via dvice]
Dell Drops Adamo Price to Compete with MacBook Air [Dell]
Dell has dropped the prices of their Adamo ultraportables, matching the low-end MacBook Air. The higher-end Adamo, however, is still more expensive than Apple’s top of the line model. Apocalypse is, no doubt, very near.
The entry-level Dell Adamo—with 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive—now costs the same $1,500 as its 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Air counterpart—which has no 128GB SSD. The top of the line, however, has only been reduced to $2,230, with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM, and built-in 3G connectivity. That’s still more expensive than Apple’s $1,800 higher end, although the latter only has 2GB RAM and no 3G built-in.
Next: The Moon turning to blood, dogs cohabiting with cats, trumpets playing, hell freezing over, the dead walking among us, and George Lucas writing and directing the next Star Trek. [Dell via Electronista]
How to Build the 1MHz Apollo Guidance Computer For Just $3000 [DIY]
$3000. That’s how much it costs to build now the $150,000 Apollo Guidance Computer—the first computer to use integrated circuits, with a 1MHz clock, four 16-bits registers, 4K RAM, and 32K ROM—using 1960s-like components.
Designed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and built by Raytheon, the Apollo Guiding Computer was the most advanced computer of its time. It ran a multitasking operating system called EXEC, capable of executing eight jobs simultaneously. What you are seeing above is just the visible part of it, the Dsky user interface, which was mounted in both the Command Module and the Lunar Module. The astronauts had to enter commands and data for the AGC to process using that keyboard, which also gave them feedback beyond the other million lights and indicators in the cockpits.
Back 40 years ago yesterday, the AGC ran into some unexpected problems: Executive overflows alarms fired up, caused by too many interrupts from the rendezvous radar. This radar was intentionally turned on by the astronauts in case there was a need to abort the mission fast. However, this data—coupled with the landing radar’s stream—overloaded the AGC causing some commands to be delayed.
As we know Armstrong and Aldrin saved the day, helped by ground control and the programmers. The Eagle landed safely and they all lived happily ever after. If it were 1969, they would still be up there now.
You can try to build your own Apollo Guidance Computer following John Pultorak’s full, and exhaustive and huge and dizzying, step-by-step instructions here. [Galaxiki via Universe Today—Image via ibiblio]
Check our complete Apollo 11 coverage here
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