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Charlie Bucket creates fantastic lighted dress with knitted tubing and a pump, Veruca Salt demands ten
Charlie Bucket is a household name in some parts, and not just because he's a Roald Dahl character. No, the one we're talking about creates fantastic creations with tubing and light. The above Fluid Dress is composed of 600 feet of knitted tubing and it's powered by a pump which is worn as a backpack. Now, we don't know how heavy said rucksack is, and the dress is a bit short for our tastes, but we hear that Kate Middleton is searching far and wide for the perfect threads for her nuptials, so... can we make a suggestion? Honestly, we're just glad that the art of knitting hasn't died off in the high tech era. Check out the video below.
Reserve Power: Steady now
Ross Rubin contributes Reserve Power, a column that presents personal perspectives on personal technology. He also contributes Switched On each week. While image stabilization has come a long way, a good tripod or mount can make all the difference in some photos, particularly shots that demand long exposure. There are scores of options on the market, and tripods models catering to pros can cost thousands of dollars. But for those who are looking for some support, particularly on the go in situations where a traditional tripod or monopod is impractical, there are lots of novel products on the market that can help bridge the gap. Note that several of these products are designed to work only with compact digital cameras and camcorders. With that caveat in mind, here are some of my favorites.
Guest Post: Confessions of a noob rogue
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Back in the dark ages of history, in vanilla World of Warcraft, I rolled a rogue. This was before battlegrounds, when dishonorable kills were a fear and world PvP was a rush, when men were men, mages sheeped for fun and warlocks ... well, let's just say that warlocks have a reputation that they've earned. World of Warcraft was my first MMO, after coming from persistent worlds hosted by Neverwinter Nights. I played a rogue there, too, steeped in Dungeons & Dragons rules and the like. World of Warcraft was both nothing like and exactly like my roguish experiences before -- a sneak who dealt devastating damage with small weapons, no matter whether the target was gnome or giant, fearsome orc or fiery dragon. In the midst of a Westfall investigation (tasked by SI:7 to infiltrate a tower), I noticed a few growing complaints in guild chat: "We have seven rogues in the guild but only one priest; would someone please roll a priest?" I told them I would, sent my rogue back to the character select screen, and rolled the character that would take up the entirety of my vanilla experience.
Flying saucer blimp that can haul 150 tons at a time? Yes, please
A company in Australia is trying to increase the load that flying vehicles can carry through the air and we have to say, we think they might be onto something awesome. Skylifter's flying saucer shaped disc concept is 500 feet across, and could haul about 150 tons of cargo across long distances of about 1,500 miles. The proposed capacity is nearly 700 times what a helicopter designed for hauling can safely carry. The disc shape helps the craft to be less susceptible to winds, and it will also be easier to steer. The company already has a 10-foot prototype built, and hopes to have the actual crafts ready some time in the next three years.
Guest Post: Confessions of a noob hunter
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider. As a prot paladin, I've learned my place in the world (of Warcraft). True, that place is usually face-deep in the crotch of some monster, but that's beside the point. When I'm tanking, I know I'm here to do one thing and one thing only: to piss off bad guys so they'll leave you alone. Strapping on my shield and a mace keeps me in a Zen-like comfort zone where everything seems to just come naturally. Like many others, though, I've found myself looking for more to do as Cataclysm lurches ever closer. After all, there are only so many things to get beaten by each week. This has left me joining a growing percentage of players in a less-than-exclusive club: "Hi, I'm Brian, and I'm an altoholic." Most classes I've tried have felt fairly natural. I've leveled my DK and priest with no problems and have really been enjoying the early levels of both my mage and warlock (which, as you'd imagine, leaves me with quite an internal struggle). There's one class, however, that has managed to bewilder me at every turn. A class that, for whatever reason, seems so counterintuitive to me that It's taken me over a year and a half to hit level 27. My friends, I am -- cue dramatic music -- the worst hunter in the world.
Guest Post: Confessions of a noob death knight
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Here's the thing: I've been a mage from day one, when I first started playing WoW a good two years ago. I always liked being a mage in Dungeons & Dragons, so I figured I would like being a mage in WoW. I was right. In fact, I love being a glass cannon. (OK, I don't love the glass part so much, but I really dig the cannon part.) I'm not a great mage; age and fingers that were broken by judo or baseball have slowed me some. Still, I am a good mage. I hold my own, doing anywhere from 7-12k DPS depending on buffs and what I am watching on TV. The thing is, as much as I love being a mage, making my own food and teleporting all around, I hate taking forever to queue. I also started thinking, "Hey, there must be more to simulated life than just standing back and blasting things." I decided to try a new character. Not having the patience to level a character from 1 to 80, I figured I'd go the death knight route. After all, DKs are mage-killers; they are the anti-mage. So after two years of being nothing but a ranged DPS machine, I rolled a DK.
Growing up Geek: Ross Rubin
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. This week, we have our long-time Switched On columnist Ross Rubin. In the wide-collared world of the 1970s, it wasn't yet clear whether the future of interactive technology would rest in the hands of the PC or video game companies (I attribute this confusion to excessive exposure to ABBA combined with the well-documented brain-melting effects of Three's Company plots). But most of my early exposure to electronics certainly came from the latter camp. We had the original Pong game and the triangular, holster-housing Telstar Arcade. I stared with mouth agape as my adult cousin received an Atari 2600 for his birthday (no fair!). For my birthday a few years later, my parents got me an Intellivision. The flame wars between Intellivision and Atari were the Mac vs. PC arguments of their day, and George Plimpton was the closest thing the Intellivision fans had to Steve Jobs. I would take pictures of the screen for some Astrosmash contest Mattel Electronics ran as well, to obtain different rainbow-adorned badges from Activision for games like Kaboom!, Freeway! and River Raid! In any case, video game consoles weren't the only extra box that graced our TVs. One day, a beige box showed up with a simple switch that transitioned between the broadcast channels we received and a new service delivered via microwave transmission. It was called Home Box Office.
Breakfast Topic: The alt before the storm
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Everyone has at least one alt in WoW. It may be the bank alt you send all your items to while questing away from a capital city. Some of us have one of every class, or multiple alts on different realms to play with friends on a different server. Cataclysm is going to change the way we play our alts forever, though. We will have goblins named with every variation of "Gringotts" used as bank alts. People will name their worgen after Twilight characters or make names that mocks Twilight. But the two new races aren't the only things happening come Cataclysm. We are getting new race/class combos. Roleplayers will have new characters they can roleplay or add the new class/race combo into their character's story. While Blizzard has yet to give us gnome paladins, our little friends can now be healers, which gives us the chance to take 24 of our gnome friends and knock on Deathwing's front door.
Reserve Power: Field photo backup for the rest of us
Welcome to the inaugural Reserve Power on Engadget Alt. In contrast to Switched On -- the column Ross Rubin has written for nearly six years - this sporadic, gluten-free column will serve as a home for pieces that tend to be more personal, less polemical, and more like features than forensics. You might consider them akin to an overengineered iPod classic, but they go by many names, including "multimedia photo viewer," "data storage unit," "portable digital photo manager" and "portable multimedia storage and player." Battery-powered portable photo backup devices have become an important tool in the bags of many advanced amateur and pro photographers. They allow for a speedy backup of multi-gigabyte memory cards on the go, providing an extra layer of data safety. And many of them have color screens that are 3.5" or larger, enabling them to be used for spot checks of photos. The niche has attracted a range of companies. With the exception of Epson, though, they are mostly unknown, particularly outside the world of photography enthusiasts -- Digital Foci, Jojo, and MemoryKick, Sanho and Wolverine.
Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office enters final rounds in Park City, Utah
This week, finalists have gathered in Park City, Utah for the Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office. After being pared down from a group of over 115,000 contestants, the remaining 50 or so young adults are competing for the top prize in the Worldwide Competition on Microsoft Office. The contest's entire purpose is to determine who is the best at Microsoft Word and Excel, and their work is checked by exam overseers Certiport, who will also validate and determine the winners. Good luck!
NASA set to send Juno 'armored tank' spacecraft to Jupiter
NASA is gearing up to send an "armored tank" spacecraft called Juno to Jupiter this month, after several delays and reschedulings. The environment that Juno is to face will be one of the most treacherous any spacecraft has ever endured -- so Juno has all sorts of special features, such as a radiation vault, a protective shield to protect it from Jupiter's insanely radiation-heavy environs. An invisible force field surrounds Jupiter (a less powerful one also surrounds our own planet) which is heavy with high energy particles to shield it from highly charged particles which shoot off the sun. The mission will result in Juno orbiting Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, for 15 months. Scientists have also devised a route that should shelter the craft from spending extended periods of time in the harshest zones. Juno's trip will also be the first ever solar powered mission to Jupiter.
Google brings current weather conditions to Google Earth, confirms it is, indeed, still raining in Pittsburgh
Google's busted out Google Earth 5.2, and all you meteorology nuts are going to want to hear about this. The update includes current weather condition imaging such as rain and snow cover in the radar layar with the cloud cover view on. Now, we love seeing weather maps as much as the next guy, but we're also pretty bad at predicting what's going to happen next based on those images, so we'll just leave that to the pros for now. Either way, if you're lucky enough to live in the U.S. and some parts of Europe, that feature is currently available.
YouTube adds a music video landing page, bug causes it to be populated exclusively by curious tow headed Canadian child
YouTube's been making the big bucks off music videos -- professional and amateur alike -- pretty much since day one. In face, besides your hamsters playing pianos and your lonelygirl15 spinoffs (remember her?), that's pretty much its main biz as far as we can tell. Well, now its got an official music landing page, so you won't have to go searching for the Double Rainbow guy anymore... until he slips off the front page into the abyss of forgetting, that is. Hey, at least Bieber's got staying power, right?
Handmade Daft Punk helmet produces some stunning photo ops
The man you see above you, Harrison Krix from Volpin Props, spent the last year and a half making the Daft Punk helmet he's wearing in the shot. Now, maybe that sounds like a crazy way to spend your spare time -- but then again, the photo opportunities seem to be killer for this guy these days. Hit the source links for many, many photos of its creation. Video below.
Growing up Geek: Clayton Morris
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a new feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. This week, we're happy to have Clayton Morris, host of Fox & Friends, Gadgets & Games, and longtime friend of Engadget. I can't remember a time in my life without gadgets. Born on New Year's Eve in Bicentennial Philadelphia, just three days before Apple Computer added an "Inc." to its name, my crib was filled with toys that buzzed, beeped, and burned through batteries. Don't tell Child Services, but I'm sure the soldering iron in the 'build your own radio set' wasn't safe for babies. Boring wooden toys were cast aside in favor of Speak & Spell, Simon Says, and Verbot: the voice controlled robot (although I could never get that damned thing to bring me a drink). There have been two phases in my life: pre-Atari and post-Atari. Even though I was only two, everything changed the day my mom and dad brought home an Atari 2600 in 1978. I could barely walk or go to the bathroom by myself, but I could play Pong with the Atari's paddle controllers and blow up tanks in 'Combat.' On Easter Sunday my sister Nicole and I would get 'Demons to Diamonds' and 'Pitfall' instead of chocolate bunnies.
British Grand Prix: A rare glimpse behind the McLaren-Mercedes F1 team (video)
Jealous much? Don't be. I had to sacrifice my ears to the roaring engines at Silverstone last Friday, just for you lovely people. While the Formula One teams were taking a break from the Grand Prix practice sessions, I was able to sneak into the pit area and get up close to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' shiny stallions -- no touching allowed, naturally, but I did learn a thing or two about their pre-race preparation. And to top things off, legendary driver Jenson Button also popped by to share some thoughts on McLaren's F-duct system (a cunning and legal trickery that lets the driver's left leg redirect airflow over the rear wing in order to stall the flap, thus reducing drag when doing straights), as well as a few grumbles about the sharp corners on the recently renovated circuit. Video's after the break, and be sure to crank up your speakers for maximum sensation.%Gallery-97407%
Book Review: You Are Not a Gadget
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier (January, 2010) Alfred A. Knopf, 209 pages, $24.95 I'm often accused of being a Luddite -- mostly based on my fervent and affectionate clinging to several physical objects that are quickly becoming cultural artifacts: the ink pen, the paper book, and the vinyl record -- but those items haven't been the only 'evidence' my accusers have historically cited. In addition to that physical evidence, there has always been my suspicion that some of the things I valued in life -- listening to a whole album, reading an entire novel in one sitting before grabbing another off the shelf -- were also going the way of Betamax, and being replaced by short attention-spanned, sound-bited fragments of conversation that didn't convey knowledge or ideas in nearly the same way. This suspicion, this "feeling" if you will -- obviously doesn't originate with me, and it's often diluted (by the internet) into some version of "the internet is making us dumber" argument. Of course, that's not really the argument at all, but who needs to be bogged down with details these days? Enter You Are Not a Gadget, which I review below.
Disco Chair is way cooler than its name would lead you to believe
This is the Disco Chair, the brainchild of Kiwi&Pom, and though we're not fans of things with the word 'disco' in their names, this one is outstanding and beautiful. It's made with 200 meters of electroluminescent wire, and the lighting can flash on and off (hence the disco moniker). Hit up the source for a few more shots.
Shawn Smith brings 8-bit art into three dimensions, one tiny block of wood at a time
Austin, Texas-based artist Shawn Smith creates sculptures of things like vultures, sharks and hats on fire, and they're seriously awesome, 8-bit style extravaganzas. The pieces are largely created out of small blocks of wood, and then painted. Hit the source (the artist's website) to see many, many examples of his stunning and beautiful work.
Opera Mini users increased 4.2 percent in a month (and other interesting tidbits), says Opera
Opera's just released its State of the Mobile Web report for May of 2010, and its touting its continued growth in the space, with Opera Mini usage increasing 4.2 percent over the previous month, and a 7.2 percent gain in overall page views. Good news for them, undoubtedly, but they also have interestingly found that the hours 8:00 pm and midnight are the biggest for browsing -- unless you live in the UK, where you're just as likely to browse in the earlier hours. Nerds. Hit up the source link for the full report.
