When motorcyclists have an accident they roll a dice, with escaping unscathed on one side and very severe consequences on the other. And for those unlucky enough to sustain severe and permanent injuries like paraplegia, there’s often one huge regret - that they may never ride again on a real bike. A chance encounter with a paraplegic ex-motorcross champion in a hospital carpark inspired West Australian Darren Lomman to put together an audacious project: a motorcycle for paraplegic riders - and his working prototype, a heavily modified Honda CBR250RR, is now road licensed and operational. With the right investment and profile, Lomman believes the Dreamfit bike isn’t too far away from production potential - and after around 150 enquiries from all around the world, he would love to be able to put the bikes in the hands of more people for whom riding has become an impossible dream.

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“The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it “access” to — and “full control” of — any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their “adversaries’ information infrastructure completely undetected.”

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How do you get Minority Report-style invasive biometric security ingrained in society? Tie the technology to something millions can’t do without-like cigarettes-and you’re on your Orwellian way! (more…)

Is Classic Art Better In 3D?

Pablo Picasso was commissioned by the Spanish government to commemorate the Nazi Germany bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. The result is Guernica, a black and white painting that depicts the suffering and brutality of war.

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Chips made from

Every household is filled with dozens of silicon-based electronics, whose main component is usually a silicon-based transistor. But now, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student’s invention could replace this technology with a new generation of transistors that will not only cut energy consumption but also work under extreme conditions.

Weixiao Huang has made a breakthrough by developing a new transistor that uses a compound material known as gallium nitride (GaN), which has remarkable material properties and may act as a better alternative to silicon chip.

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Enhanced Reading Experience

Designed to enhance the learning to read experience LeapFrog’s next generation Tag Reading System uses special dot-printed books and a stylus fitted with an Infrared camera and speaker to allow children to hear the words of the story and read along.

The portable gadget is small enough for little hands and able to be carried anywhere. Kids simply move the Tag stylus across the page it makes words talk and pictures sing via the camera at the tip of the stylus which ‘reads’ letters, words and symbols printed on the special dot-patterned pages of books in the Tag library.

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Steady There Skipper

Puzzle alarm clock: the simple, profoundly irritating idea at its heart is easy enough to guess, but why, then, is the puzzle itself so simple? It’s a toddler’s learning toy, a matter of bashing three shapes into the corresponding holes. Perhaps the idea is to force you to retrieve them from the other side of the room first-but then why not merely place the alarm clock itself out of arm’s reach?

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Amazing theater trick

Japanese television has an extra wierd twist that is hard to describe.  Second video after the jump.

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 We know all the toilets in Japan that have built-in bidets, but how many come with remotes?   (more…)

Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena succeeded in capturing syntrophic (means “feeding together”) microorganisms that are known to dramatically reduce the oceanic emission of methane into the atmosphere.

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Birdie Bottom Barrier

Polly want a cracker? Unfortunately, it’ll make Polly poop all over your house the minute you let her out of her cage! Hardly seems fair that your concerns for Polly’s well being should be completely at odds with your desire to live a squalor-free life. If you love your little bird and want to let it fly free all over your house from time-to-time, then here’s a patent that should serve as a happy compromise for you both.

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The New Cool Way To Tell Time…If You Can

The latest funky electronic timepiece to surface from watch importer TokyoFlash - the Oberon SS is a real stunner. Not only does the watch feature a new way to tell time, it looks damn good doing it.

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This weeks special on designer babies includes the no-cry feature,
along with the pick-up-after-yourself gene, and extra tan skin

News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it’s a step toward creating “designer babies”. But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.

“None of us wants to make designer babies,” said Zev Rosenwaks, director of Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

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MacGyver wishes he had one of these

As multitools go the Spyderco Byrdwrench doesn’t resemble any other pocket tool on the market. Unlike standard multitool fare it has a full-sized knife blade that opens/closes one handed and locks open like a real pocketknife.

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Judging body language, a key to most relationships, is missing online

An April 2008 Harris Interactive survey conducted on behalf of WooMe identified some problems with online dating and making a first impression on the Internet.

More than 70% of the single US online adults surveyed said flirting online was more difficult than in person.

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Approximately 100,000 LEGO pieces were used to build this instrument 

With the exception of the wire strings, this instrument is entirely constructed out of LEGO parts–the keyboard, jacks, jack rack, jack rail, plectra, soundboard, bridge, hitch pins, tuning pins, wrestplank, nut, case, legs, lid, lid stick, and music stand are all built out of interlocking ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) plastic bricks and related pieces.

And is playable. (w/pics)

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Space vegies such as this could solve world hunger, or just create more leftovers

Scientists have said that vegetables grown in zero-gravity conditions in space can grow to huge sizes, which could help solve the world’s food crisis.

According to a report in the Telegraph , it is thought that the near zero gravity conditions in space result in super-sized fruit and vegetables with a higher vitamin content.

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Apparently baby have a way of sucking the arthritis out of their moms

Breastfeeding has unplanned benefits like protecting nursing mothers from rheumatoid arthritis, according to a new study.

The study found that women who had breastfed for 13 months or more were half as likely to get rheumatoid arthritis as those who had never breastfed. Those who had breastfed for one to 12 months were 25 per cent less likely to get the disease.
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Redefining the flying car

What exactly is a flying car?

My life is a bit unusual in that I often have conversations with people about the topic of flying cars. Since I was a child I dreamed about the day that we would have flying cars. But, other than the vague notion of the flying car that George Jetson drove each day to Spacely Sprockets, we have no real definition of the flying car, until now.

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Neil Young as Spiderman

62-year-old rocker Neil Young has been honored with his own species, a trapdoor spider named Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

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Talent from unlikely places may be the key to new thinking

Professor Stephen Hawking, who has devoted his career to finding the origins of the universe, is to begin a new search - for Africa’s answer to Einstein.

Despite suffering from motor neurone disease which has left him almost completely paralysed, Hawking, 66, has made the journey to South Africa to launch the project today.

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Drawing on a background that ranges from experience as an aerospace technician to a stint in research and development on the Williams F1 team, Marcus Cunnington has designed and built the 6.3kg (around 13.9 pounds) Free Spirit - a carbon fiber composite design that claims the mantle of the world’s lightest manual rigid wheelchair.

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Most cool cats prefer watching commercial free DVRs 

A DoubleClick Performics survey of Internet users in the US found that although DVR users are watching more television, they are not paying attention to commercials, as cited byAdweek.

Overall, 85% of DVR owners said they watched fewer commercials since getting a DVR.

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The War On Drugs Has Many Names…

The New Yorker’s “Drug War Bulletins” are sure to boil your blood: a man who died for want of a liver transplant because the hospital insisted he needed “drug treatment” for his medical marijuana use; a suburban San Diego housewife who will spend the next 20 years in jail because she was peripherally involved in a heroin deal while she was in college in 1975; and a pulmonologist who’d been favored by the drug warriors until his giant, well-funded, unreproachable study concluded that pot didn’t give you lung cancer, and who is now a pariah whose research conclusions have been boycotted by the press.

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 Paul Loughridge of Lockwasher Design makes awesome robots, ray guns, and rockets out of vintage cans and other found objects.  

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 Hotel Everland, the creation of Swiss artists Sabina Lang & Daniel Baumann, on the roof of Palais de Tokyo is an art consisting of an actual one-room hotel. It offers 1970’s-style glamour, a turquoise-tiled bathroom, a record player with a collection of vinyl discs, & a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower but remember no TV.  (Pic)

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Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow’s feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.

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 Are you on the hunt for some completely unique personalized and superb gift for that special person on that special day? What say about gifting a wonderful retro jukebox? Check out the vintage AMI 200Jukebox.    

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Stick ‘em Where The Sun DOES Shine

Remember when the stamp became self-adhesive? It made stamp glue aftertaste a thing of the past. Well now technology is so advanced that even Solar Panel have been designed to be self-adhesive. That’s right! A peel and stick solar panel is now on the solar panel option list.

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David Byrne’s latest art project turns an entire building into a instrument:

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