One of my favorite blog posts of 2007 was the gallery of steampunk watches made by Haruo Suekichi, none of which were for sale. Now, Suekichi has teamed up with Chief magazine to sell two each of a Suekichi men's watch and Suekichi women's watch ($1200 and $800 respectively). Not cheap, but zomg, these are some beautiful timepieces. Link to men's watch, Link to women's watch See also: Artisanal steampunk watches of Japan

I'm skeptical about a "talking R2D2 ice bucket," but I'm utterly sold by the fact that it comes with a Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite ice-cube mold! Now that'd be a classy cocktail! Link (via OhGizmo)

Fred sez, "Nice article explaining how the end of analog TV in the U.S. in Feb. 2009 is going to unleash DRM troubles on a lot of unsuspecting consumers."

This is great for the studios, but it's not how the audience thinks (or should think) of their product. Paying for some form of content should directly connect to real received value: a performance of a movie in a theater. A DVD with additional commentary and deleted scenes. And yes, convenient on-demand availability, when appropriate. But too often, the "value" is based upon an indirect conspiracy to make it difficult or impossible to use the media you've already paid for, making the end result a tax on the technological have-nots.

Link (Thanks, Fred!) --

You know how the mobile carriers charge you a couple cents to SMS a few characters' worth of text over their network? When you add it up, you're paying about a zillion bucks a meg for that traffic -- seriously! A space scientist from Leicester has calculated that SMS data is four times more expensive than receiving data from the Hubble space telescope.

He worked out the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble – and compared that with the 5p cost of sending a text.

He said: “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.

“The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that's 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that's £374.49 per MB - or about 4.4 times more expensive than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs.”

Dr Bannister said it had been difficult to work out exactly how much Hubble data transmission costs. So he contacted NASA who gave him a firm figure of £8.85 per megabyte (MB) for the transmission of data from HST to the Earth.

Link (via Consumerist)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel spotted this gallery of modular data-centers built into shipping containers -- talk about two great tastes that taste great together. Hard to imagine a more iconic use of 21st century technologies:

Royal Pingdom has a few images from the inside of portable data centers, the sort used by Sun and Google to drop massive computing power anywhere they can send a shipping container. I would like to hang a hammock inside and make one my new nest.

Link, Discuss this post on Boing Boing Gadgets

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we saw mugshots of the dumbest thieves in New York State, foresaw the return of crappy Tiger-style LCD games, and played with a frightening WowWee Chatterbot. John converted a houseplant's meaningless biometric readings into—appropriately enough—twitter posts; Joel lost a few extra pounds on a novelty velocipede, and Rob donned a useless anti-cellphone radiation suit. JVC and Kenwood gazed lovingly into one another's eyes. We also looked at a GUI-based music video; a transparent Eee hardcase; a phone of little use to onanists; an iPod file squirter; a gallery of shipping containter data centers; a scammy fuel-injection gizmo that outsmarts at least one Florida NBC affiliate; and AT&T screwing its own customers. We learned about Japanese cigarette vending machines, the fears of Thai children, everything there is to know about bicycles, and how to turn corpses into a syrupy fecal sludge. Don't forget the adjustable hot sauce.

There were reviews, too, of Bruton's Solaris 52 solar and Solo 15 battery and Lenovo's x300 ultra-thin notebook. There's one thing we won't be reviewing any time soon, however: a portable gaming console from Apple.

Donya has shipped this four-port USB hub in the shape of the Emergency Exit ped -- I'm charmed by the little USB icon on his little briefcase (Hey! I thought you weren't supposed to try to take anything with you when you evacuated!). Looks like you'll have to go to Japan to buy one (for now). Link

Microsoft is aggressively pushing a new low-cost version of its operating system intended for use with "ultra low cost PCs," competing with Linux on machines like the Eee and the One Laptop Per Child XO. However, Microsoft isn't willing to sell the low-cost license to any ULPC -- rather, the company has set out onerous conditions governing the maximum spec of these machines: 10.2" screens and no more than 80GB of storage, and no touch screens allowed.

Microsoft is trying to distort the market for cheap, tiny laptops by setting up artificial incentives to manufacturers to limit the power and capability of their lowest-cost units -- even if a vendor can figure out how to put more storage, a bigger screen, or a touchscreen into its machines, Microsoft doesn't want it there, and they'll punish any vendor that tries by refusing to license XP Home Edition on the same preferential terms that lower-spec machines get.

The key term here ls "Ultra Low Cost" -- note that this is not the same as "Ultra Low Spec. The primary market for these super-cheap machines are kids and poor people, and they'll be the collateral damage in Microsoft's crusade. If Microsoft wants to set up a licensing program for low cost machines, then cost should be the limiting factor, not power.

But this isn't entirely bad news: at least this latest move provides incentive to vendors to continue to bundle GNU/Linux, not Windows, on their machines. After all, Linux isn't just cheap, it's free, and no one's going to slap you around for figuring out how to deliver more power and a better machine. Link

Imagine the fearful gnashings of mathematicians in November, 1928 upon reading this account of the USGS's new "brass brain," which could "do the work of 100 trained mathematicians" in calculating tides:

The machine weighs 2,500 pounds. It is 11 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 6 feet high. Its whirring cogs are enclosed in a housing of mahogany and glass.

Earthquakes, fresh-water floods, and strong winds that cannot be predicted affect the accuracy of the Brass Brain to a degree. Nevertheless 70% of the predicted tides agree within five minutes of the observed tide. The Coast and Geodetic Survey issues an annual bulletin in which it lists the forthcoming tides in 84 ports of the world. The report contains upwards of a million figures, all compiled by the Brass Brain. It has been estimated that the Brass Brain saves the government $125,000 each year in salaries of mathematicians who would be required to take its place.

Link

A German teenager built this elaborate casemod inspired by the first-person-shooter game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl -- it's a detailed model of the melted reactor at Chernobyl, complete with fanciful glowing stuff. It opens up to reveal the PC workings and the interiors of the reactor. Link

A lightbulb in a firehouse in Livermore, CA, has been burning continuously since 1901.

In 1901, when the tiny bulb was first screwed into place inside a so-called hose cart house, it cast its light on a simpler era.

Back then, horse-pulled carts carried water to fires. The bulb burned day and night, hanging at eye level from a 20-foot cord. Its job: to break the darkness so firefighters responding to calls wouldn't have to fumble to light the wicks of their kerosene lanterns. Manufactured by the Shelby Electric Co. of Shelby, Ohio, the bulb soon outlived its maker, which closed in 1914.

Later, in the main firehouse, it illuminated more modern rigs as horses were replaced by gas-fed engines.

It didn't always receive kid-glove treatment.

Climbing atop their engines, firefighters returning from World War II and Korea often would give the bulb a playful swat for good luck. The next generation -- the Vietnam veterans and the younger kids -- used it as a target for Nerf basketball practice.

Then, in 1972, a local reporter checked records and interviewed old-timers to trace its history. Firefighters suddenly realized they had a treasure.

"The good-luck slaps and target practice stopped," Bramell recalls. "We figured, 'Wow, maybe we should take care of this bulb.' "

Link

(Image: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Rob has spotted this handsomely crafted NES-themed Duck Hunt lamp -- now that's a conversation piece! Link, Discuss on Boing Boing Gadgets

As part of Manchester's Futuresonic 2008 conference, you can have your old CDs and DVDs "overwritten" with a vintage record cutter and converted to a 45RPM record:

Take part in a social music sharing event with a difference - in CD-Recycled 45rpm Aleks Kolkowski uses his vintage record cutter to 'overwrite' existing data and cut grooves on CDs/DVDs so they can be played on a turntable. Bring unwanted CDs/DVDs and a sound file and receive a recycled disc in return.

Link (via Gizmodo)

Using a sphere of ice (as opposed to a cube) in your whiskey-rocks is nice because the round ice melts more slowly than the square stuff (better surface-area/volume ratio). Now a Japanese company has introduced a mold for making a perfect, seamless ice-sphere:

Taisin has introduced a mold that seamlessly creates a perfect sphere, no chipping and shaving required. Simple place a chunk of ice into the metal press and, as it melts, the device will close around the ice forming a ball, which is then released by the flick of a switch.

The Ice Mold, available in 55, 65, 70, and 80mm mold sizes, can make 30-40 ice balls an hour.

Spheres of ice are preferred by serious on the rocks drinkers because the reduced surface size means that the ice melts at a slower pace, keeping your drink

Link (via Make)

A Chinese company is launching an independent GPS service with a secondary, encrypted signal that can be used (presumably) by the military. There's a couple interesting applications for this -- for example, you could spoof the unencrypted GPS and foil guerrillas or enemy fighters while your forces remained correctly geolocated. You could even locally spoof GPS signals to give persistently wrong info about the location of sensitive installations while ensuring that your own people had good location data. Of course, this all goes to pieces if the adversary has a second GPS keyed into a rival system like Galileo or the US system.

In presentations April 23 here at the Toulouse Space Show, these Chinese officials nonetheless said their global Compass/Beidou system would be fully compatible with the U.S. GPS, European Galileo and Russian Glonass global navigation constellations.

Like GPS, Galileo and Glonass, Beidou/Compass would be free of direct user charges but also feature an encrypted signal for authorized users only, presumably including the Chinese military.

Chengqi Ran, vice director of the China Satellite Navigation Project Center, said the secure Beidou/Compass signal would be "a highly reliable signal dedicated to complex situations."

Link (via /.)

I admit it: I have no idea what this "Full-Automatic Mahjong Table" actually does, but the name is pretty evocative. I have a vision of a million tiny magnets on servos in the bowels of the table that auto-drag the tiles into place.

Automatic Mahjong table adopts the working principle of electricity, light and magnetism, and it is controlled by microcomputer programs. It can effectively achieve the automatic shuffling and dealing of Poker tiles, and automatic dice tossing in a quick and fair way, with stable performance, long period of non-malfunction, and adding entertainment interests. It used two diffentely colors Mahjong Tiles with magnetic.

Link (via Cribcandy)

Love these Japanese bookcase animal silhouette dividers -- $15 each, give or take. Link (via Cribcandy)

This $8600, 1470 piece Craftsman toolset contains more pieces of precision metal than I could possibly use -- but it sure looks purdy all laid out there, doesn't it? Link (via Dvice)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our John spotted this vintage wrist-mounted scrolling map from 1927, an antediluvian wrist-mounted GPS:

At first glance, this 1927 map watch is pretty nifty: an antediluvian GPS, don't you know. It was called the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator, a name so clunky, unmemorable and artless that it even sounds like the name of a modern GPS device. The idea was simple: the Wooster-esque motorist would putter around England, scrolling a tiny paper map loaded in his wrist as he went with two black knobs. If you took a turn, you simple slid out one map and inserted another one and continued on your way.

What ho! Ingenious! Except a complete road map only cost a few pence back in 1927, where as this device would have set you back around 5 quid. And just like modern GPS map providers, the real business model was in selling you additional maps.

Which leaves the design. I quite like it: it's cheap, but whimsical and adventurous, like something you might strap on your wrist to traverse Oz.

Link, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson recently spent a week in the woods with a backpack full of electronics, to see if he could work on the internet in the wild using only solar power and his bare hands. This video reveals to the world, for the very first time, what happened to all those bears.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video.

These highly detailed, NYC-inspired cardboard dollhouses from Swedish company Our Children's Gorilla are really delightful. The insides are totally blank, "to be decorated to your heart's content" -- a great balance of blank canvas for imagination and artwork for inspiration. Link (via Babygadget)

Here's a nice little bauble: a tiny shim that sits between your phone's SIM and the phone, which unlocks the handset. Note the admirable use of the grocer's apo'strophe in the sell-copy -- a sure sign of daffy ingenuity.

This SIM unlock is made of a very thin piece of FPC (0.10mm) with a Microcontroller mounted on, that goes between your Operator's SIM card & the phone's SIM socket.

Because of it's very thin & slim design it fits into almost all phone's on the market and can also be easily removed again. It's got Gold Immersion and makes perfect contact with the card and the socket at ALL times.

Link (via Red Ferret)

The Critter Cruiser Race Car is a toy car powered by a hamster wheel -- for when your hamster gets tired of rolling around the house in his little ball. Link (via Gizmodo)

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we learned that Steve Ballmer kicks Steve Jobs's ass, that furry crocodiles prefer Amstrad, and that John is consorting with space prostitutes, sort of.

We toyed with a feeble-looking convergence gadget, a pair of spy sunglasses; a robot vacuum swarm; and a new batch of tiny motherboards. Seeing a rotating DIY screw-clock with electro-ocular implants, we found Peter Jensen's retrofuturistic Nixie Tube clocks; announced the winner of this weekend's Team Fortress 2 smackdown; praised Microsoft for donating 360s; and gawked over a vacuum-tube violin mod.

That's a lot of stuff to take back to the store. Let's hope we don't end up on a shady database of shoppers who issue chargebacks.

In this video, Flickr user Chriswoebken dissolves one of the London Underground's RFID-based Oyster cards with nail-polish remover, leaving behind nothing but the chip and its antenna -- and then gets on and off the tube using nothing but a flimsy bit of electronics, sometimes in his hand, sometimes taped to a sheet of paper.

I've been trying to come up with a good Oyster killing method since Transport for London made Oysters near-mandatory (you can't get a week-long pass without any Oyster anymore, and the buses are incredibly expensive if you don't pay by Oyster). In my ideal world, I'd pay cash for an Oyster card, use it for a couple weeks, trash it, and get a new one, so that there would be no long-term ride history for me on file.

Unfortunately, the ticket-agents have started to charge £3 for replacement Oyster cards, which I'm sure they'd waive if the card was malfunctioning. Microwaving the card leaves behind some unfortunate burn-marks.

The nice thing about this video is that it hints at the location of the RFID chip in the Oyster, which appears to be one of the corners. Anyone know which? Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

Max Knight built this working, rideable "Walking Bike" for a magazine shoot -- don't miss the video of the bike in action. Link (via Make)

Today on BoingBoing Gadgets, we reviewed a 3G USB modem that works great on Macs and high-end canine gear; listened to The Harmonium; drank a strictly-conforming European pint; watched Belkin try to bring novelty to the world of mouse pads; built an ornithopter and a difference engine; guzzled yoghurt with a specially-shaped spoon; and listened to a beautiful boombox in a double-bass fiddle.

Most of the afternoon, however, was spent setting up a server so y'all can play Team Fortress 2 over the weekend.

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, we boarded a binary kite and did turn-based battle with the world's first clamshell Blackberry. Japan got a steam-powered newspaper, nostril filters and pastel Eee PCs; China got a $12,000 CD player; and Kenya a domestic renewable energy business; Rob recorded it all on a DIY tape delay machine, while John ducked boomerangs in space.

In Sri Lanka, a mongoose unset us up the bomb; Pittsburgh plays with flesh-healing pixie dust; and here at home, hard drive crushers crushed drives hard.

International adventures done with, we announced the winners of the 1 kilobyte competition. Amazing stuff!