- io9
“The Man From Earth” Rules
Indie movie The Man From Earth has become a direct-to-DVD hit, boosting its IMDB movie-meter ranking from 11,235 to #6. The Man From Earth is now at #14 on the list of the top science fiction movies of all time, and it’s all thanks to people pirating the movie and sharing it online, says the … Continued
By Charliejane - Tech News
Jetpack with a 10 Mile Range Available Soon for $226,000
Jetpacks, the invention we’ve all been waiting to become a reality for as long as we can remember (along with flying cars and teleporters), are pretty much a reality at this point. While a few months ago the only two commercially available jetpacks had paltry flying times of about 30 seconds, Jet Pack International is … Continued
By Adam Frucci - Tech News
Fünde Razor Brings Beer, Games and Prizes to Denver and Brooklyn Tonight
A friendly reminder for those of you near Brooklyn or Denver: Fünde Razor is tonight. So rather than drink and play video games by yourself like you normally do, be a little less pathetic and drink and play video games with some new friends. There are prizes, too! And it’s for a good cause! Who … Continued
By Adam Frucci - Tech NewsAmazon
Buy One Get One HD DVDs at Amazon
On top of the still running “please go HD, we’ll give you 10 free HD DVDs” deal, Amazon’s got a buy one, get one special up now too. Some winners from the 58 flick-long list include Letters From Iwo Jima, The Departed, and Happy Feet. Mix those deals up with a cheap HD DVD player, … Continued
- io9
A Little Polyethylene Aluminum Bling for Your Neck
This is a prototype “air necklace” from Kyouei Design, a Japanese design firm that also created balloon lights and a soup dish that looks like a mountain range from the side. Made of silvery polyethylene aluminum, a common material in lightweight industrial pipes, the necklace comes deflated. Just blow it up, slip it on, and … Continued
- io9
Joss Whedon and Ron Moore Pencilbath
Here’s a video showing Buffy / Firefly creator Joss Whedon and Battlestar Galactica remaker Ronald D. Moore dumping half a million pencils into a box that’s being sent to Hollywood fatcats to help illustrate the writer’s strike. Here’s an idea: let’s cut down the entire forest and ship reams of blank white paper to ’em! … Continued
By Kevin Kelly - Tech News
TryPhone Lets You Sample Cellphone UI Without Buying
Curious about how that new phone works? Check out tryphone.com, the site that takes screenshots of just about possible screen and ties it to button presses on the virtual keyboard. In the case of the iPhone, you get to feel what it’s like to press all the buttons, but you won’t be able to do … Continued
By Jason Chen - Tech News
Afternoon News: Robo-Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy and Some Other Stuff
• Traffic camera in Capitola, California is way too sensitive, issues tickets to innocent drivers 60% of the time. Makes sense to me, the only California drivers I’ve ever seen aren’t much for speeding. [Ubergizmo] • UPS using software to minimize left-hand turns in their deliveries, claims it will save three million gallons of gas … Continued
- Tech NewsGadgets
GX-5 Xtreme Swing Drops You From 150 Feet Up at 80MPH
The GX-5 Xtreme Swing (dropping the E makes it that much more Xtreme) ain’t your pappy’s backyard swing. Flinging passengers at speeds of upwards of 80MPH from heights of almost 150 feet in the air, it looks to be a supremely terrifying and fun experience. Unfortunately for us, it’s only located in Singapore and New … Continued
By Adam Frucci - io9
Watch the New Alien Totally Cremate a Whole Ship Full of Predators
A Predalien, the new Predator/Alien hybrid, takes out a whole ship full of Predators in the opening minutes of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Also, the Strause brothers, the directors, revealed they want to make a third AVP movie, which would be a prequel to the first Alien movie. Sadly, after our action-packed opening, AVP-R shifts … Continued
By Charliejane - Tech News
Ice Cream Company Gives Away 10,000 Frozen iPods Inside Popsicles
Click to viewAfter decades of popsicle promotions that included prizes printed on the stick, Brazilian ice-cream company Kibon has taken it to a new level by including the actual prize inside the popsicle: they will manufacture 10,000 specially made propsicles, identical in size and color to the actual thing, frozen with iPod shuffles inside. We … Continued
By Jesus Diaz - Tech NewsGadgets
Color-Changing Shower Head Protects Your Junk from Scalding
Temperature-detecting faucets have been available here for a while, but the same concept for shower heads has been mostly a Japanese-only affair. Imagine our surprise when we found these shower heads from China, which have four different shades to correspond to different temperatures: white for “I need to pay my utilities,” blue for “damn it, … Continued
By Jason Chen - io9Movies
The Seven Best Torture Porn Scenes in SciFi
Nothing warms the hearts and soothes the soul at holiday time like a hot laser slicing through your pain receptors. That’s why we put together this list of the top seven torture scenes from science fiction, including one that spawned one of the lamest action figures in the world. (We didn’t include the Star Wars … Continued
By Kevin Kelly - Tech News
Terminator Home Theater Looks Tacky, Probably Sounds Great
We probably shouldn’t judge anyone’s home theater builds when our own looks like it was built by a seeing eye dog that had to retire because he himself went blind, but this Terminator home theater system seems kind of tacky. Electronic House has the details on the owner, who built it “with no knowledge of … Continued
By Jason Chen - io9
Maori Art Conquers Space
An artist will create in zero gravity for the first time in 2009. New Zealand’s Makoure Scott won a spot on the Virgin Galactic’s first flight by submitting a portfolio of his Maori-influenced work (and by paying $200,000.) Scott’s work messes around with geometric shapes, as in this sculpture, exhibited in 2006. [Spaceport News]
By Charliejane - Reviews
Chubby Casually Racist Harry Potter Look-Alike Reviews OLPC XO Laptop
While American children aren’t so enthralled with the XO Laptop, it quite strikes the fancy of this chubby 8-year-old British boy with a squealing, girly giggle. Not only does it all do all of the things a regular computer can do, you can “chat to other people over in Nigeria.” See, his dad brought it … Continued
- io9
Artic Ice Will Melt Entirely in Summer 2013
BBC News is reporting on a disturbing study presented this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting that shows the polar ice sheet is melting more quickly than anyone imagined. This past summer, the sheet retreated to a size of 4.13 million sq kilometers, the smallest in recorded history. You can see a flash animation … Continued
- Tech NewsSamsung
Samsung, Please Show Off Your 40-Inch OLED Display at CES
Old, busted and tiny: Sony’s 11-inch OLED display. New hotness: Samsung’s 40-inch OLED display, the largest in the world. Previous reports held they were showing this monstrosity off at CES, but the latest has Samsung saying they might hose us with a punier 31-inch model because “the bigger and pricey one could face difficulty in … Continued
- io9
3D Map of the Milky Way Reveals Billowing Hydrogen Light Clouds
This is part of the first 3D map of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Over 200 thousand objects are included in the map, which was made up of images from a telescope in the Canary Islands that took hydrogen emission-sensitive pictures of the night sky. The result is that the brighter areas show “hotter” … Continued
- Tech News
Canon PowerShot and VAIO Notebook Are Highlights of Holiday Deals From Newegg
Newegg has a bunch of deals on cameras, notebooks, and more just in time to miss Hannukah (Thanks a lot, Newegg!). For those of you who celebrate that other holiday, or just expect presents in the winter, here are some of the better ones: • Canon PowerShot SD870 IS: $295 • Canon PowerShot S5 IS: … Continued