By Evan Ackerman

Those damn squirrels. Every time they eat a nut, they keep a tree from growing, which is pretty much exactly the same as cutting down a tree with a chainsaw, setting fire to it, and then injecting the ashes directly into the ozone layer. So, it’s good to see that the old fashioned nut-powered squirrel has been replaced with a much more eco-friendly version that runs on solar power. Just stick him outside somewhere that gets sun during the day, and at night, you’ll have yourself a glowing squirrel. And having a glowing squirrel is very, very important, for a truly marvelous reason which this margin is too narrow to contain.

The Solar Illuminated Squirrel is $55.

[ Eco-Lights ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we fired things up with a little dragon robot that finds fires and puffs them out, wished we lived in Japan so that we could buy ourselves a $4200 exoskeleton that boosts your strength 10x, watched an adorable video about strangers helping little cardboard robots on the streets of New York, found that coffee tastes better when served on an R2-D2 coffee table, saw a prototype stair climbing robot from iRobot, watch a robot that communicates with just a pair of eyes, read an interview with iRobot founder Colin Angle where he discusses the future of military and home robotics, decided we’d better stay away from a sniper rifle mounted on a robot helicopter, learned what happened to a PackBot named Scooby Doo in Iraq, saw some awesome little “Sprawl” bots from Stanford, and finished up the week with a video of BigDog frolicking on a beach in Thailand.

This week, we’ve already started out with a giant robot beetle, got some information on the new Mech Warfare division at RoboGames, liked a little crab robot kit, and got introduced to a SquishBot concept from iRobot as well as a Robosnail from MIT.

Last week’s Bot With Stuff, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

You can look all you want, but I promise you you’re not going to find this model Saturn V rocket in the Estes catalog. That’s because it was custom designed and built by Steve Eves who hopes to enter the record books for flying the largest model rocket in history. At 36+ feet tall and weighing in at over 1,600 pounds, the mini-Saturn V is powered by nine rocket motors including 8 13,000ns N-Class motors and a single 77,000ns P-Class motor. When I messed around with model rockets as a kid, the largest motors I could get my hands on were D-sized, and I always wondered just how high in the alphabet rocket motors actually went.

The single stage flight should reach an altitude somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 feet, and at apogee the rocket will separate into three parts and return to Earth via the assistance of various parachutes. In the end Eves estimates he’s invested about 1,500 hours into the project with a total budget of around $25,000, though that will actually be covered by various sponsors come the April 25th launch event. (Weather permitting.)

[ Rocketry Planet - One man's quest to honor America's Saturn V rocket ] VIA [ Slashdot ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Today Fujitsu Laboratories announced a couple of new technologies that should help prevent data stored on a USB flash drive from ending up in the wrong hands. The first is the secure USB memory device prototype pictured above that may have been inspired by a piece of Babybel cheese. It works like your standard USB flash drive, but it’s got a processor and battery on-board that can be used to automatically erase the data after a specified amount of time, or if the flash drive is plugged into an unregistered computer.

The second development is a file redirect technology that can prevent files on a USB flash drive from being saved to another computer, or uploaded to an unapproved server. I’m not exactly sure how that technology is designed to work, since the Fujitsu press release is a little vague on the details, but the goal is to prevent confidential files from being emailed outside the office, or even printed.

[ PR - Fujitsu Develops Secure USB Memory Device Featuring Automatic Data-Erase Function ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not actually powered by steam in any way, and according to the creator ‘bdring‘ it can’t really turn very well, but if you’ve been looking for an extremely cheap DIY alternative to the Segway, head on over to Instructables where you’ll find everything you need to build your very own Legway. It’s even eco-friendly since there’s no emissions (unless you count sweat) and the original model pictured above was constructed from mostly found materials.

[ Instructables - Steampunk Segway (Legway) ] VIA [ MAKE: Blog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While the CellScope looks like a monstrous cameraphone zoom lens that you could only order from a website like Brando, it’s actually a clinical-quality microscope with a magnification of 5-50X. It was designed by Daniel Fletcher, the associate professor of bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and the goal of the CellScope is to bring modern diagnostic testing to remote areas who don’t have access to a lab or facilities with the proper equipment.

And because the CellScope is designed to be used with devices like cellphones and even camera equipped netbooks & laptops, it allows images captured by health care workers to be sent to larger medical centers for detailed examination by experts. The hope is that the CellScope will be used to more effectively diagnose diseases in rural areas to not only save lives, but also serve as an early warning for possible epidemics.

[ Telemicroscopy for Disease Diagnosis ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Shane McGlaun

I never pre-order video games; I don’t like having to pay full price for something that I can’t walk out of the store with. I bet there are many gamers out there who agree with me on that. Perhaps if the pre-order didn’t require me to pay up front I would reserve games.

Target has announced a new game reservation program that lets gamers reserve coming video games for only $1. For the buck, you get a card that looks like a gift card with the game logo on the front. Once the game comes in you pay the retail price and Target gives you a $5 gift card.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Shane McGlaun

When the Sidekick first launched long ago, I thought it looked really cool and wanted one. Then I found out that the T-Mobile network really sucked outside most large cities and decided to make do with the then cool Motorola Razr. Those of you who can actually access a T-Mobile network may be glad to hear there is a new Sidekick in town.

T-Mobile has unveiled the Sidekick LX calling it the first 3G Sidekick ever. The handset is aimed at the social network crowd and includes a software bundle for Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. The phone comes in two colors — orchid and carbon. Orchid looks more like maroon to me and the carbon is just a fancy name for plain black.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net

We all know that the 360 is prone to failure. I think that collectively we have had to send in our units a total of 5 times here at GamerFront. Luckily they have all been covered under the extended warranty. But when you have a failure that isn’t covered, what exactly do you do with that old broken console? Sure, you could keep it for spare parts, but what’s the fun in that? A better option would be to mod it into something useful like this guy did.

When you think about it, a bricked 360 makes a perfect arcade stick housing. Physically, it looks good and is plenty durable enough for you. Then of course you have the irony factor that you’re using a $200 machine as an arcade stick. Kudos to Seppun for this kick-ass mod.

[ TechEBlog ] VIA [ GamerFront ]