I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a multi-billion dollar company at my disposal to cook up awesome crime fighting gadgets like Batman (warning! spoiler ahead!) aka Bruce Wayne does. So I have to rely on the tools available at my local Home Depot, which quite frankly, just aren’t as awesome. Take Batman’s grappling hook for example. His version is small, lightweight and easy to carry on his utility belt. But the best solution you’ll find at your local hardware store is the PullzAll from Warn.
It’s no where near as compact and subtle as Batman’s device, but it seems just as capable, if not more so. There are two versions available, an AC powered model and a DC powered model, and I suggest the latter with its rechargeable 24V battery if you’re looking to become a vigilante. At 18lbs you’ll want to make sure you’re wearing a reinforced belt if you intend to carry it that way, but the device is capable of pulling or lifting up to 1,000lbs with its variable speed motor, so you should easily be able to hoist yourself up to the rafters of a warehouse for a dramatic escape.
$479.99 from the Warn website for the DC model, and $279.99 for the AC model.
Since the dawn of time man has had to make the difficult and agonizing choice of playing with an RC car or an RC helicopter. And while many great minds from philosophers to engineers have racked their brains trying to find a resolution to this problem, it was a toy company that seems to have come up with a happy medium allowing us to finally enjoy both at the same time.
The Silverlit Heli-Mission SWAT Truck is a fully functional RC car that includes sirens and flashing lights, but the real star of the show is the cargo bay which opens to reveal one of the company’s micro helicopters hidden inside. The launch platform even rises allowing the whirlybird to take off so you can continue your imaginary police pursuit from the air.
The Heli-Mission SWAT Truck should be available sometime in July for about $100, and I have to assume the included remote does double-duty for controlling both the helicopter and the truck.
Electromagnets can be used by people with too much time and electrical knowledge to crush cans, but the truly ambitious can (briefly) harness a magnetic field to shrink a quarter to about half its original size. The principle is kinda simple, really… A big capacitor sends a surge of electricity into a coil around a quarter. This creates a magnetic field in the coil, and also in the quarter, but the field in the quarter has the opposite polarity. The quarter tries to get away from the coil, but having nowhere to go, shrinks inward as the magnetic field strength exceeds the strength of the metal. The coil, on the other hand, explodes outward at mach 2. The process takes between 30 and 40 microseconds, meaning that the edges of the quarter shrink inward at about 400 mph.
This particular experiment was done by Hackerbot Labs, and Intellectual Ventures has more pics and video at the link below.
We’ve been waiting for over two years now, but the Alien Abduction lamp is finally almost ready for production. The picture above is the final prototype; the production version of the lamp should be virtually identical, glow in the dark aliens and all.
The UFO itself is very solid and cast in metal with a beautiful black pearl finish (you can’t really see how nice the finish is in this otherwise great photo). The antenna functions as the on off switch, and it also has a third position for pulsing light. And of course it comes complete with glow-in-the-dark aliens, real fake grass and a poor removable bovine abductee!
The biggest difference I see from the original rendering is that the cow is no longer suspended beneath the UFO. I really liked that touch, and thought it added a lot of character. I can see how it might be hard to realize in a production lamp, but maybe it could be rigged up anyway with a bit of fishing line or something.
There’s no release date or price yet, but you can sign up to have the opportunity to purchase one of the first 2000 Abduction Lamps in a special limited edition run at AbductionLamp.com.
I don’t know what possessed François Knorreck to create the Snaefell, a handcrafted motorcycle/sports car hybrid, but the results are like a terrible traffic accident gone right. The motorcycle part of the Snaefell is based on a Laverda, while the sidecar is a mashup of a Volkswagen GTI, an Audi 80 and a Citroen Xantia. Overall the creation cost about $21,000+ to build, but what’s more impressive is that it took François 10 years and over 10,000 hours to make it a reality! Congratulations?
For some reason dirty laundry manages to avoid my obsessive desire for organization and tidiness, so it just piles up in a corner until laundry day rolls around. But instead of being an eyesore, this clever cushionless stool known as Todd puts your dirty clothes to good use.
Created by llot llov, the metal frame stool really only becomes usable once you’ve piled a few dirty garments on top, making it comfortable to sit on. And depending on the size of your wardrobe, the Todd stool can even provide a different seating experience or color palette on a week-to-week basis. Sadly though, it’s not available for sale.
We talked earlier about pricing for Windows 7 now that its launch is getting closer. The OS will debut in October, which is only months away. Many are expecting great things out of Windows 7 and it better deliver where Vista failed.
Microsoft says that anyone who buys a Vista equipped PC starting on June 26 will be eligible for an upgrade to Windows 7 for free. The catch is that only certain versions of Vista are eligible for upgrade. That means if you buy a cheap computer running Vista Basic, you get no upgrade.
HTC makes some of the most desirable smartphones on the market. In fact, it was the company that made the first Android-powered smartphone to hit the U.S. market — the T-mobile G1. HTC had an event this week where it introduced its Hero smartphone and now it has unveiled another phone bound for the States.
Verizon Wireless will be getting the HTC Ozone smartphone. The easy to use smartphone has a bargain price of $49.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate and new contract. Features of the phone include a QWERTY keyboard and multiple connectivity options.
Back in January, we (and the rest of the internet) posted about LightLane, a concept device that uses lasers to project a virtual bike lane to help keep cars from squishing you flat. Understandably, it was a popular idea with bicyclists everywhere, and the designers have managed to put together a working beta version. As you can see in the video, it works quite well, even in car headlights:
Does this mean it’s going to end up in production? Hopefully yes, since it’s now in “beta phase development,” although there are no details on when it might be available or how much it might end up costing. We’ll keep you updated.
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