whencanistop writes "Given that the new James Bond film is just about to be released, this is quite a nice summary of James Bond gadgets from past films. Tomorrow Never Dies was on telly last night and I was commenting on how the mobile phone that controlled the BMW was awesome, why they haven't done it in real life is beyond me (although there would probably be a few accidents if they ever did). Ridiculous to think that in 1963 the gadget of choice for Bond was a pager though." Of course, the best gadget in the Bond universe wasn't even 007's ... Jaws' teeth were the envy of every kid with braces.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The NY Times reports that H211 LLC, a company controlled by Google's top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added to its fleet a Dornier Alpha Jet, a light jet attack and advanced trainer aircraft manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France. The 1982 Alpha-Jet seats two and was originally used by European air forces, but is now being sold relatively cheaply to civilians. The jet has landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA-operated airfield that is a stone's throw from the Google campus. It is not clear who exactly flies the fighter jet, although Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is an avid pilot. If the top Googlers indeed own the fighter jet, they would be following in the footsteps of Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, who has owned several aircraft, including fighter jets."

Smivs notes a BBC report on a British team planning a 1000-mph record-breaking car. The previous land-speed record broke the sound barrier. The proposed vehicle will get from 0 to 1,050 mph in 40 seconds. "RAF pilot Andy Green made history in 1997 when he drove the Thrust SSC jet-powered vehicle at 763 mph (1,228 km/h). Now he intends to get behind the wheel of a car that is capable of reaching 1,000 mph (1,610 km/h). Known as Bloodhound, the new car will be powered by a rocket bolted to a Typhoon-Eurofighter jet engine. The team-members have been working on the concept for the past 18 months and expect to be ready to make their new record attempt in 2011."

arcticstoat writes "If you've played Bioshock, you'll know it can be a tough choice deciding whether you're going to kill the cute (yet evil looking) Little Sisters and extract their ADAM, or let them live. Your choice even affects whether you're given one of three possible endings of the game, and their story will now continue to be told in the sequel. 2K Games has just released a trailer for the new game, showing what appears to be a grown up Little Sister, still clutching a toy, while the city structure of Rapture springs up around her. No gameplay is shown, but it does give a hint as to what the game will be about, and it looks as though the game may take you onto dry land." Gamespot initially confirmed the trailer's authenticity after it was leaked last week. A representative from 2K Games also mentioned Bioshock 2 was "destined for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC platforms."

sneakyimp writes "My brother is an architect and sculptor and wants to create kinetic sculptures powered by wind, steam, and sun. He wants to avoid electrical systems and keep this mechanical. He's prepared to cast metals for custom parts if necessary, but is hoping to find a cheap source of gears, axles, and bearings for the internal mechanical workings of these contraptions. We'll need things like miter/bevel/spur/helical gears, standard and thrust bearings, and axles." Read on below for more on the details of what sneakyimp is looking for — dismembered Capsela units won't do it.

We discussed Terrafugia's plans for what they don't like to call a "flying car" — rather a "roadable aircraft" — last spring. The Boston Globe has an update on Massachusetts-based Terrafugia and its fight to get airborne in these parlous times. "The last serious attempt to bring a car-airplane hybrid to market was the Aerocar, in 1949. According to Carl Dietrich, chief executive of Terrafugia, that company built six prototypes. It needed 500 orders in order to gear up for mass production, but it never got there... 'It can be hard to explain the value of this to non-pilots,' Dietrich says, 'but when you're a pilot, the problems of high costs, limited mobility on the ground, and weather sensitivity are in your face, all the time.' The company says more than 50 of the vehicles have been pre-ordered. The target price is $198,000."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Flower robots are not new, and some have already been developed in the US. Now, South Korean researchers have created a robotic plant which acts like real ones. This robot has humidifying, oxygen-producing, aroma-emitting, and kinetic functions. It is about 1.30 meters tall and 40 centimeters in diameter. The robotic plant can interact with people when they approach, and it can 'dance' when music is played. The researchers don't say when a commercial version of their flowers will come to the market. They also don't mention a retail price."

rsk writes "Justin Voskuhl, a Google engineer, in a 2-fold bid to fight boredom and figure out something to cover a large barren wall in his living room, one weekend developed a Java program using an annealing algorithm to figure out the best layout and colors of Lego blocks to reproduce a source image exclusively in Lego blocks inside a frame. He plans to release the source code soon. I probably would have just painted the wall ..."

JP Aerospace is offering customers a chance to launch anything into space, from coffee beans to their favorite toy. I'm not sure why anyone would choose coffee or toys, instead of bills or the neighbor's dog that won't stop barking, but enough people must ask, because the company includes them on the list. They will also launch advertising billboards and take pictures of them high above the earth, which seems like a more viable business model. John Powell, President of JP Aerospace, said, "Companies are looking for ways to get above the over crowded field of advertisements. There are a lot of race cars and basketball stars out there, but, not too many spaceships, they get noticed. The field is wide open."

An anonymous reader writes "Popsci.com has a writeup on 3M's new pocket projector, the 3M MPro 110, set to launch on September 30. 'In a dark room, it could project a big enough image to be the ultimate cheap-o home theater. The projector will sell for a mere $359. It doesn't have a speaker, so you'll have to get that separately. But really, how good could a microscopic speaker jammed into this thing sound, anyway?'"

An anonymous reader writes "The Windows Vista SideShow technology shows some promise. But what about Linux devices that can present snippets of information independent of the main display? Here's a review of the picoLCD-4x20, a relatively inexpensive USB device ($50) that supports both SideShow on Vista and LCDproc on Linux."

mr_sifter writes "After three years of research and around £100,000 of R&D costs, UK-based Armari has unveiled its XCP prototype. It's a full immersion liquid cooled PC which supports standard ATX components. Unlike conventional liquid cooled PCs, the components are all easy to swap in and out as they're swimming in liquid, rather than under waterblocks. It also looks amazing, pumping around 70KG of electrically inert cooling fluid (salvaged from an old Cray) around its military grade perspex shell."

legoman666 writes "On my desk I have chargers for the following gadgets: Nokia N810, LG Chocolate, Sony Ericcson Z310a, Canon Powershot SD1000, Cowan iAudio X5L, Lenovo Thinkpad, Logitech MX1000 and my Nintendo DS. Not a single pair of them share a similar connector. I have two power strips whose singular purpose is to energize these chargers. My question to Slashdot is: How do you organize all of your different chargers? Please, share your secrets."

clikit writes "Today, the Lego Minifig turns 30 years old. Gizmodo is running a video contest with Lego, giving away Galaxy Explorer or the Yellow Castle sets and other unopened vintage sets. They also have an exclusive video from the factory, showing how the minifig is built. Check it out ... finding out how the little guys are made will make you smile." Scientists estimate that 98% of the minifigs created in the last three decades have lost a hand in a tragic vacuum accident, been melted by a magnifying glass, or been eaten by your dog.

Cycon writes "Google has announced, 'We're releasing a beta SDK. You can read about the new Android 0.9 SDK beta at the Android Developers' Site, or if you want to get straight to the bits, you can visit the download page.' A new Development Roadmap has also been released to help developers understand the direction the software is taking (as this is still only a Beta release). In addition, the FCC has approved the HTC Dream, and it is believed Google and T-Mobile will launch the phone in the US on November 10, since a confidentiality request attached to the application asks the FCC to keep details secret until that date."

jedie noted an impressive rendering of the Beijing Olympics in Lego. Featuring 300,000 bricks, and 4,500 Lego people, it was built by the Hong Kong Lego User Group. Yes that exists. Amazing. I'm pretty sure that the lighting inside the water cube was not made using stock legos. At least, none in my giant cardboard box.

You asked Cliff Schmidt, founder and executive director of Literacy Bridge, about charity, education, and the "talking book", and he has answered your questions with a fair amount of detail. Cliff asks that if you are interested in getting involved please don't hesitate to donate either your time or your hard earned cash.

An anonymous reader writes "George Lucas CGI 'Clone Wars' movie has premiered to reviews ranging from MSNBC's 'Ugly animation and an uninspired storyline drag down the film' to AintItCool's 'I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.' Critics have noted the animation style, music and slapstick humor had more than a passing similarity to Pixar's Toy Story, and wondered if the introduction of new action figures (sorry, characters) like Baby Jabba Hutt and Jabba the Hutt's Gay Uncle may have taken the franchise a bridge too far. Lucas responding by enforcing an embargo, forcing the reviews to be taken down. While sites like AintItCool.com responded, by then it was just a little too late. Still, the CGI eye candy will make it popular with kids. If the 'Clone Wars' movie can't save the galaxy, can it at least save the franchise?"

Engadget has pointed out a small band of people even we can consider nerdy that decided to cut loose and demo CERN's fancy new toy, the Large Hadron Collider. The resulting music video is certainly enough to "rock you in the head," and maybe even enough to cause a rip in space-time. Between Alpinekat and Dr Spatzo, I think my iPod just got a new entry.

Barence and other readers sent along word of a demonstration by Obscura Digital of a new technology it's dubbed a multi-touch hologram — reminiscent of the display in Minority Report. The demonstration shows a man interacting with holographic images projected before him, moving them around and resizing them. It's only sort of like the Minority Report display, which used hand movements to control elements on a screen. Earlier, Obscura had demoed another take on the Spielbergian technology, a multi-touch wall.