At this very moment I’m sitting in an Ottawa pub waiting for a friend and I’m eating some Thai Indian curry out of a bowl when I stumbled upon this absolutely incredible design for a bowl that will change the way all bowls are made from now on.
Use Plasti Dip to Fix Stripped Headphone Wires [Clever Uses]
There’s no reason to say goodbye to a good pair of headphones just because the wires are starting to separate from the headphone casing. With a dash of Plasti Dip, a small paintbrush, and a little time, you can seal up your headphone cables like new. More
Startup’s headset will bathe your brain in ultrasound, might help fight cancer, too
The scientific community has spent a decade exploring ultrasound as a means of breaking through the blood-brain barrier — a layer of tightly-packed cells that surround the brain‘s blood vessels, making it difficult for doctors to deliver chemotherapy and other treatments to cancer patients. Thus far, though, most ultrasound-based techniques have relied upon complex and often costly equipment, including MRI machines and infusion pumps. But researchers at a startup called Perfusion Technology think they may have come up with a less invasive, more cost-effective alternative — a new headset designed to deliver low-intensity ultrasound therapy to the entire brain over the course of extended treatment periods. This approach differs markedly from most other methods, which typically target smaller areas of the brain with high-intensity ultrasound doses. As with most other potential breakthroughs, however, Perfusion’s technique still needs to undergo some major testing. The company has already conducted several tests on animals, but the last time a similar method was tried on humans, many subjects ended up suffering from excessive bleeding. And that doesn’t sound good at all.
Startup’s headset will bathe your brain in ultrasound, might help fight cancer, too originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Pygmy Rabbits Reintroduced to the Wild
Ah, here’s a bit of wonderful news apt for Easter: rare pygmy rabbits have pulled back from the brink of extinction and are now being reintroduced back to to the wild:
First, captive-bred rabbits will be moved to a six-acre enclosure to develop the foraging and burrowing habits needed to survive in the wild while protected from hungry predators. Step by step, the rabbits will move to smaller enclosures while they adjust to the wild, with individual rabbits being released as they become acclimatised.
Newborns will be better-equipped to deal with the wild than their parents raised in captivity, so those pygmies that give birth in the enclosures will have their offspring released before they adapt to human interaction.
Paws’ crossed, the Columbia Basin will soon once more be home to a pile of mini-bunnies.
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Pygmy Rabbits Reintroduced to the Wild
The most disgusting flower in the world is about to bloom [Botany]
The amorphophallus titanum has perhaps the least charming nickname of any flower: it’s known as the corpse flower because it smells like rotting flesh. And yet its latest bloom this weekend is expected to bring over 10,000 eager admirers. More
PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day (update)
It started on a quiet Wednesday night, with PlayStation gamers finding their Network unresponsive to their login attempts, and now continues well into its third day. Sony has now finally shed some light on the problems it’s been having with PSN and, to nobody’s surprise, the culprit for its troubles has been identified as “an external intrusion.” The current downtime for PSN is the second of its kind this month, with the Anonymous group of online crusaders claiming responsibility for the first. Sony now intends to keep both PSN and its Qriocity music streaming service offline until it can pinpoint the vulnerability that has been exploited and put a stop to it. Skip past the break for the company’s full statement.
Update: The PlayStation Blog has added an update to their US website this evening that suggests the service disruption may not be over soon — according to Sony’s Patrick Seybold, the company is “rebuilding our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure,” and working non-stop to do so.
[Thanks, Christian and Joe]
PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Could the iPhone 5 look like a beveled iPod touch?
See that up there? That could be your next iPhone — or it could be a tear-shaped dream. It’s a mock-up of what is said to be the iPhone 5, according to anonymous sources quoted by Joshua Topolsky. A continuation of the concepts laid out in our post-CES look at what’s next for Apple, the design here is said to be thin, metal-backed, tapered, and sporting a 3.7-inch display with the same 960 x 640 resolution in the iPhone 4’s retina display — resulting in a slight drop from that phone’s vaunted 326ppi density. The home button is quite obviously enlarged, possibly adding some thumbable gestures into the mix. Internals are said to include a “swipable” area, possibly meaning NFC, along with a Qualcomm Gobi chipset with support for CDMA and GSM, so this could be the one phone to rule all the carriers. Or, it might wind up only ever having domain over a single .PSD file. To us, well, it looks a little too thin to be packing all that and a bag of antennas as suggested and, with all the weight at the top, we can see this things flying out of hands left and right. But, we’re certainly willing to be surprised. Place your bets in comments below.
Update: The source has been updated with a note indicating that the bevel may be “a little exaggerated” in the above mock-up and that the back may not be metal after all.
Could the iPhone 5 look like a beveled iPod touch? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
FlyNano plane is super-light, pretty cheap, a little scary
Since the dawn of time, man has dreamed of soaring through the clouds, without invasive TSA security checks and having the guy next to him fall asleep on his shoulder, drooling. FlyNano debuted three new planes at last week's Aero 2011 show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, which it hopes will deliver that very dream. Thanks to a composite carbon fiber bodies and a sub-44 pound drive trains, each weighs less than 154 pounds, hitting the FAA definition for an ultralight vehicle and forgoing the need for a pilot's license. But, while the company is pitching these electric-powered propeller vehicles as flyable straight out of the box, the things are still subject to FAA regulations, so don't expect to go joyriding near a major airport anytime soon — and then there's the “theoretical operational distance” of 40 miles to contend with. Pricing ranges from €25,000 to €27,000 ($36,380 to $39,290) and the company claims that they'll start shipping in three months, plenty of time to get your life insurance premiums paid up.
[Thanks, Jani]
Continue reading FlyNano plane is super-light, pretty cheap, a little scary
FlyNano plane is super-light, pretty cheap, a little scary originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 07:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day
It started on a quiet Wednesday night, with PlayStation gamers finding their Network unresponsive to their login attempts, and now continues well into its third day. Sony has now finally shed some light on the problems it’s been having with PSN and, to nobody’s surprise, the culprit for its troubles has been identified as “an external intrusion.” The current downtime for PSN is the second of its kind this month, with the Anonymous group of online crusaders claiming responsibility for the first. Sony now intends to keep both PSN and its Qriocity music streaming service offline until it can pinpoint the vulnerability that has been exploited and put a stop to it. Skip past the break for the company’s full statement.
[Thanks, Christian]
Continue reading PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day
PlayStation Network outage caused by ‘external intrusion,’ continues for third day originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Atomic Gardens, the Biotechnology of the Past, Can Teach Lessons About the Future of Farming [Republished]
One look at the wedge-shaped rows of plants and anyone could tell the circular garden was not grown under normal conditions. Plants sown in concentric circles displayed wildly different vitality and viability. More