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I really like the look of the Guppie multitool, which turns a carabiner into a multidriver, adjustable wrench and utility knife (there's even a pocket-clip that doubles as a money-clip if you want to carry it in a front pocket). Hell, it's even got a flashlight! And a bottle opener! I haven't tried it (I've been scared off of carrying anything with a blade by the fear that it could be used as a pretence for some Orwellian shakedown if I'm stopped by the cops here in London), but I want it.

but how do you cut the guy hanging off you's line when the knife is on your carabiner?

You don't cut him off--you shoot him with your class 7 plasma rifle.

Tub-E bathtub adds automation and style to your bathing ritual Does anyone still take baths these days? While the speed and efficiency of a quick shower is hard to beat, there is something to be said for a long soothing hot soak in the tub. I'm just not sure I'd want to do it in the Tub-E. Looking like a triumph of form over function, the undeniably cool looking Tub-E includes several high tech functions to make your bath time a bit more luxurious. A thermostatically controlled heater under the seat keeps the water at a constant temperature, so you won't be adding hot water to reheat the water every few minutes. Add to that its auto fill, auto empty, and auto clean cycles, plus the ability to inject various bath oils during the fill process, and you certainly have a few improvements over the centuries old basic tub. My main issue is that it just looks incredibly uncomfortable. The Tub-E is available from Wild Terrain Designs. No word on the price."

Movies in 3-D are becoming such big moneymakers that Hollywood studios are cramming them into the nation's theaters, even though there aren't enough screens available to give each film its fullest possible run. That will mean an unprecedented number of 3-D movies for film fans to choose from this spring, and smaller profits for Hollywood studios than they might otherwise get with fewer 3-D competitors.

"LG does more than just manufacture gadgetry - it sponsored the "Life's Good" FilmFest, a filmmaking contest with the goal of showing off the company's HDTVs. This masterpiece, entitled Nuit Blanche (White Night) by director Arev Manoukian, won the contest's $100,000 grand prize, announced January 28, 2010. After you've savored this exquisite work of art, if you want to ruin the illusion by finding out how this surreal world was created, click through for a demonstration of the technology behind its making. Keep in mind, though - all the technology in the world is no substitute for talent."

"It was 1993 and I had just decided to drop out of college. I was a graphic design major in a great art school but decided I want to start my second company. Knowing this would mark the conclusion of my studies there I set out to create my final project. I would write a short story, design and produce it in print. I put out an edition of 300 and gave it to my friends and people who inspired me like author William Gibson. Cut to November, 2009, when I returned from sitting on a panel at the second Realtime CrunchUp. I had urged the audience and participants that when thinking about the realtime web we should not consider the challenge through the lens of how consumers behave today. I argued that the future potential of the realtime web is not in the misnomer "realtime search," as the consumption of this signal will predominantly be in what I call ambient streams. These are streams of information bubbling up in realtime, which seek us out, surround us, and inform us. They are like a fireplace bathing us in ambient infoheat. I believe that users will not go to a page and type in a search in a search box. Rather the information will appear to them in an ambient way on a range of devices and through different experiences. A few days after I got back from the CrunchUp, I was organizing some old documents when I stumbled on I Was Just Dead< , a cyberpunk short story I wrote 16 years ago. A story about a world of augmented reality. A world where at birth a chip is embedded in people's brains creating a reality where they no longer discern what is "real" and what is augmented in their surroundings (Hear the audio-book or download the free eBook below). It was strange to hear my former self calling out about the importance of augmented reality from across the span of almost two decades of experiences in the digital world, half of which were spent solving the problem of how to filter the massive realtime stream."

"Nathan Shedroff spoke to Vicky Teinaki about the difference between businesspeople and designers, his upcoming foray into sci-fi, and what designers wanting to get involved in sustainability can do. Shedroff is a leading author in experience design and the increasing value of design. His book subjects have included experience design (the 2001 experience-in-itself-book Experience Design 1), design thinking (Making Meaning, 2006) and sustainable design (Design is the Problem, 2009). He is currently the head of the Design MBA Strategy at the California Institute of Arts (CCA)."

Love this! This is going to be one of the ways forward as traditional universities lose their grip on student's imaginations!

"You will want to keep your shifting short and quick just so you can avoid having to touch this grimy Dollhead Knob Shifter. Of course, if you were a heartless bastard you could probably just decapitate one of your kid's dolls, rub it in the dirt and achieve the same effect. Either way, I'm amazed that someone actually has the nerve to sell this thing."

Some have called it the car that will save General Motors: the Chevy Volt, a plug-in electric sedan set to launch in three test markets (in California, Michigan, and the Washington, D.C., area) by the end of 2010. GM's Chevy brand was one of the charter sponsors of this week's South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, and it brought a Volt along for the ride. Why, exactly? The 12,000 SXSWi attendees, most of whom are all about the latest high-tech craze, are exactly the people Chevy thinks will want a Volt.

FEEEEEEL the gratitude, FEEL it, cmon dammit feel it.. ah the hell with it, you're fired

bwahhahaaah---psuedo-science concepts distilled into chemistry symbols. i want a building block set made with these for the next generation of budding scientists.

Yes! Yes!

cept your friends ll eat up your 1 GB limit in a half hour and you'll end up paying $6000 a month - oh sorry, that's in Canada where there is no competition

Ooppsss!

"It's a hoax," said coal company CEO Don Blankenship, "because clearly anyone that says that they know what the temperature of the Earth is going to be in 2020 or 2030 needs to be put in an asylum because they don't." On the other side of the debate was environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. "Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent." To social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it's not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and part of The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars who study how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy

Knitter extraordinaire Rachael Burns from the UK has come up with a creative way to repurpose her Mac's power brick - you know, that big white box that keeps your computer fed. Well, those things can get pretty warm, and with her awesome knitting skills Rachael created a snuggie for her feet with a pouch for the power block. "I knitted this Apple Mac foot cosy after realising I constantly used my power adapter to keep my feet warm. It has a slot to put your adapter in," Rachael writes on her YouTube page. She also warns: "This was knitted as a joke! Your power adapter should be kept very well ventilated for safety reasons. Dont set fire to yourself please."

Want one!

Twain could knit one for you in about ten minutes I'll bet.

"Project Gustav is a realistic painting-system prototype that enables artists to become immersed in the digital painting experience. It achieves interactivity and realism by leveraging the computing power of modern GPUs, taking full advantage of multitouch and tablet input technology and our novel natural media-modeling and brush-simulation algorithms. Project Gustav is a great example of how Microsoft's research efforts are leading to exciting new technologies to support creativity. About Typically the experience of painting on a computer is nothing like painting in the real world. Real painting is actually a very complex phenomenon - a 3D brush consisting of thousands of individually deforming bristles, interacting with viscous fluid paint and a rough-surfaced canvas to create rich, complex strokes. Until fairly recently, the amount of computing power available on a typical home computer simply hasn't been sufficient to attempt simulating such a real-world painting experience in any detail. Project Gustav aims to leverage the increasing power of the PC and ever faster graphics processors and combine that with a natural user interface, to bring a rich painting experience to a wide audience including hobbyists and professionals alike. The result is a prototype system that contains some of the world's most advanced algorithms for natural painting. Image Gallery Here are a few images that were created by users of Project Gustav, and demonstrations of some of the realistic mixing and blending effects enabled by Project Gustav's new painting algorithms. Project Gustav user interfaceProject Gustav user interface (click for hi-res) Project Gustav user interface with palette openUI with mixing palette open (click for hi-res) Pastel fish Pastel clouds - (Cloud computing??) Glossy streaky oil paint rendering #1 Glossy streaky oil paint rendering #2 Oil hand Streaky horse Fall maples Pastel Rose Smearing effects Multitouch Promo in Gusta