Plane-Boats: The Cosmic Muffin

What do you do with an old plane, that can’t fly anymore? Simple, you turn it into a boat.

The Cosmic Muffin used to be a real plane, with wings, tail and everything and she actually flew. She used to be a Boeing 307 Stratoliner, one of only ten ever built. The owner, David Drimmer says the plane was bought by a certain Ken London, long after its flying days had passed, due to extensive damage caused by a hurricane. He purchased it for the staggering sum of $62.

After he ended up with the old plane, the only thing that he thought of was to cut it down into pieces. Thankfully he had a moment of genius and decided to transform it into a touring boat. Back then it was named the Londonaire.

Drimmer says he came across his Cosmic Muffin while he was searching for a place to live. He paid $7,500 and is now the owner one of the wackiest boats on any waters. The Cosmic Muffin awaits tourists in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For more details check Plane-Boats official site.

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Spider-Man Inspired Spider-Phone

After the Buddha-phone, the Chinese deliver another cool gadget, the Spider-phone.

Available in red and black, the TV98+ Spider-phone features a 2 megapixels camera, rotating display, dual SIM slots and a microSD slot. It supports/800/900/1800/1900 networks and is priced at around $152. The phone is covered with spider-webs and features the star of the latest Spider-man movies, Tobey Maguire, on the box.

Unfortunately, you won’t find the Spider-phone in stores outside of China and Hong-Kong anytime soon.

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via iTech News

GM and Segway Present P.U.M.A.

Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility Project, or P.U.M.A., is a revolutionary vehicle designed by GM and Segway.

The self-balancing P.U.M.A.  reaches a top-speed of 35 mph and has a lithium batery that makes it run for 35 miles, on a single charge. It also features a vehicle to vehicle (V2V) system said that will prevent many accidents from happening. Like the Segway, P.U.M.A. will basically drive itself, allowing the driver and passenger to enjoy the experience more.

It’s not exactly certain whether P.U.M.A. will ever go into production, but don’t expect to see it on the streets anytime before 2012. I have to admit, coming from GM, this is an impressive vehicle.

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via Cnet Asia

Real USB Finger

There are a lot of wacky USB drives out there these days, but this USB finger is definitely one of the oddest.

Jerry Jalava lost one of his fingers in a biking accident. Nothing out of the ordinary so far, I personally have a friend that lost a finger while tampering with his bike, but the way hedealed with his problem is definitely out of the ordinary. Instead of getting a simple fake finger, Jerry decided to get a much more useful USB finger. He embedded a 2gb USB drive in his new silicon finger.

I would have gone with a larger storage device but I guess 2gb is better than the no gb.

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Washing-Machine for Humans

It might sound like a futuristic invention, but Sanyo presented its washing-machine for humans way back in 1970.

Officially named Ultrasonic Bath, this human washing machine was introduced as a concept at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka. It was about 2 meters tall and the bather had to use a ladder to get in. After the desired water temperature was set, the 15-minutes-washing process would begin. First a 5-minutes pre-rinse cycle, spraying the baither with jets of hot water. After that the pod-shaped washing-machine filled up with water and a 3-minute massage-bath began. The soothing massage was supposed to stimulate blood circulation while cleaning your body. A 2-minutes rinse process followerd, and finally a 5-minutes drying program, in which warm air blasted the user, while infrared and ultraviolet light killed any remaining bacteria.

Unfortunately the Sanyo Ultrasonic Bath never made it into our homes, but the Japanese company did release HIRB (Human In Roll-lo Bathing), a compact washing machine for humans, used in elderly homes.

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Recompute – The Environment-Friendly PC

Are you worried your PC could be more environment-friendly? You’re right, but don’t worry, thanks to Recompute you don’t have to give up web-surfing.

Recompute is a green concept that means to completely revolutionize the computer industry. Instead of a plastic, aluminum or iron case, Recompute uses a recyclable and renewable case, made out of corrugated cardboard.

Recompute uses only 3 electronic components, a motherboarde with processor and memory, a power-source and a hard-drive. It’s designed to allow the user to take parts like the keyboard or mouse from an old comuter. The electronic parts can be recycled easily, without having to use tools.

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via core77

The Real Robocop

T-34, known as robocop, was developed by two Japanese tech firms, Tmsuk Co. and Alacom Co.

This smaller version of the popular 90s robotic super-hero travels with a speed of up to 10km/h and can be controlled by someone who sees real-time images through a cell-phone. The small robot is equipped with motion sensors that detect movement, and can hurl a net to trap the intruders.

The T-34 robocop is an improves on the common security sensors that often trigger false alarms. With the use of the built-in camera, anyone can examine the location from anywhere, via there mobile phones.

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The Backpack Bike

It’s exactly what it sounds like, a bike and a backpack at the same time.

Perfect for down-hill bikers, the backpack bike can be folded and carried as a simple backpack when you’re climbing to the hilltop, and converted to a sturdy mounatin-bike ready to tackle the rough terrain, on your wayback down. It’s made out of an ultra-light material that makes it easy to carry by both men and women.

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Hidden Command Center

And a great way to hide from your parents without getting bored.

I know it looks like an ordinary closet from the outside, and that’s the idea, but inside lies a powerful command center from where a computer geek does great things like…playing World of Warcraft, hacking people’s computers and other fun activities.

This has to be one of the best computer hideouts I’ve ever seen. Not recommended for claustrophobics though.

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Scrabble Keyboard for Mac

Datamancer presents his new creation, a scrabble keyboard for the Apple Macintosh.

The special keyboard uses real scrabble tiles, hand-beveled  and fitted on a USB, clicky, mechanica-switch keyboard. The casing is made out of aluminum, to fit the simple, sleek design of the Mac.

The scroll and Num and Caps keys have been fitted with LEDs that shine through the carved lettering. Datamancer‘s beautiful keyboards are priced between $1,200 and $1,500 depending on the design and materials used in the build.

Check out Datamancer’s Scrabble Keyboard:

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China Fights Earthquakes With Cardboard

After the disaster caused by the huge earthquake in May 2008, China is looking for safer schools for its children.

And a possible solution is the temporary schools proposed by Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban. After the terrible earthquake that hit China and caused over 69,000 casualties, Ban brought his ingenious idea to the attention of the authorities, who approved the project. He and a team of Chinese students started building safe schools out of cardboard pillars, plywood roofs and polycarbonate as insulation.

The cardboard and plywood schools are temporary, but in case of an earthquake, should the structures collapse, the materials are nowhere near heavy enough to cause serious injury. The materials used are fireproof and waterproof. Shigeru Ban hopes soon he will be able to build multi-storied buildings out of cardboard.

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via TreeHugger

Where Electronics Go to Die

No, electronics are not recycled the same way as ordinary trash. Electronics have their own graveyard, and it’s called Guiyu.

Guiyu is a town in China that is known as the largest electronic waste site on the planet. One million tons of electronics waste are shipped here every year, mostly from North America, Japan and South Korea. Since 1995, Guiyu has been attracting peasants from the area to work as electronics processors. They only receive about $1,50 for a sixteen hours work-day collecting valuable metals and usable parts from broken devices.

Guiyu is a very dangerous work environment, with some of the highest levels of dioxin ever recorded. The soil is saturated with led and other heavy metals while the water from the area is undrinkable. People that visit Guiyu experience strange headaches and metallic taste in their mouths.

Despite this, Guiyu’s electronic waste business is very profitable,  each year producing more than$75 million.

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Eliica – World’s Fastest Electric Car

The Eliica prototype created quite a lot of hype when it was unveilled in 2003, both because of its incredible specifications and ugly looks. Eliica is a fully electric super-car created by a team of engineers from Keio University, Japan. The eight-wheeled vehicle is powered by a pack of large lithium-ion batteries that help it go from 0 to 100 km. per hour in just 4 seconds and reach a top speed of 402 km/h.

Each of Eliica‘s eight wheels produce 80 horsepower and its batteries provide power for a 321 km ride. Hiroshi Shimizu, head of the Eliica project, is considering producing a limited series. The exclusive super-car costs &320,000.

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Source

Now That’s Gangsta!

This guy is the real deal man. He probably can’t afford a kick-ass ride but that doesn’t mean he can’t pimp the ride he CAN afford. Check out the cool sound system this little gangsta is dragging along, I love it. The tricycle isn’t too bad either.

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Rotating House

Environment is a very popular issue nowadays so environment-friendly houses are finally becoming interesting. Domespace invented their semi-spherical houses over 30 years ago but only a few of them have been purchased and only around France, especially in Brittany, where the company is based.

The Domespace house plans were designed to optimize warmth by natural means, so the house actually turns to follow the sun and gain as much energy as it needs to keep temperature at an ideal level. If you don’t want warmth and sun-rays you can just set it to turn its windows away from the sun. You can command the engine to turn the house at a certain time or program it to do a full day rotation.

These days Domespace houses only come with an engine, but a few years ago if you wanted to buy or rent a house, you had to move them manually. I can imagine such a house for lease: “It’s a great house, spacy, full of light…only thing is you have to turn it yourself”.domespace_house.jpg

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