Mens Plaza

It is unfortunate, and maybe a bit mean, but I feel compelled to point out the headline in the screenshot, “Dell. Now available in Beautiful”, as flawed. The problem with it is that it—correct me if I’m wrong—implies that all previous dells were not available in anything except ugly. And the clean lines of an HP laptop (as well as their rising sales over the last few quarters) would not beg to differ, although I think the XPS line is fast and not so bad on the eyes. [Dell]

Instructables has a tutorial on a CD repair technique designed to bring nearly any disc (barring any cracks, breaks, etc…) back from the dead. The fix requires you to heat the underside of the CD over a gas burner, boil it in water and dry off your freshly resurfaced disc. The process seems to leave a slim margin of error, so if you’re trying to recover something valuable, you better know what you’re doing. [Instructables]

The N810 tablet, with its keyboard, GPS, linux OS, Wi-Fi but no cellular connection is on sale today. Long Live the PDA/UMPC? [Nokia]

CrunchGear’s Matt Hickey wrote a good how-to on upgrading your iPod touch’s firmware to 1.1.2 without sacrificing the ability to download third party apps. The process is farily simple; it involves downgrading to 1.1.1 (if you’re not there already), downloading and installing a program through installer.app called OktoPrep, upgrading to firmware 1.1.2 and finally running Jailbreak 1.1.2. For all the nuances, check out the post at [Crunch Gear].

These are about the creepiest cellphone accessories we’ve ever seen: Androgynous babies tied up S&M style dangling from your cellphone. The disturbingly satisfied Kewpie Dolls are available with five different rope colors for about $6. If you wanna feel really icky, check out the promo shot after the jump, which makes the orgy above look PG: There’s fire, drugs and Kewpies. Seriously.

[Strapya World via Inventor Spot via Spluch]

Fast lane daily has a video of the Nissan GT-R, with rare footage of that amazing instrument cluster designed by Gran Turismo game designers. Fast forward past the talking head to witness footage of the boost gauge, lateral and longitudinal G-forces (over time!), among many other stats, at your fingertips. Might have been better to build this stuff into HUD, as you don’t want to be staring at the digital cluster pack for longer than you need to in a 3-second car. [Fast Lane Daily, GT-R on Giz]

Jalopnik reports that Moller, makers of the M400 flying car vapor we’ve come to love inhaling, have “substantial doubts” the cars will ever get off the ground.

They’ve always been confident, even if the public hasn’t, so this is a change of tune for the futurist company. Moller posted a quarterly loss of $81, 071, bringing their deficit to $40.6 million, and they’ve cited the need for more money to continue operations and manufacturing of flying cars. (Oh coincidence, that’s the same reason why my flying car isn’t for sale yet.) I’m wondering if Ford could buy the company and pull off the production, considering ex-Boeing executive Alan Mulally is the helm…but now I’m just acting desperate. [Jalopik]

If you consider yourself something of a handyman, my guess is that your toolbox at home has become increasingly filled with laser guided goodies over the last few years. That having been said, feast your eyes on this new laser guided hand saw. I could be wrong, but it seems like it would be fairly difficult to maintain a straight line with the beam flailing wildly about as you work — but hey…it has a laser on it! Available for $19.99 [Product Page via Uberreview]

Meant for your kitchen countertop, this 20-inch stainless-steel LCD TV will match most of your other kitchen wares, and comes with a water-resistant remote for accidental splashage. The resolution isn’t specified, though it’s an HDTV with an HDMI input. Granted, if you’re just using it to follow along with Alton Brown on Good Eats 1080p’s probably not much of a concern. The price might be, though, at $600. [Frontgate via Crave]

While I usually like to see a hot chick in a bikini top on a motorcycle, this is Pink we’re talking about here, and she turns me on about as much as Celine Dion in a thong. Nevertheless, for the four of you who might think she’s hot, here she is, in all her butchy glory.

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Here’s Gemma Atkinson in the latest Maxim magazine. It’s a good thing these pictures are sexy, because they’re helping me forget all about Gemma’s hairy belly we witnessed in yesterday’s bikini candids. Thank god for Photoshop. Oh ya, and thank god for big boobs.

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As an early Christmas present to our commenters, we are announcing new and improved commenting features. These new features include following friends, tracking comments and an updated profile page. Since we know you’re gonna love your present, here’s how it works.

To use these new features you must first log in at the top of the page with your comment ID and password. If you do not already have a commenting account, simple click the “new user” link to sign up. After you have logged in, your commenting ID will be displayed at the top the page, click it, and it will take you to your very own commenting home/profile page. From this home page you will be able to keep track of your commenting buddies and also view your comments, edit your avatar, email and AIM.

To make a friend, simply find a comment that you liked and to the right of it you will see a small + button. Click that + button and you will now be following that user just like your friends in real life. Not only are you able to view your newly added friend’s comments, but you are also able to view who is following you.

To view your newly added friend’s comments, there is a “friends” link at the top of the page where you logged in earlier. If you change your mind and decide you no longer enjoy reading a friend’s stupid banter, you can remove them from your friends list by clicking the x button under the friends section of your personal home page.

You not only have the ability to follow and remove friends but also the ability to leave friend’s a personal message on their profile page. Clicking a friend’s commenter name will take you to their profile page, from there you can view all of their comments and leave that special personal message.

We hope you enjoy your early present and if you encounter any problems while using these new features please let us know in the comments below or at tips@gizmodo.com, and be sure to note your OS and browser type. Happy Commenting!!!

Someone with lots of talent made a sweet Samus Aran costume from Metroid. Then some beautiful lady with lots of talent modeled it. Damn damn damn. What was I just talking about? Something about something. Oh right, the costume. Damn she looks good in that thing. Something about that beam cannon arm does magical things to me. Is it getting hot in here? I feel faint. I think I’m in love. I have to go now.

But because I love you all (and I’m not getting you anything else for Christmas) I’m posting a bunch more pictures after the jump.

The HXC5 HDMI-over-CAT-5 system is being billed as a simple “plug and play” solution for sending HDMI signals over large distances —164 feet (50 meters) to be exact. The manufacturer also claims that this signal is “virtually loss free.” The device utilizes balanced/unbalanced signal processing to ensure full hi-def signal integrity for all video formats up to and including 1080p and it is HDMI v1.2 / HDCP compliant.

The HXC5 requires a double-run of standard CAT5/5E/6 network cabling and it is packaged as a complete, ready-to-connect system —including a compact “balun” transmitter and receiver. Could definitely be a valuable problem-solving tool for anyone setting up a serious home theater. Available now for $600. [Tributaries]

I have no idea what Fool’s Gold is about, but based on this poster, I’d have to assume…

- During an unseasonably warm February, true love takes a dive.

- Kate Hudson has been captured by McConaughey’s animal grip. There is no saving her.

- Matthew McConaughey has a dude version of the Midas Touch, which applies a thick layer of bronzer to everyone and everything he touches.

- What was thought (by Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson) to be an extremely valuable metal, typically used for a variety of jewelry and adornments, ends up being a relatively worthless collection of iron pyrite.

- Matthew McConaughey is, like, this awesome dude. Kate Hudson is totally a babe, and she’s in this hot bikini. You do the math.

- The newly-retitled Surferapist!

I refuse to look up the actual plot, but let me know if it’s somehow either better or worse than these options.

Fool’s Gold Poster [IMPA]

Dear Kid Rock: WE GET IT. We didn’t love it when you did it in stained tank tops and a quasi-mullet, we didn’t care for it when Keith Urban took on the partial version of this look, and we STILL…

Kindle, Amazon’s ebook reader dropped today for $400. Over 90,000 titles are already available for the device, and each is less than $10. You can also get subscriptions to major newspapers, magazines, etc. for a monthly fee. “The unit is not Wi-Fi compatible. Instead, it’s on its own EV-DO network, called Whispernet, which is affiliated with Sprint.” You can’t actually use it as a web browser though, except for free access to Wikipedia. So, yeah. Someone get one and tell me how it is. I like the newspaper subscription idea, but I prefer my books analog. There’s just nothing more relaxing than sitting on the john with a hardback stretched across your naked thighs. Well, until your legs fall asleep and you collapse trying to stand up. Then you’re lying on the cold tile floor with your pants around your ankles and a cat licking your face.

Amazon’s Kindle unveiled: an ebook reader with free Internet access [sci-fi]

With the inclusion of two 512MB GeForce Go 8800GTX graphics cards, the Black-Hawk XR5 will be the first laptop to feature such graphical power. Along with a 17-inch screen, Core 2 Quad processor and EV-DO support, Black-Hawk clearly is not messing around, and intend for the XR5 to be a desktop replacement.

However, our friends over at Maximum PC say the XR5 images shown are renders (vapor alert!), and with so much horsepower in this thing, it will probably run hot, making it not lap-friendly. No price has been announced as of yet, but if all goes to plan the Black-Hawk XR5 will reach consumers in December, hopefully with a good cooling system. [PC Microworks via ubergizmo via Sci Fi]

These RC cars have four passengers, and when you smash one into the side of another, it throws them out of the sunroof like so many other tragic highway accidents where seatbelts were refused in favor of wrinkle-free suits. It would be my number one prop if I were a driver’s ed teacher. [IWantOneofThose via Technabob ]

Oksana Baiul just turned 30 on Friday, and as I made this same decade-change three months earlier, I feel like I have a lot of valuable wisdom to impart to my favorite fugtacular figure-skating sprite. For instance, I might suggest…

While this trailer for Cloverfield–now apparently the official name–makes it seem like an exciting new take on the Blair Witch-style, home video recorded horror, those looking to finally get a look at the monster attacking New York are in for more disappointment. Careful edits and well-placed buildings obscure the beasts like giant, aggravating pasties on massive, roaring breasts.

With this much build-up, can this thing possibly live up to our expectations? Are your intense hopes for the monster similar to mine? (Note: I’m thinking the head of Oprah and a whole mess of tentacles.)

Cloverfield Trailer [Apple]

Canadian robot lover Trung Le built himself a female android named Aiko and gave a few public demonstrations of what she’s capable of. Basically she can give directions, read stuff off the internet, and respond to some stimuli. Like when Trung grabs her arm too hard she tells him “Why did you do that for? It’s hurt.” Then right after that he moves in and grabs a boobie. She takes a swing at him and tells him “I do not like it when you touch my breasts.” Nice one Trung, you’re probably the creepiest robot builder ever. It certainly doesn’t help that the poor android is limited to a wheelchair. Jesus Trung, you really hit rock bottom with this performance. You are one sick puppy.

Canadian Fembot Hates Being Sexually Harassed [therawfeed]

I really do like Parker Posey, if only on the strength of her performance in Dazed and Confused. Sometimes, I think of the scene in which her character is hazing incoming freshman and screaming at them, “Fry like bacon!”, and…

Food company Podravka had Croatian creative agency Bruketa & Zinić cook them up a really clever way of presenting their annual report. Nested inside the boring financials, etc. is another little book of Podravka recipes.

To be able to cook like Podravka you need to be a precise cook. That is why the small Podravka booklet is printed in invisible, thermo-reactive ink. To be able to reveal Podravka’s secrets you need to cover the small booklet in aluminium foil and bake it at 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) for 25 minutes.

Neato! It’s gotta be baked in order to be read! Kind of like the time I got baked and tried to read, but way different. I was on the same sentence for over a half hour. By the time I realized it was hopeless I had eaten two boxes of Pop Tarts and the last of my roommate’s spray cheese.

“Well Done” Annual Report [notcot]

Thanks to master chef Shannon for the tip

Hate going to the dentist? The CarieScan can detect cavities before they become a problem by sending a tiny electrical current through a tooth, making those visits to the chair less likely to involve major excavation. CarieScan can detect small changes in resistance caused by the presence of water in a tooth, signs that the early stages of your teeth rotting out has begun. This little gizmo might make it so you won’t have to face that whining drill as much, or maybe never.

Its makers say it works better than laser devices that do basically the same thing, improving those devices’ 30 to 40% false positive rate to a mere 10% for the CarieScan. The dentist can either read the results on the CarieScan device itself, or with the CarieScan Plus, the data is wirelessly transmitted to a handheld display. You might not want to try this at home, unless you have an extra $4000 lying around. Sure beats X-Rays. [Technology Review and CarieScan]

We got a unit, and just pulled it out of the box. Here’s how the thing looks all over, including the hidden SD card slot and the surprise “pleather” protective case.

We’ve been camped out, fielding your most pressing questions. Here are answers many of them, including browsing the web, playing music and transferring books, and more:

Take a look at the screen shots:• How long was initial powerup? 4 seconds (but our demo unit may have been booted up before).

• How long does it take to turn pages? One second or less.

• How comfortable is it to hold? NYC Giz reporter Jen Hooker says, “Very comfortable. It’s nice and light. It feels right in the crease of your hand, between the thumb and forefinger.” The downside is that it’s very easy to hit the Next Page key accidentally.

• How easy is it to use the scroll wheel? Easy and intuitive.

• Can you change the font size everywhere? No. You can change the fonts of books, but when attempting to alter the size of text on the home screen, we got a message that said “Sorry, you can only change the size of text while reading content.” It doesn’t say you can change the font setting globally, either.

• How responsive is the keyboard? Turns out, not very responsive. It sometimes takes a second after you type the key for the letter to appear. (Good thing there’s no text-messaging app?) Placement of the Delete key is awkward because it’s directly above the Enter key, and it’s easy to confuse the two.

• What does the connection cost monthly? Nothing. And in case you are curious, the EV-DO service is from Sprint, not Verizon Wireless.

• What happens when you connect your Kindle to a PC or Mac? It goes into USB Drive Mode and shows the contents of the Kindle. Here’s what we saw when we plugged in:Can you transfer documents straight to the device? In our testing, we only got MP3s to show up when we transferred them via USB. PDFs, RTFs, and JPEGs did not appear when we copied them to the Documents folder on the Kindle. Stay tuned as we get further in on that, but for now, it sounds like you really do have to e-mail it up.

• How do you convert files? Once you have set up your approved e-mail addresses at www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle, you need to send JPEGs, Word docs and other files to your Kindle e-mail address from your standard address.

• Can I backup and store the books on my PC? Yes. We downloaded a book, and then copied it to the Mac and deleted it from the Kindle. We checked and it was definitely gone from the Kindle. And when we copied it back over from the Mac, it appeared again. Of course, Amazon recommends deleting books to save room, but downloading them from the cloud when you need them, rather than storing them on your PC. But at an average of 300-400KB, you shouldn’t really have a problem storing tons in your personal virtual warehouse.

• Can I read the books stored on my PC? So far, “no,” but that could change. The files are in a .azw format and we don’t have a .azw reader. Do you? Either way, it’s probably an easy thing to cook up for Windows and Macs, so maybe it’ll happen. But why would Bezos want you reading his $9.99 downloads on your shiny laptop? There are economic reasons why this might not happen.

• What is the SD card slot for? As far as we can tell, the SD is mainly for extended storage. It is easy to send stuff from the Kindle to SD, but it’s not evident how you can move documents off of SD and onto the Kindle.

• Can I browse the web on this thing? Since the EV-DO service is free, we suspected that the answer is “no.” But it turns out, you CAN browse the web! Something called “Basic Web” browsing available in the “Experimental” section of the menu, along with “Play Music” and “Ask Kindle NowNow.”

• How do graphics look on the web? There are two web modes. Default mode lets you see text but pictures come in tiny and hard to see. Advanced mode displays the web page the way you’d expect on a normal browser, but it cuts off text and is harder to manage.
Default browser mode:
Advanced browser mode:•How do you play music? The “Play Music” feature is in the Experimental page (Menu>Experimental). So far we can only play MP3s on it, and with no metadata on the screen. The songs just play. AAC was attempted and apparently doesn’t work. (You can also click Alt-P to play music when you are in another part of the reader.)

• What file formats are supported? Kindle (.azw), text (.txt), unprotected Mobipocket (.mobi, .prc), Audible (.aa) and MP3 (.mp3).

• How long did it take to search for a particular book? In our test, it took 12 seconds.

• How long was the actual download? The download was nearly instantaneous—there’s a bit of sleight-of-hand because when you click “buy,” it takes you to the “OK” screen and then after that you go to the home screen to see the list of titles you own (in your Amazon.com Kindle account). By the time we checked the home screen, the book was downloaded. We believe the 60-second statement, but we’ll see if we can clock this stuff on average (without going broke!!!).

• What’s in the library, aka Kindle Book Store? There are already plenty of books, 90,000 in all, including 101 of the current NYT bestsellers. Don’t believe us? See for yourself at the Amazon Kindle Store.

MORE ANSWERS TO COME SO KEEP CHECKING BACK!!!

We’ve already seen the dangerous stuff that Mr Fix-It Rick can do with his Tesla-inspired CD turbine — you know, saw your fingers off, or saw your fingers off er, cut a Hallowe’en pumpkin. His new video is going out to those of a somewhat milder disposition. Using CDs, a CD spindle, a couple of neodymium magnets and glue, Mr Fix-It Rick has come up with an energy-saving device to keep salad eaters happy the world over. I love that fact that MrfixitRick’s “experimental test faciility” resembles a kitchen. I hate the fact that he’s not wearing his slasherflick-tastic black rubber gloves in this one. [YouTube via MAKE]

KDDI research labs in Japan has developed a new system for detecting pirated material on the internet automagically. By detecting whether the footage was shot on an amateur or professional camera, what method was used to encode it, and things of that nature, they claim they can detect illegal material with a 98% success rate.

From what I can tell, all it does to determine if something is pirated is to see if it was produced “professionally,” which seems as a really crappy litmus test for piracy. I mean, people put professional video online all the time with complete legitimacy. Nonetheless, I’m sure we’ll see something like this hitting YouTube sooner rather than later. At which point everyone will head over to DailyMotion or Vimeo or whatever other site will be too lazy to implement this technology. Check the press release after the jump.

Saitama, Japan - October 29, 2007 - KDDI R&D LABS today announced that it has developed a new content protection technology which enables pirated video content detection by distinguishing between the content created by a professional and the content created by an amateur. This technology has been developed in consideration of the situation that while the number of users on video-sharing sites such as YouTube™ is increasing rapidly, copyrighted video clips have been illegally uploaded, e.g. TV programs. Up to now, in order to find pirated video clips on video-sharing sites, a human has to check by visual inspection. Then if pirated videos are found on the sites, copyright holders need to request the video-sharing site operators to delete them, which requires so much labor. Recently some video-sharing site operators implement a pirated video blocker based on fingerprint, which is a set of features for identifying video content. In fingerprinting technology, however, copyright holders have to identify copyrighted videos and provide operators with the copyrighted videos and the necessary information, while video- sharing site operators have to register fingerprints of the copyrighted videos in advance.

Moreover, it is very hard to keep following explosively increasing video clips which are newly uploaded day after day. KDDI R&D LABS’ technology focuses on differences between a professional and an amateur in terms of their video capturing devices, their video capturing techniques, their video creation processes, and so on. With KDDI R&D LABS’ proprietary technology, visual and audio features which are affected by these differences are analyzed, and then it enables to distinguish between video content created by a professional and video content created by an amateur; a very high distinction rate of 98% is achieved. Using this technology, illegal video clips can be automatically and reliably found on the vast amount of video content, which significantly reduces labor costs for eliminating pirated videos. In addition, since KDDI R&D LABS’ technology analyzes features of the content itself, there is no need to register pirated videos in the database beforehand, and furthermore, it is effective for new video clips which have never been uploaded so far. This technology can be implemented as a video content inspection engine, which is installable on video sharing servers. Upon being uploaded, a video clip will be inspected and if it is suspected as a pirated video clip, it will be rejected. This protects copyrights of video content.

[New Launches via Digital World Tokyo]

The new iPod Nano may be an excellent redesign on Apple’s part, but ECNokia thinks they can do even better (after…err…borrowing Apple’s design). They’ve added an FM tuner, microphone, 1.3MP camera and (.5″ larger) touchscreen to the Nano, while swapping out the built-in flash memory for a budget-friendly SD slot. From what we can tell, for now it’s being offered to wholesalers only. But look for the ECNano (our name) on shady store shelves soon. [product via pmptoday]

Designer Chetan Sorab’s Matchlight is a clever lighting concept that lets you arrange a pile of matchsticks however you want - and as long as the sticks are touching each other, they’ll all light up, despite the fact that only one of the 16 “matches” has a power cord. Here’s how:

Each individual light stick has a magnetized polypropylene body, so you can stand them up as straight as a line of soldiers, as well as having them strewn higgledy-piggledy. And how do you get the current to pass through all the lights? Simple — by induction, baby. Yanko]

Are you so helpless that you can’t even dress yourself without assistance? Is your mom making you move out, giving you no one to help you with the tough decisions that face you each morning as you stare at your closet? Well, never fear, you sad excuse for a person, because technology is here to bail you out. Sort of. Meet the “Smart Closet.”

The closet senses what clothes you wear each day by tracking embedded RFID tags placed in the collars of your shirts. It knows that you just wore your silk button-up with a giant picture of a tiger on it on Monday, so you should probably not wear it again until next week. Or ever.

It can also help you make more difficult fashion choices. “It can also be connected to an autonomous fashion butler on the Internet, which can suggest clothing choices for casual or formal outings with accessories to match.”

Which is all well and good, but unless you actually have some nice clothes to begin with, this thing isn’t going to do anyone much good. But I guess if you’re a rich guy in the business world who can afford nice clothes but are too lazy to pay attention when you’re putting them on, it could be sort of beneficial. Those of you who just wear sweatpants every day, well, not fancy closet can solve that problem. [Business Edge via The Raw Feed]

At this point, everybody knows that cigarettes are bad for you. It’s not like a smoker is going to hear that cigarettes cause cancer and be shocked enough to quit; they know what they’re doing. But in this video, in which someone with a homemade setup distills the tar from two cartons of cigarettes, is a particularly visceral reminder as to exactly what you’re loading your lungs up when you smoke. Gee-ross. [Neatorama]

Hayden Panettiere still hasn’t mastered the art of exiting a car, but she has mastered the art of wearing panties. And that’s a good thing, because I don’t think I’m ready for a full-blown Hayden Panettiere upskirt just yet. The girl’s not even 21, give her some time. After all, upskirts are usually the precursor to nipples slips, boob flashes and sex tapes.

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Information about Asus’s new UMPC, the
R50A, is out and about. And, if you like these kind of things, the
chunky handheld with a 4.8-inch, 1024 x 600 screen boasts both 3
and 3.5G connectivity. And that’s not all:

There’s built-in GPS, a TV tuner, a webcam and microphone. No prices or release date yet, but expect to see and hear more at the electronic love-fest that is CES in January next year. [JKK Mobile via Engadget]

Jean Nouvel unveiled his design for The Tower at 53rd West 53rd Street this weekend. As well as the now-obligatory apartments and seven-star swank-hotel, the 75-story glass-and-steel structure will have three floors dedicated to housing the overflow collection of the neighboring MoMA. Check the gallery below to see what the skyscraper, whose construction is expected to begin some time next year, is expected to look like.

No stranger to museums, the French architect is the man behind the Fondation Cartier in Paris, the extension to the Reina Sofia gallery in Madrid and the Musée Quai Branly, also in the French capital. [Dezeen]

iRiver’s Mplayer, the Mickey Mouse-themed music player, has been given the bling treatment just in time for Christmas. Just 500 of these glittery rodent-redolent MP3- and WMA-compatible players have been made, and they come with lanyard-style earphones.

There’s 1GB storage space, and you skip songs by twisting Mickey’s left ear — exactly what I do to my “special friend” when I want him to change the TV channel. Price is 16,800¥, or around $150. [Impress]

The LVT-WD40 is a waterproof portable TV that Sanyo claims is the perfect bedfellow for its waterproof Xactic camcorder. Widescreen, and with 480 x 272 resolution, it will cost 50,000¥ ($450) when it comes out in Japan on Wednesday. File this one under “chocolate teapot”, I think. [Impress]