This weapon, made by BAE Systems, is targeting a range of 50 to 100 nautical miles to start with and the Navy plans to increase the range 220 nautical miles. The railgun uses 32-megajoules of electromagnetic energy to fling a projectile down a pair of rails at anywhere from 4500 to 5600 mph. That is seriously hellafast.

In fact, it is so fast that explosives aren’t needed to destroy a target. No gunpowder, or high explosives, just pure raw speed and momentum will obliterate whatever that projectile hits. The Navy said to be in testing the new prototype this month while it waits for a second prototype to be delivered that is constructed by a different contractor, General Atomics. The day I can deer hunt with a railgun, will be the day I kill my first Bambi.

In case you’re not familiar with the device, a chorded keyboard has fewer keys – the user presses multiple keys at once to enter a single command or character. This not only leads to a smaller device but makes it possible to type with one hand. Entering the patterns on such a device is similar to playing chords on a piano, hence the name. This is an example of a chorded keyboard. I’m not sure if the Kee4 Keyboard also qualifies as a chorded keyboard, but it does work in a similar way.

As for Teague Labs’ app, it uses five virtual buttons which appear when the user places all five fingers on the screen. Theoretically, it addresses the three weaknesses of traditional on-screen keyboards. The buttons are large. If you can memorize the patterns for characters, then you don’t need tactile feedback. Finally, the buttons go away when you lift your fingers off of the tablet’s screen; they can also be dragged in another area of the screen. Then again they take up the whole screen while you’re typing. Here’s the app in action:

If you have an iPad or Android tablet, fire up your tablet’s browser and go to this page to try out Teague Labs’ chorded keyboard prototype. Note that the app doesn’t allow for punctuation marks – those will be included in the second set of buttons, which are still in development. It’s a nice concept but I think I’ll stick to the default keyboard on my iPad. I don’t do a lot of typing on it anyway and I’m already looking at the screen when I’m typing so I don’t need to touch type.

What I really want is for Apple to include a numpad-style button, similar to the ones available on older cellphones. Years of owning Nokia phones have burned the memory of that interface to my thumbs. Also, I’m not sure if the guys at Teague Labs are aware of this, but there are already virtual chorded keyboard apps for both the iPad and for Android tablets, although the ones I saw are designed for use with two thumbs.

[Teague Labs via Hack A Day]

I’m not sure what reason the ancient Chinese had for using animals and why they were assigned to their respective years, but Wright actually provides historical justification as to how the Geek Zodiac is arranged. For example, the Alien sign takes 1938 – and all years in its cycle – because that was the year when the infamous radio broadcast of H.G. Welles’ War of the Worlds occurred. You can browse the details of each sign on the gallery below, or you can head to the Geek Zodiac website for the original charts.

Wright and Eckert have since turned the concept into a comic, which you can also read on their website. You can also get Geek Zodiac merchandise at Zazzle, including a poster of the zodiac itself. So what’s your sign?

[via Walyou]

There are two reasons why they’re named that way: first of all, they’re all in earth tones or colors. Second of all, that’s because they’re made from stuff derived from the earth like coffee beans, cedar sawdust or cedar bark.

They might not look as attractive as the extremely colorful plastic LEGO blocks, but I think you could definitely teach a thing or two about using eco-friendly stuff to your kids with these blocks. That, and the fact that appearances are just appearances because you can pretty much do the same thing with Earth Blocks and plain LEGO bricks, creating whatever structure your mind can come up with.

Sure, it’s not like you typically throw out LEGO bricks, but there are bound to be by-products of manufacturing all that plastic, right? If you’re ready to go green with your bricks, you can get a set of 50 Earth Blocks over at the Guggenheim Store for $30(USD).

[via Dvice via Bit Rebels]

WASD Keyboards uses Cherry MX mechanical switches, so after creating your design you’ll choose the color and type of switch you want. You can also order a dampener if you don’t want the trademark clicking sound that mechanical keyboards make. You can also choose the font of the text on each key and whether the text will be engraved or lasered in. If you really want to get creative you can upload your own design or even send custom art for each of the keys.

Above is my design for a Technabob-themed keyboard; you can see more at WASD Keyboard’s website or have a look at the gallery below for more user-created designs.

Head to WASD Keyboards to design and order your own V1 Custom Mechanical Keyboard. Prices start at $140 (USD). The company also sells a Semi-Custom version of the keyboard, which is still brimming with tweakable specs.

[via Gamerfront via The Red Ferret Journal]

These ornate “Steampunk” heels are adorned with lace and embellished with rhinestones on all sides. The edge of the shoes are also lined with smoked glass beads and vintage charms, which give the shoes a gothic vibe, in my opinion.

The coolest thing about these heels (and the reason they’re here on Technabob in the first place) are the LED lights. I mean, they aren’t the first pair of footwear that light up, but they’re the first heels I’ve seen that do in a long, long time.

They’re also pretty much the only ones I know that come with a remote so you can set the color of the LED lights and decide how fast you want them to fade or light up. I can just see someone wearing these heels now while getting down on the dance floor…

Anyway, they’re being made and sold by The Ratchet and Cog on Etsy for $180(USD) a pair. Any takers?

I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I think these ugly, bulbous vehicles look more like something Woody Allen would have driven in Sleeper than something you’d see rounding the track at Nürburgring. That said, you’d hope that at least they’d do the cell phone thing well.

I’m not holding my breath on that one either. These things sport an anemic 2-inch LCD screen, and a camera which offers “200 lacpixel; support to shoot MP4 with sound, the time depends on storage, with front camera, flash, telescopic cameras” I didn’t know what a lacpixel was before today, but I’m going to assume they meant it was lacking 200 pixels, because this calculation clearly doesn’t apply. It also supposedly has a QWERTY keyboard, but I think they meant they were typing the product listing with one, as there’s clearly none in sight. At least this thing makes phone calls, right?

If you absolutely must have one of these for the sheer novelty of the thing, you can get one over at AliExpress for about $76(USD). Me? I’m going to save my money to buy some soap to go wash my eyes out with.

She got a 4D ultrasound done just last week, so we all got a good look at her baby. But before the 4D one was a sonogram that I did a bad job of interpreting. Where the baby’s head was, I saw a butt. Where her hand was, I saw a foot. Eventually my sister pointed out which was which and what part was where, so that settled that.

But if her sonogram looked anything like the one shown above, then I’d probably be more than alarmed – although I’d be able to recognize who (or what) she’s carrying insider her belly: Venom!

The sonogram was posted on Reddit by Venom’s proud father-to-be. Scary, huh?

[via Nerd Approved]

The Ecobot-III does just that, plus it can poop itself. So, that’s more poop for the planet. Ecobot-I had an E. Coli engine that ran on refined sugar and Ecobot-II had sludge microbe engine that ate stuff like dead flies and prawn shells. The only problem was that they could not eject waste. They just kept cramming in new batteries until there was no room. You might say they became the world’s first constipated robots.

This third version can collect its own food and water and poop in a litter tray, which should prolong it’s life, but I guess someone has to change that tray now and again like changing a diaper. Ecobot is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who, coincidentally have also invested in the creation of some shiny new toilets.

[via Scientific American via Geekosystem]

Apparently, not so bad. But you might have to try it out yourself by grabbing a bottle of of Meteorito. The wine was basically a fusion of interests for Ian Hutcheon, who runs a vineyard and this astronomy center in Chile called the Centro Astronomica Tagua Tagua.

What he did was ferment the red wine by putting the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes with the three-inch meteorite inside the wooden barrel. The wine is then bottled twenty-five days later.

So how does Meteorito taste compared to the non-meteorite version of the wine? According to Hutcheon, it is “livelier.” But hey, maybe that’s what something from space can do either to you (or to the wine.)

Each bottle of Meteorito costs just £7 (~$11 USD), and over 10,000 have so far been fermented.

[via Daily Mail]

Baumgartner will be placed inside a capsule to attached to a gigantic helium filled balloon which will carry him to about 120,000 feet in altitude. The air temperature at that altitude is -70°F and there isn’t enough oxygen to sustain life. The daredevil plans on wearing a custom-made pressure suit that is designed to handle the velocities he will attain on his return trip. It will take him roughly 3 hours to get to 120,000 feet while it will take him only 5 1/2 minutes to freefall to 5,000 feet, at which point he will pull his parachute ripcord.

Baumgartner says that from the time he steps out of the capsule and begins his freefall, it’ll only take 30 seconds for him to break the sound barrier. He claims that testing has been completed and the jump window is set for July. The stunt will be performed somewhere over New Mexico. I hope he has a camera that can survive the jump. I want to see some first-person video.

[via Fox News]

I can not think of a more bad ass question. Forget “Notch” or “Creator of Minecraft“. From now on we should be calling this man Markus “How Many Millions Exactly” Persson, who by the way wasted no time and proceeded to go straight to Tim Schafer himself:

It’s no secret that How Many Millions Exactly’s game is doing extremely well and that his company Mojang has also began publishing third party games. Just to prove how serious he is, he also tweeted:

How Many Millions Exactly and Schafer are now exchanging emails – possibly regarding the exactitude of said millions – but Psychonauts fans shouldn’t get their hopes too high just yet. How Many Millions Exactly may have many millions, but that’s not the only thing you need to make a game. I wonder what need I can answer with that question. Probably a researcher looking for the effect of millions of hours of sleep to a person.

It should be noted that Schafer’s company, Double Fine has also recently launched a Kickstarter project to create a totally new point-and-click adventure game – and you can help fund that for as little as $15.

[via Metafilter]

But this isn’t just some toy gun or some mod that just makes it look neat. This is deadly serious. Under all those stickers is a CA-legal Smith & Wesson M&P15, chambered in .223/5.56 tri-color dot scope, with a 6-position stock and an attached 18v rechargeable chain saw with a fast-swap bayonet mount. Put your jaw back up and wipe your chin.

Yes, this is instant death to any Zombie dumb enough to cross your path. Instant, colorful death. Although you won’t look manly wielding this thing. Now I know what kind of heat to pack for my next My Little Pony hunt.

[via Boing Boing]

An 83-year-old woman needed a new lower jawbone last year for transplant and instead of a traditional implant, the medical team used a 3D printed jawbone manufactured by LayerWise. The transplant was carried out in the Netherlands last June and it has just now been announced. The implant was printed out of a titanium powder using a laser, layer-by-layer until the finished product was completed. The implant is a complicated part with articulated joints and cavities to provoke muscle attachment along with grooves to direct the regrowth of nerves and veins.

According to the team, it took 33 layers of titanium melted using the laser for 1 mm of height. That means that the finished jawbone had many thousands of laser passes. One of the interesting parts of the 3D printed jawbone is that it has a special double bridge that was attached and false teeth screwed in the that dental bridge. Also interesting is that the finished titanium jawbone weighs 107g, which is about one-third heavier than the replaced bone.

[via BBC]

…unless the message you want to send is “eat my shorts,” of course. But if you are feeling brave, you can make these edible briefs in three easy steps. Just season some ground beef and create some sheets of it. Then carve up your these sheets into sections using your own briefs as a template. Then you just tie it together with Slim Jim string.

Lastly, present it to your Valentine and prepare to get smacked upside the head. Very simple process. But don’t. Really, just don’t!

[via Obvious Winner via Geekosystem]

Why he chose to do so, I have no idea. Maybe he wanted to give his kids some sort of show, or maybe he was just choosing not to use his noggin. Or maybe he was just plain crazy.

You can see for yourself what happened when the firecracker he dropped ignited the trapped gas down the manhole:

Thank goodness his kids weren’t physically harmed when the manhole blew up and its metal cover went flying. I’m sure they probably won’t want to go near any manholes anytime soon, though. Especially not with their firecracker-wielding father.

[via TDW via Geekologie]

Plus, this one won’t attack you. It also makes a great conversation piece. Each handpainted zombie has 6 holes in its head for holding on to your pencils and pens. Its eyes are magnets to keep your paperclips in one place too, and the removable tongue is a tray for small items and business cards.

The slit in the back of the neck will hold your letters and papers. Since you can’t battle a real zombie and claim his head for your desk, this will have to do for now. The zombie head pencil holder is available for $34.95(USD) over at the Neatoshop.

What you’re staring at here is a giant Scrabble board, which measures in at nearly 49 square feet. It’s made by artist John Kahn, using Russian birch plywood, covered with galvanized steel and vinyl game graphics. Each one of the game’s 100 tiles is made from wood with a strong magnet inside, and measures a whopping 4-3/8″ square. The board also comes with two wall-mounted tile holders, and a pair of tile racks for game play – though it would have been nice for them to include two more – in case you want to play a four-player game.

Only nine of this gigantic Scrabble set are being made, and with a price tag of $12,000(USD), I can’t imagine they’ll all be snapped up quickly. But if you have enough enough capital to afford one, you can check it out over at Hammacher Schlemmer now.

[via SUATMM]

Namely, it would keep me from the daily morning conversation with my seven-year-old about the weather outside. She rolls out of bed each morning and comes in my office and wants to know how hot or cold it is outside. Her little brain doesn’t work in absolutes, so telling her it’s going to be 65° out means nothing to her. She’s also got a lot that fiery Italian in her thanks to her mom, so she gets pretty upset if I tell her she needs long sleeves and a jacket in the morning, and then she gets hot on the playground.

What she needs is this Cryoscope gadget, which lets you feel what the temperature outside is like without leaving the house. An LED glows to give you an indication at a glance if it’s hot or cold outside. The current build actually lets you feel what tomorrow’s temperature will be like, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be used for current weather too.

To build the Cryoscope, Godshaw took a Peltier element and placed it on top of a heat sink with a cooling fan, and a RGB LED on the bottom. The system gets its temperature information from a web-based application, relaying it to an Arduino controller. The controller and the Peltier element then heat or cool an aluminum cover to the appropriate temperature, with a range of 0 to 100°F. Then you simply lay a hand on it and know exactly what it will feel like when you go outside tomorrow. It even compensates the temperature to account for wind chill, humidity and the properties of the aluminum cube itself.

I wonder how hard it would be to build one of these for myself.

[via CNET]

The Zen Table has two sizes – a coffee table measuring 56″ x 39″ x 19.5″ and a smaller desktop version measuring 13″ x 9.5″ x 2 1/2″. Both are made of bamboo and equipped with an SD card slot and a USB cable. The SD card slot is for the bundled SD card which will have several programs that instruct the table’s electronics to create patterns, but you can also send commands from a computer to the table via USB.

In addition, the coffee table version can also be equipped with a 3G modem that will allow it to receive new designs, as well as allow the user to control the table from an Android or iOS app that Hallam is currently developing. That means you can have the Zen Table write messages to people at the table or have it draw naughty images when your parents have a visitor. The possibilities are frightening. Here’s a demo of the Zen Table in contemplative action:

Here it creates something more modern:

Fancy eh? Kickstarter supporters thought so as well. Hallam put up a fundraiser on the crowdfunding website and was able to exceed his original target. I’m not sure when and for how much the final products will be sold, but the people who pledged at least $499 (USD) on the project are eligible for a kit containing the parts for the desktop version of the Zen Table, while $749 got them the same model but fully assembled. Two people pledged at least $4,999 to get their own coffee table Zen Table and one rich and lucky person shelled out at least $7,499 to get the 3G version of the coffee table. Meanwhile I’m still waiting for the iZen Garden app to go on sale for less than $5.99.

Head to Hallam’s YouTube channel to check out more videos of the Zen Table in action.

[Kickstarter via The Awesomer]