Modern technology might sound better, hold more songs and be easier to use than the vintage stuff, but it sure doesn’t have the same visual impact as a classic phonograph. Fortunately with this iPhonograph you get the stunning classic style blended with the beauty of new technology. If you’ve got the skills, Instructables has the steps to make your own.

Link Via Geekosystem

You very well may recognize the voice, so stop reading if you want to watch and guess who did this little film. Okay, now? This film was produced in 1963 for a Bell Systems seminar in Chicago, by Jim Henson. It was recently retrieved from the AT&T Archives. -via Dangerous Minds

Photographer Toss McLellan has a great photo series called “Everyone Has A Piece of the Puzzle” wherein he dissects and lays out the parts of commonly used electronic items. The pictures look great and give us an all new look at items we use every day.

Link Via BoingBoing

Tired of staring at your food while it cooks in the microwave? That’s so 1980. Fortunately, students from the University of Pennsylvania have managed to hack a microwave oven to play YouTube videos while your food is cooking. If you don’t feel like waiting, you can also have the microwave text you when your food is done.

Now that’s impressive!

Link Via Geekosystem

Nokia apparently feels like the smart phones we have today aren’t rubbery or flexible enough to take us into the future, so they are introducing a design that will change the way we use, and touch, our phones.

Called the HumanForm, this rubbery surfboard shaped device is virtually unbreakable, has twist control functionality, and will supposedly allow us to feel textures via “electro tactile technology”. I don’t know about you, but this phone makes me want to teach a squirrel how to ride it like a surfboard!

Link

George Balanchine, the charismatic director who ran the New York City Ballet and its School of American Ballet, rethought pointe shoes. He worked with Salvatore Capezio to develop and patent pointe shoes to produced the exact lines of the foot and leg he thought beautiful, and to be quieter and less clunky than earlier pointe shoes. He required all dancers (not just the principals) to go on pointe — and not for a few short moments, but for hours at a time.

Laemmli argues that the new shoes forced dancers’ bodies to move in new ways. Dancers on this pointe regimen developed characteristically long, lean leg muscles. Balanchine also encouraged dancers to let the shoes remake their bodies, including developing bunions that gave the foot just the right line. And as their bodies were remade, dancers became “like IBM machines,” modern and indistinguishable.

Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Flickr user kirikiri)

File this device under unique and useless, perfect fodder for blog posts! The device is the one and only analog Twitter client, Tweephone, and you must use the rotary dial to enter the letters, one turn at a time just like the old days.

If you have money to burn and love to Tweet then your house needs this decorative device. The rest of us will be more than happy just reading about it, i’m quite sure of that.

Link

This amazing new device does a lot more than project little duckies onto objects, it projects a truly 3d image onto whichever surface you choose. You can walk around your projection, view it from all sides, and would make for the greatest ghost prank ever. Scooby Doo-style crimes via ghostly projected images have never been easier!

Link

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m always misplacing all my USB drives and SD cards. Fortunately, someone has finally created a delightful city where they can all go to spend some time together when you’re not using them.

Link Via Geekosystem

A recent study has shown that around 17% of all damage done to fiber optic cables is done by the adorable little brats. So next time you see a squirrel climbing up a telephone wire, maybe you should coax him down with a few peanuts before he munches away at your precious TV signal.

Link Via Consumerist Image Via ingridtaylar [Flickr]

The shuttle’s days are over, but its impact on daily life is by no means diminished. Since NASA began development of new tech for astronauts, we the people have gotten trickle-down innovations from the science implemented in shuttle missions. PopSci has rounded up ten inventions originally used on the shuttle that are implemented right now by non-astronauts. From baby formula to fishing nets, check out the gallery at Popular Science. Link

Image: Goodyear Tires

(Video Link)

South Koreans have some of the longest work hours in the world, which makes it difficult for them to go grocery shopping. To counter the problem (and to help their market share), Tesco installed virtual grocery stores in the subway stations where items can be ordered via QR code and later be delivered to the person’s home.

Link

Bjork’s new album may sound good to her fans, but the real value is in its interactivity with the iPad. All of the songs on her album will have their own custom-designed app, that allow users to manipulate the songs on the device. The first song released revolves around the formation of crystals in the earth, as does its related app.

Link Image Via thetripwirenyc [Flickr]

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using some high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighing less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” – he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should’ve been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before it, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

“Oh, that — one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang”, says one of the workers.

Some have pointed out that the simple solution would not have been found if the complicated scheme hadn’t been put into effect; others say a cash incentive to the line workers would have done the job. Whether the story is true or not, it illustrates the importance of thinking simple when possible. Link -via a comment at Hacker News/Metafilter

(Image credit: Flickr member Gustavo Durán)

During the Cold War, the US military developed top secret aircraft at the Air Force facilities at Groom Lake, also known as Area 51. Decades after the projects were finished, these designs remained classified. Although these planes were “technology demonstrators” and were never put into service, they were crucial for testing systems and technologies that are part of modern military and civilian aircraft alike. Read the stories and see photographs of three of these projects (one of which only exists in photographs, as the planes are still missing) at UrbanGhosts. Link

From to Google Wave to the Microsoft KIN, we have seen lots of failed technology  in recent years. However nothing seems as doomed to fail as “The Wearable Computer.” Check out this list of the 50 Worst Fails in Technology History  Link

That should make it a whole lot easier! Link

Walt Disney Imagineering is updating the features of the Haunted Mansion. Here’s a look at how they are changing the beloved “hitchhiking ghosts.” -via Boing Boing

The Kindle’s transformation from luxury gadget to impulse buy isn’t based on a single moment but rather on a series of price drops that broke the hearts of early adopters. If you bought a Kindle 2 in February 2009, it cost $359. Five months later, $299. Three months after that, $259. By June 2010, the Kindle 2 cost $189–and if you thought that was a good time to pull the trigger, July brought word of the Kindle 3, including a Wi-Fi model for $139. In less than a year and a half, the Kindle had become thinner, lighter, and $220 cheaper.

Maybe one day I will get around to buying one. Link -via Interesting Pile

In the art installation called Just in Time, or A Short History of Production, French artist Xavier Antin printed a book using a chain of four desktop printers of varying technologies from 1880 to 1976, using the output of one as input of another: Link – via The Ministry of Type

For instance, during the Lost finale, some fans noticed the flash of a red QR code during a True Blood commercial. If you stopped your DVR and shifted back to the code, you could pause the frame and scan the code. From there, you would have been taken to an exclusive clip from season 3. (In fact, if you try the red QR code here, with the blood, it should still work!) Clothing companies have also been using them in innovative ways. For instance, window shoppers at some stores have wondered what the little square 8-bit-looking thingamajig is doing there next to, say, a certain jacket or a pair of shoes. Well, if you scan the code, you get a coupon for a discount on the item if you bring it inside the store on your phone. Pretty neat, eh?

For our QR Hunt, we’re asking everyone to download a few different QR code readers and to practice scanning some codes to get the hang of it before heading off to find the car on Tuesday the 21st at 11am. Some readers respond faster than others. Some are just plain cooler than others. So here’s a test. Scan the code below and see where your phone takes you (it’s free, don’t worry, there’s no catch!). If you wind up at my community engagement Web site where the contest is mentioned on the homepage, well then you’ve done it correctly.

Stay tuned for more on QR codes here on the blog and remember to follow one of the following on Twitter for those starting locations next Tue: @neatorama or @mental_floss or @resila. If you don’t use Twitter, no worries, just check our blogs at exactly 10:30 am for the starting location nearest you. Oh, and you don’t have to be from NYC to participate, though you do have to be IN the city that day.

Also, QR codes were invented by the Japanese to track car vehicle parts way back in 1994, so it’s no wonder they’re ubiquitous there already. Here in the States, however, they’re just beginning to catch on a little bit. QR stands for quick response—as in, you scan the code with your phone’s camera and you’re immediately taken to whatever the code has be programmed to do. The code might send you an SMS, it might take you to a Web page, it might trigger a video or even have your phone call a phone number.

Recently, we got a Target catalog in the mail with a bunch of QR codes next to some of the toys. When you scan one, you get a video commercial showing you what the toy could do. Likewise, New York Times tech writer Nick Bilton’s new book, I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works. uses QR codes in conjunction with video. Each chapter has a QR code at the top of it and when you scan them, some take you to YouTube videos of Nick talking about the chapter. You get to meet the author through the video and even interact with him through the YouTube vid comments.

Many Nokia phones are now coming with scanners and code readers built into them. Then there are all the wonderful free apps available for download to iPhones and Androids and the like. My favorites include ScanLife, RedLaser and Mobiletag. If you get a little high off of scanning groceries at those automated check-out lanes, you’ll really love using QR codes. For more, check out the Rocketboom video below.

That’s right, you read the headline correctly! We’re teaming up with mentalfloss.com and resila.com and giving you a chance to win a brand new Ford Fiesta on December 21st in NYC.

We can’t give away the details just yet, but if you live in the New York area, you’re going to want to make yourself available between 11am and 1pm for the coolest interactive event of the year. For more details as we make them available, follow @resila on Twitter or just keep checking back here as the date nears.

Sorry rest of the country, this is a NYC-based event only. However, if you live in San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, or Los Angeles, you could win a Ford Fiesta, as well. Check out their Facebook page for details. (n.b. we are not associated with these other contests)

Coming soon, a cell phone or special eyeglasses that will change the way you look and interact with the world around you. Augmented reality will give us more information about the places we go, things we see, and even translate the local language into one you understand. National Geographic has a taste of what augmented reality can do, and how close we are getting to this brave new world. Link

How has Britain changed in the past 10 years? Prospect Magazine has an interesting infographic detailing the transformation of Great Britain from 1997 to 2009:

Richer, fatter, living longer, more indebted, drunker, better connected, politically disillusioned: there’s no metric that can describe whether we are happier or living better lives after 13 years of Labour. But there are plenty to show how we have changed during a period of fulsome spending, borrowing and technological transformation;

The snipped above is from the Media and Technology section and shows that cell phone ownership has gone from 17% to 93% of household, Internet access has grown from 4% to 73% whereas music sales have declined from nearly 10 million singles to just 4 million. Similiarly, newspaper circulation has contracted by 25%.

Link | The infographic in PDF format – via metafilter

Considering how much we use technology in our lives, it’s scary just how easily our gadgets can be turned to spy on their owners. Consider the amount of information that passes through your computer or cell phone – the ability to log every keystroke or read every single text message gives someone the knowledge of your ongoings. Of course, these are only the most basic ways of spying, on you, through your technology.

Japanese company KDDI has developed technology for cell phones that uses something called accelerometers to track precise movements, then beams all that info back to a central location. And we’re not throwing the word “precise” around willy-nilly here. These guys can tell if whoever wearing the phone is sweeping versus scrubbing, walking versus running, doing number two in the bathroom versus doing number two in the secretary’s filing cabinet. It’s that sophisticated.

Link – via mentalfloss

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

Scientists have developed a way to make T-shirt fabric reinforced with boron carbide, which is the same material used to strengthen military tanks. Boron carbide has a hardness just short of diamonds. Imagine that strength in a regular lightweight shirt!

To turn cotton bulletproof, researchers from the University of South Carolina and their collaborators from China and Switzerland dipped sections of regular T-shirts (Fig 1a) in a special mix of nickel and borate. After allowing the cotton to absorb the mix for 2 hours (Fig 1b), the textile was dried quickly in an oven and cured at a high temperature for 3 hours. Once ready, the pieces of cotton were placed in a furnace and headed at 1160°C for 4 hours while continuously aerated with argon. Finally, the resulting fabric pieces (Fig 1c) were cooled and analyzed using electron microscopes and a barrage of strength tests.

So far, the performance of the material is not up to Kevlar standards, but with some tweaking, body armor may soon be as easy to wear as any other clothing. Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by NerdyChristie.

This would only replace food’s caloric aspect, so we’d still need to take vitamin and nutritional supplements in order to provide the body with new matter as cells die off, according to Patrick Tucker, director of communications for the World Future Society. Still, there’s a certain cold comfort in knowing that if worse comes to worst, nanotechnology might give us a food pill that, taken every 10 years or so, would power our bodies if the planet loses the ability to do so — or if we’re forced to leave the planet, as Stephen Hawking suggests.

Link -via Digg

(image credit: Flickr user GE Healthcare)

A joker named Matt posted his own Youtube tutorial [above] revealing some very practical applications for this new tool, and demonstrating its awsome progressive learning capability.

Photo: GM/NASA

This week’s developments in technological advances, like General Motors and NASA’s Robonaut2 (cleverly and deviously nicknamed R2), and Google’s decision to team up with the NSA got GeekDad‘s Curtis Silver wondering about truth mirroring the best of science fiction- and its predictions of an eventual machine takeover that will plunge humanity into mass enslavement.

While I was writing this I read an article about how Google has teamed with the NSA in order to help tighten up Google’s infrastructure when it comes to cyber-security. The layman would view that partnership as a natural evolutionary response to fight off the ever increasing cyber-attacks on companies such as Google. The slightly paranoid individual might view that as a sure sign big brother is looking over your shoulder. The slightly paranoid geeky individual simply views that as Skynet in the making.

Curtis cites the sci-fi classics Hyperion by Dan Simmons, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, and The Ship Who Sang by Anne McAffrey as prime examples “to uncover what other possible technological threats we might face in the future.”  Read the article, and tell us what other stories might become reality soon.

Link

Neatorama has featured a number of stories about animals who have received prosthetics before, including Beauty the Bald Eagle, who lost her beak when it was shot by a hunter. WebEcoist has a great collection of these stories including many you probably haven’t seen yet.

Link

What’s your favorite recent discovery? I personally like the volcanic crater the best because I’m a sucker for animals.

Link

While I can certainly see value in this device, I can’t help but think of all those situations where things could go wrong. What do you think readers? A great idea or a huge mistake waiting to happen?

Link

Further, the core of the technology will be the mobile camera and the placement of processed information on top of live streaming content from the camera.

We are already seeing some of it with mobile GPS applications, but 2010 will be clearly put these applications on the top shelf of mobile apps. This will allows users to get every information by integrating physical reality and virtual world.

Apple’s Tablet, the rise of online TV and more at the Link.  (Photo: Wikipedia)

Via Gizmodo

Rob Spence, a filmmaker from Canada, had his eye wounded in a shooting accident as a child. Presumably furious at its weak character and lazy work ethic, Spence asked doctors to just completely remove it a few years ago, and now he’s getting it replaced with a small camera (of the type normally used for colonoscopies,) a battery, and a wireless transmitter – effectively turning him into a human documentarian capable of recording, broadcasting, and relaying literally everything he sees, as he sees it.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by rappin.

Dorothy Miller, an 87-year-old grandmother, uses Twitter every day to keep in touch with her family, but she uses no computer. Instead, she uses a fax machine and a service called Cellery that posts the messages to her Twitter page.

I don’t usually write to my daugher that much because she talks to much. And that she takes up too much of our time, but she can read my twitterings here and she can see what her mother’s doing and know that her mother’s okay …

Go grandma, go … or better yet, tweet, grandma, tweet!

– via mycelery

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by DCC42.

The contract has been signed for the Shepherds Flat wind farm in Oregon, which will cover 30 square miles, and is expected to generate 2 billion kilowatt hours of energy every year. That will provide 10% of the power California needs! Good to see we are finally moving forward with green technology.

Independent power producer Caithness Energy has awarded GE a $1.4 billion contract for 338 of the company’s most advanced wind turbines to build a 845-megawatt wind farm in Oregon — a size that outstrips all others currently operating worldwide.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by digimouse.

Try it yourself and see.

Thanks to Nag On The Lake for finding this.

Writer Evan Ratliff pondered the same question while writing an article for Wired magazine about people who for various reasons had tried to start over with completely new lives .  A few months later he found himself a willing volunteer to find out firsthand what the experience entailed.  With a 24 hour head start, $2000 cash stuffed in his belt and a fake office to set up in Las Vegas he drove his Honda Civic across the Bay bridge, then out of California in a bid to disappear entirely.  Leaving behind family, a girlfriend, and any semblance of a normal life for a month while assuming an entirely new identity.

The magazine periodically published clues and made accessible to their online community all the information a private investigator might be privy to, as well as placing a $5000 bounty on Evan’s head.  His travels took him across the country a few times, his disguises changed almost daily and online groups spontaneously emerged to track and document his every move.  Amateurs and professionals from coast to coast took to the chase disseminating all the details they could uncover, staking out airports and bars, even trying to glean details from acquaintances as varied as his cat sitter.

In the end it wasn’t nearly what Evan had expected when he began.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by renderanything.

Instead of using aboveground ponds to grow algae for biofuels, researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology have proposed growing algae underground in abandoned mines.  What are the advantages?  Underground mines are cheap, maintain constant temperature, solve the aboveground evaporation and contamination problems, and the site preparation has already been done by the mining companies.

But don’t algae need sunlight to grow?  Not necessarily, says mining engineering professor David Summers.

It happens that algae work best when they use only the blue and red parts of the light spectrum, which can be provided by LED lights, and they need periods of darkness in which to process the photons.

An added benefit:  Mine owners like the idea because it eliminates the need for them to clean up the sites, as algae are particularly good at sequestering metals.

Win + win + win?  I guess we’ll find out.

More information at Scientific American.

Ever wondered just how much surface area you would need to supply the entire world with all of its power needs using only energy collected from solar panels?  Luckily for us the Land Art Generator Initiative have done all the math.  Crunching the numbers based on our current and projected energy usage and using statistics grounded on the solar technology that is available to us today, they have created this handy map of what 2030 could look like.  The map shows use distributed roughly proportional to use and weather patterns.

A related link in the article shows an alternative map based on offshore wind power.

Link – via coolinfographics

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by renderanything.

“This way you not only know when to go, but can also find out what you’ll be missing.  You will no longer miss those ultra-important scenes, or need to come back to your seat and ask someone, ‘What did I miss?’”

They have new releases and classics, and now there’s even an iPhone app that alerts you when a good opportunity is coming to answer Nature’s call.

Link |  Image courtesy Elizabeth O. Dulemba

A ‘telepathy’ chip that allows people to control computers, televisions and light switches by the power of thought is being developed by British scientists. The idea was conceived by Dr. Jon Spratley while he was studying at the University of Birmingham.

The tiny sensor would sit on the surface of the brain, picking up the electrical activity of nerve cells and passing the signal wirelessly to a receiver on the skull.

The signal would then be used to control a cursor on a computer screen, operate electronic gadgets or steer an electric wheelchair.

This type of technology would allow disabled people such as Stephen Hawking to have more control over their environment. Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by scaryman.

In a tributary near Havana, about 200 miles from Chicago, ecologist Greg Sass is testing a barrier that injects beeping sounds into an effervescent wall, which captures and magnifies the noise. The chirping bothers only the carp because it hears higher frequencies than native species do; a series of tiny bones connecting the carp’s swim bladder to its auditory system amplifies sound. In hatchery trials, the acoustic “fence” stopped 95 percent of the invasive fish.

Link

If you’re like me, you have a major problem with cables taking over your home life. Here’s a great, visually interesting way to overkill the solution -a whole wall of outlets.

Link

Festo, has been shown here on Neatorama several times in the past and each time their robotics and bizarre creations blew our collective minds…our Neatorama Hivemind to be exact…but that’s a story for another time.

In this video you’ll get to see creepy blue LED robotic penguins swimming about in a large pool. Also, you’ll see it’s more lighter cousin who probably is the envy of every penguin in being able to fly/float and much more in terms of various robotic creations. Really fascinating stuff!

More info here – Link

For older Neatorama Festo links:

Festo’s Upside-Down Hot Air Balloon
AquaJelly and AirJelly
Air Ray: The Blimp With Wings
Meet Aqua Ray
Festo Airic’s Robotic Arm
Floating Fish Blimp

TechRadar UK explains:

The problem of ‘good enough’ is a huge headache for the tech industry. When your computer isn’t good enough – when a slow processor, meagre memory and tiny hard disk struggle with even everyday tasks – you’ll buy a better model as soon as it becomes available.

Now, though, the weakest link isn’t your PC: it’s you.

Will a 200-core processor make you type an email more quickly, make you work more productively or make your Facebook status updates any more amusing?

Link – via AQFL