More awesome than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? I don't know yet, but the novel Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber looks promising. Here's a synopsis:

When the Imperial prison barge Purge–temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves–breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

Schreiber has a blog, where you can find pictures of his zombified Storm Troopers staggering around ComicCon, promoting his book.

http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/starwars/deathtroopers/ via Double Plus Undead

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This touching song by Daniel Strange and Kevin Umbricht describes the private lives of G.I. Joe characters when they're not busy fighting.  Featuring Cobra Commander dancing and starring Sgt. Slaughter as himself.

Via Topless Robot

A new generation of hearing aids will be able to block out background noise and let users directly jack into music:

On Friday Mr Hughes had tiny titanium screws drilled into bone behind each ear during a 90-minute operation under general anaesthetic. Once the wounds heal and the screws have fused with bone, abutments will be screwed into the implants, and the processors, about the size of a postage stamp, are clicked into place.

Older-style hearing aids amplify all sounds, making it almost impossible for wearers to hear conversations in noisy environments. They also interfere with frequencies used by mobile and fixed phones and often emit high-pitched whistling sounds. But the newer processors, costing about $6000 each, shut out background noise, giving users up to 25 per cent better hearing, and can be attached directly to MP3 music players or wireless headsets for talking on the phone, Cochlear's territory manager, Katrina Martin, said.

Link via Popular Science

Still in the concept stage, the Watergate is an alternative to the turnstile. If you're disabled, getting through a turnstile can be a challenge. That's why designers Michael Tatschl, Sascha Mikel and Martin Schnabl came up with this solution. It would allow disabled people to get through, and spray everyone else with water.

Link via DVICE

Still in the concept stage, the Phyto-Purification Bathroom and Shower would make your bathroom more environmentally friendly:

Using a natural filtering principle called phyto-purification, the bathroom becomes a mini-eco-system by recycling and regenerating the wastewater.

The water from the shower and the washbasin is filtered through an organic system before being re-used.

Phyto-purification is a natural water-recycling process which is commonly used in ecological purification systems.

Link via GearFuse

At the 50-acre Glacier Gardens in Alaska, designers added an unusual flair by uprooting more than twenty hemlock and spruce trees, flipping them over, and using the trunks as natural flower pots:

During the rehabilitation process, Steve was developing the lower landscaped gardens using a large piece of rented equipment to arrange the masses of soil, roots, plants, trees, and rock dragged down the mountain during the landslide. During the last few hours of equipment rental, the equipment was damaged while moving a large boulder. This boulder has become known as “Steve’s Rock” and is the centerpiece of one of the many waterfalls flowing through Glacier Gardens. Full of frustration about the large repair bill he was sure to see, he used the equipment to pick up a large tree stump and slammed the inverted stump into the ground trunk first. The tree stuck into the soft mud upside down and as the roots hung like the vines of a petunia basket, it only took moments before he had a vision of how to recycle the trees cleared from the development of the property: The Upside Down “Flower Towers.” Each flower tower is made by inverting spruce or hemlock trees with the root ball pointing towards the sky. The stock of the trunk buried 5-7 ft, netting on top, mosses laid down, and nearly 75 – 100 plants planted every year for guest enjoyment.

Official Website via Urlesque (where there are many marvelous pictures)

Image by flickr user John & Peggy Bromley used under creative commons license

These new vessels, set to enter service in November, get 3/4 of their power from solar cells and 1/4 from liquefied petroleum:

The technology could cut in half carbon-dioxide output on a typical urban ferry route, Solar Sailor said on its Web site. Makers of ships, planes and autos around the world are trying to cut greenhouse gases from transport, which account for about 13 percent of global emissions...Solar Sailor’s so-called hybrid marine power, a sea-going equivalent to Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius car, according to Chief Executive Officer Robert Dane, can save ferry operators $6 million in fuel costs over a typical 15-year lifespan, the company says. Even so, recent development of the technology makes it hard to compete with the more established diesel motor industry, Dane said.

Link via DVICE

If you need this product, then we need to talk about your anger issues. But preferably while you're not holding the Fisticup. It's sort of like a spork, but a bit more violent.

http://shop.neatorama.com/product-info.php?fisticup-pid664.html via DVICE

If you're visually impaired, it can be hard to fill a mug (or any other vessel) without spilling over the edge. The Braun Bell Mug beeps at each of three different levels, so the user can know how much liquid s/he's getting, without making a mess.

Link via DVICE

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I'm not sure what this is, but it is awesome. Sticky Light is a student project at the Department of Information Physics and Computing at the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory of the University of Tokyo. One source says this:

Sticky Light is a 3d tracking technology using a laser diode (low power), a pair of steering mirrors and a single non-imaging photodetector. The big difference to other tracking technologies is the fact that the Sticky Light doesn’t use a camera or projector. So what could you do with? It can track the contour of objects and even augment real-time drawings. Or you could build games like air hockey or a pinball game.

Official Website via Oh Gizmo!

Where I Write is a photogallery of science fiction and fantasy authors in their workspaces. The photo above is of Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series. Photographer Kyle Cassidy plans to create a book filled with such images.

Link via io9

If Star Wars Was Real is a photoshop gallery of images which imagine a synthesis of human history (particularly in the 20th Century) and Star Wars. Well, I think that it's photoshopped. The hosts are a bit more ambitious:

Our mission is to compile any evidence we can find to prove that Star Wars is real. So far, we have several contacts around the globe studying photographs and artifacts for any shred of evidence they can find. However, since most of the evidence seems to be hidden away by some sort of worldwide government consipracy, we need your help to find the truth!

Link via io9

Radar magazine has a gallery of thirteen consumer products that were originally developed by space exploration programs. Among them is the ear thermometer:

In an effort to identify newborn suns, NASA replaced standard mercury-filled thermometers with infrared-sensing cameras to detect tricky heat signatures. And now doctors use the same technology to take your temperature in your ear.

Link via The Corner

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Inventor Paul Patone has invented a fuel delivery system that can turn soda into a usuable fuel. He prefers to use Mountain Dew:

It's called the Geet Sytstem. Basically, it's a fuel booster system that can connect to any engine.

Patone said the best part is that the Geet System creates zero pollution.

The engine isn't exactly full of soda pop. Patone said the complex pipe system vaporizes the fuel before it reaches the engine.

"I haven't invented the engine; all I've invented is the fuel delivery system. And this system will fit a gas engine, a diesel engine, a furnace, a boiler, it will fit anything including jet turbines," Patone said.

Official Website via The Corner

He made it out of wood and a motorcycle engine:

20 year old Chinese farmer Wu Zhongyuan built himself a helicopter using only — according to the man — what he remembers of middle school physics lessons and "relevant knowledge [found while] surfing the Internet via my mobile phone."

Well, sure looks like things worked out. His single-seater conveyance has blades made from the wood of an Elm tree, a frame reinforced with steel pipes and uses an engine from a motorcycle — all for around $1,600. Wu claims the 'copter can get him as high as 2,600 feet, though it seems he's grounded for the time being as the Chinese government has forbid him to fly because of safety reasons.

Link via Geekologie