(YouTube Link)

Researchers are Carnegie Mellon University are developing touchscreens that are textured to provide a variety of different shapes for users to interact with. If I understand this video correctly, this is more than just a shaped screen. The buttons on a single screen can actually change shape to present different types of interfaces. This technology could be very useful for the visually-impaired or people who want to use a machine while looking at something else.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-07/your-next-touchscreen-might-come-inflatable-buttons

VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies, a biotech start-up, has developed a tiny telescope that has can implanted into the eyes of people suffering from macular degeration:

Last week, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended that the agency approve the implant. Clinical trials of the device, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, suggest it can improve vision by about three and a half lines on an eye chart...Once inside the eye, it works like a fixed telephoto lens, acting in conjunction with the cornea to project a magnified image of whatever the wearer is looking at over a large part of the retina. Because only the central parts of the retina are damaged in the disease, magnifying the image on the eye allows the retinal cells outside the macula to detect the object and send that information to the brain.

Link via The Presurfer

Matt Neary of Fargo, North Dakota found that a thief had stolen CDs and his wallet out of his truck -- but he did leave a pleasant note complimenting Neary's taste in music:

You have amazing taste in music.
Don't worry about your credit cards and diver's license -- I know I can't use them...after tonight, at least.

Seriously though
Lock your car in the future

http://www.kfyrtv.com/News_video.asp?news=32159 (local news video) via Nothing To Do With Arbroath

When one of the two toilets on the International Space Station broke, io9 blogger Lauren Davis was inspired to write about the toilets (or utter lack thereof) in various science fiction movies, TV shows, and books.  She rounds up the commodes from Star Trek, Lexx, Babylon 5, Galaxy Quest, Firefly, and others.

Apparently on the Enterprise-D, there was only one toilet, and the post includes a video of Jonathan Frakes pointing it out on a schematic of the ship.

Link

image by flickr user Richard Freedman used under creative commons license

NASA has created a map of Aldrin and Armstrong's journeys on the surface of the moon to the scale of a baseball diamond. It helps put their activities at the landing site in perspective. Also, we know "Who's on first?" It was Buzz Aldrin.

Link via Popular Science

(YouTube Link)

This start-up proposes to use robots to carve the lunar surface dust into patterns that could serve as advertisements. I'm skeptical due to the sheer scale of the task -- the number of robots necessary over a very long period of time. Still, people said that we'd never have bacon flavored vodka, but scientists and engineers overcame the obstacles. Anyway, we know from an episode of The Tick that it can be done.

Link via Popular Science

(YouTube Link)

Captain Alpha Male is a new webseries written by and starring Jay L. Lutsky.  It's about a man who works in middle management at a superhero agency; like a cross between The Office and Justice League.  This is the first episode.

Link via io9

Competing a grueling marathon isn't challenging enough for some runners.  Woman's Day has a list of ten marathons, some of them run under brutal conditions.  The picture above is from Greenland's marathon.  Others featured include a marathon run up and down the steps of the Great Wall of China, one that starts at 17,000 feet above sea level, and another run at the Dead Sea.

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Health/Fitness-Exercise/10-Extreme-Marathons.html via The Presurfer

When I was six, my mother sewed a piece of velcro on an old blue towel.  That was my Batman outfit.  This is better: a functional set of motorcycle leathers modeled after the Batsuit in the movie The Dark Knight.  Put one on, hop on your Vespa, and relish the attention.  Because nothing impresses people better than wearing a superhero costume.

http://www.universaldesigns.ca/UDR/ID/IDjacket.html via Geekologie

Fun Tuna has a photogallery of people who have passed out while in yoga positions. Presumably by accident.

Link via Bits & Pieces

Problem: photocopiers are expensive, uncomfortable, and generally can't support the weight of an adult human.

Solution: the iBum by Tomomi Sayuda:

This project came from "impact" brief. My initial concern was the news about a naked British streaker who jumped into the Japanese Emperor's palace moat. I was interested in the principle of the news, which is showing embarrassment without big harm for fun. For me, impact means positive and humorous reaction. I decided how to represent this principle. This idea development took the longest time of my four projects. I was brainstorming in many ways with some practical developments since October 2008. Finally I came up with the idea of scanning people's bum.

I think that we should all take a moment to thank the engineers of this world, without whom we would not be living in this modern, technological paradise.

Link via The Corner

I haven't been able to track this product down to an online vendor, including the official Cheetos website, but this delicious photo is going all over the intertubes.  If I can find it, and some Mountain Dew-scented cologne, I'll be ready to hit GenCon in style.

Link

(YouTube Link)

Urlesque has a post full of mashups of Disney animated movie trailers, such as the above mix of Sin City with Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, as well as Kill Bill with Beauty and the Beast, and Pulp Fiction with Alice in Wonderland.

Link

(YouTube Link)

The pop culture blog Urlesque has a post full of mariachi band cover songs, such as the above "Sweet Home Alabama". Others include "Beat It" by Michael Jackson, "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen, and "Zombie" by the Cranberries.

Link

GatgetHER has pictures of and links to seventeen bizarre and/or clever kitchen gadgets, such as this nose-shaped egg separator. The others gadgets include a device that turns a hard-boiled egg into a cube, one that shears the kernels off of a corn cob, and an espresso machine that looks like a medieval torture implement.

Link via The Presurfer