The creepiest part of this whole commercial is the half second before they start singing, while all three of them bob and grimace into the camera while waiting for their cue. It gets more terrifying the more you watch it. [via TV in Japan]

Prof. Michael Stoll has scanned in these wonderful Syd Mead illustrations, commissioned by U.S. Steel in the early '60s as promotional materials, and added them to the Paleo-Future/Boing Boing Gadgets "In the Year 2000" Flickr pool. I would kill to get my hands on a set of these.

This ambulance is taking me to the hospital where I will be impregnated with Syd Mead's babies.

Christ almighty! Syd Mead invented AT-ATs!

USS - a portfolio of probabilities [Flickr.com via Paleo-Future]

This is a screenshot of my feedreader, sorted by time (not keyword). I think Sony may have come out with something today. Maybe something with letters in the model? I'm not sure.

Here's what I don't get: Wouldn't it be easier for these companies to release their product information directly into a public database from which all these sites and their readers could pull? I guarantee a bunch of gadget writers stayed up late last night to rewrite all those Sony press releases. It would have been much more efficient for everyone if the press releases were just injected into the stream without any human interaction.

(If I had one millions of rubles, I'd build a system to handle this.)

While I didn't love Capcom's Dead Rising as much as some—I thought the demo was cackle-inducing genius, but hated the punitive advancement system in the full game—there was no doubt that it was inspired carnage. Inspired by the Dawn of the Dead movies, clearly. I mean, it's set in a mall filled with zombies. It may not have ripped off the plot, but it clearly borrowed its setting, and to great effect.

Unfortunately for Capcom, the producer who holds the rights to the Dawn of the Dead movies didn't like their homage and is now suing them for intellectual property infringement.

"Both works are dark comedies," the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Monday reads. "In both, the recreational activities of the zombies and absurdly grotesque 'kill scenes' provide unexpected comedic relief."

"Both works provided thoughtful social commentary on the 'mall culture' zeitgeist, in addition to serving up a sizable portion of sensationalistic violence," it said.

There could be some interesting fallout from this suit. Videogames often lift settings from movies to give players a chance to recreate similar situations. Dead Rising isn't quite a parody of Dawn of the Dead, either, so those protections may not apply.

Producer, game firm in rights battle over zombies [Reuters.com]

• Flash Memory – SanDisk GB microSD for $8, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Videogames – 25% off used games at Gamestop. [Dealnews]

• Portable Speakers – Today's Woot! is a two-pack of LG Electronics Portable Stereo Speakers for $23, shipped.

Wizards of the Coast passed on these screenshots of the upcoming "D&D; Insider" software application that will enable gamers to emulate tabletop games from the comfort of their PCs. It will be launched alongside Dungeons & Dragons 4.0, which will be shown off more fully at this weekend's "D&D; Experience" event in Washington, D.C.

These first shots show the character builder—worries that transvestite characters would be unsupported in the system were obviously unfounded—while later shots show the tabletop and dungeon mapping interfaces. It's a little rough looking, but I suspect it'll look better at higher resolutions.

More screenshots after the jump. (You can click the images to get a pop-up at full resolution.)

Oh, hell, let's make it two-in-a-row round-up linkbait capitulation: Jalopnik has put together a completely spurious, thoroughly entertaining list of the "Ten Best Post-Apocalyptic Survival Vehicles, including my lusted-after Earthroamer XV-JP. (I have to say, though, that that Volvo X303, a Unimog knock off it appears, is quite lovely and probably a sight less expensive.)

Of course none of them are as interesting-looking as the Dobbertin Surface Orbiter above which looks like a cross between a funny car and a golf pencil.

The Ten Best Post-Apocalyptic Survival Vehicles [Jalopnik]

While I can often resist round-up posts for the linkbait they are, Freshome's "30 Most Creative Bookshelves" post hits me right where I live. (My house, durr.) If I weren't leaving my apartment in a few months I'd consider building some of the more creative options. Instead I'll just stick with shelves I can build but still easily break down for moving.

30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs [Freshome.com]

Gamespot UK got a look at the sequel to one of last year's best games, Puzzle Quest. The new version is a sci-fi influenced riff on the old puzzle/RPG hybrid called "Galactrix," which not only updates the theme but abstracts the Bejeweled-inspired gameplay out even more, changing from a square to hex grid and allowing other tweaks like blocks that clear not just down but from side-to-side. (If that doesn't make any sense to you, go out and buy one of the many versions of Puzzle Quest available on PC, portables, or Xbox 360—you won't regret it for an instant. In fact, I kind of want to play again now.)

The basic contents of a puzzle board in Galactrix are quite similar to those in Puzzle Quest. You're matching three of a kind of various tiles colored red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and silver. Red, yellow, and green correspond to your weapons, engines, and ship computer. Mechanically, they act like the mana you used in Puzzle Quest because they'll power the various weapons and abilities of your ships in battle. The only special ability we got D3 to talk about was disruptor, which will prevent your opponent's shields from recharging for a few turns.

GDC '08: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix First Look [UK.Gamespot.com via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Today on Modern Mechanix we look at this Turbo Wheel Ocean Liner, a bevy of new cycle-cars from the 1922 Paris auto show, a movie projector that uses record sized disks of film and a few 1933 machines for "pulling power from the skies". Planning on buying a computer but can't make up your mind? Deciding whether to get a digital or analog computer is always a tough choice so I'd recommend reading this 1958 Popular Electronics article: "ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS - what they are and what they do" to get yourself up to speed. This handy little lady's mirror has a compartment in the handle to hold your stash of coke perfume.

This weekend we looked at this crazy 14 foot high 2,400 pound gyroscopic wheel from 1923 that was supposed to be able to go at least 250 miles per hour, a round up of new radio designs from 1934, a method for measuring lawmaker's intellect, a robot that makes introductions at banquets, and an electric table that serves your guests. This 1933 Modern Mechanix article explains how to build a really fun looking "Comedy Ford" trick car for doing stunts. We learned about using weird unseen rays to trap master crooks and an early boxing telecast. Also, a look at what the credit department of a big department store looked like before computers,  amateur news reel photographers, a dangerous looking homemade chair-sled, a solar powered steam engine and motorcycle riding headlight peddlers.

The "Homade LEGO MP3 player" is neither home-made nor officially a LEGO product, but its clever design—each nub is a button—is almost enough to convince me to make a purchase, despite a price of $46 with no built-in memory (it takes microSD) and a size considerably larger than a real LEGO element. (I can't quite figure out exactly how large the player might be, although I doubt it's 24 centimeters long as is stated on the product page. It uses a single AA battery for power, though, so that should give some rough idea.)

Catalog page [Homeloo.com via Technobob]

Cinnamon Pirate discovered an unlicensed version of Final Fantasy VII for the original NES/Famicom. That's more than just a knock-off—it's an act of true skill and commitment by an unknown team of Chinese coders. Not everything made the transition from Playstation to NES versions—some characters, limit breaks, and summons are dropped—but what survived came through due to the dedication of one talented pirate coder.

First off, Final Fantasy VII is the only NES ROM I have ever seen to have its own several-hundred character 16×16 font. Most Japanese games are written in 8×8 hiragana or katakana only, and Chinese games typically waste CHR banks dedicated to 64 characters each, and optimize the banks for literally every text window in the game.

Tons of screenshots and descriptions are available; there's even a link to a ROM image if you can get your emulator to execute its non-standard layout.

From polygons to pixels: Final Fantasy VII [CinnamonPirate.com via Kotaku]

The NatureMill PRO is an indoor composter that turns your food scraps into rich, healthy compost in just a couple of weeks. You can convert up to 120 pounds of food waste a month into compost producing only a mild smell "similar to sourdough, mushrooms, or damp straw." I'd presume that's mostly when the food bin is open, since a carbon filter cleans the air vented by the built-in fan. You could also use the unit outdoors.

Three models are available: the NatureMill plus for $300; the NatureMill PRO with a foot pedal bin lever and steel chassis for $400; and the "Pet-friendly" NatureMill which can accept pet waste in addition to food waste.

Of course you could ditch the electricity use entirely to build an at-home worm composting box. And a starter batch of worms costs just $10.

Product Page [NatureMill.com via Oh Gizmo]

This hand-held "Raycop" vacuum isn't just ugly for the sake of a punny name. That wide front holds a vibrating pad and a ultraviolet lamp—the pad shakes up dust mites and other microorganisms from your pillows and furniture, while the UV lamp gives them a good blast of electromagnetic death. Then the vacuum sucks it all up.

For those that suffer from allergies it might be worth taking a look, but with a $250 price you could do a lot of rug beating and pillow shaking outside.

Raycop anti-bacterial vacuum [Appliancist]

• SATA Hard Drive – Western Digital 400GB SATA drive for $70, shipped. [Slickdeals]

• LCD Monitor – Acer 24-inch LCD monitor for $280, shipped. A fine deal from Office Depot. [Slickdeals]

• Tripod – Joby Gorillapod for $22, shipped. [Dealnews]

• MP3 Player – Today's Woot! is a refurbished Sandisk Sansa e270 6GB Media Player with FM Tuner for $55, shipped.

The Times profiles the "Hayes Diversified Technologies M103M1," a military variant of the Kawasaki KLR650 motorcycle that runs of the ever-present JP-8 diesel fuel. The result isn't a performance beast, but does get 96 miles to the gallon and is easily field serviceable.

On a half-hour test ride, the M103M1, though sluggish at first, gathered speed with dogged insistence. The footpegs and handlebars buzz as the engine revs — the counterbalancer that controls vibration in the stock KLR has been omitted to save weight and reduce complexity. Shifting through the five-speed gearbox gets the M103M1 past 90 miles an hour, a speed it will hold, apparently, until the end of time.

Getting your hands on one if you're not a Marine is difficult; Hayes is pretty much backlogged making modifying the bikes for the military.

Diesel-Sipping Motorcycle for the Marines [NYTimes]

The latest stunt from Improv Everywhere saw three pranksters bring in full-sized desktop PCs to Starbucks, where they proceeded to buy a coffee and set browse the web. The Starbucks employees were good sports.

Mission: Mobile Desktop [ImprovEverywhere.com]

Recently, on the internet, I saw a man explain that one pronounces "ennui" "on Wii."

Bookending the live premiere of Radiolab season four last night at the Angelika Film Center, a charmingly twee band called "One Ring Zero" played accordion and...something. It was like an accordion, but you blew into a pipe winding from the top. It made an intriguingly clear tone that sounded almost digital.

Turns out it's a claviola, an instrument designed by Ernst Zacharias (of musical equipment manufacturer Hohner) that was only available on the market for a few months in 1996. It's rare enough that a quick pass through eBay resulted only in listings of "craviola," a type of guitar. Too bad. I know I'll never learn to play the accordion, but I bet I could figure out how to blow into a tube.

You can hear claviola on its own at he beginning of One Ring Zero's "Mean Marcus," which can be streamed from their site. (And on most of their songs, too, but deeper in the mix.)

Update: Apparently I have no idea what the claviola sounds like. One Ring Zero's Michael Hearst tells me:

Mean Marcus" has hardly any audible claviola on it. "The Long Day," however, is all claviola playing lead at the beginning.

More details have emerged about LEGO Universe, the upcoming massively multiplayer game. I'm not sure how I feel about the organic backgrounds—I was hoping the entire world would be LEGO—but I could see how it would become tedious if everything were made of elements.

Two good bits of news, however: you will be able to create models of your own in game, which is wonderful news. (There had been some questions about how a kid-friendly game would protect itself from the inevitable legion of outsized LEGO phalluses—well, still are questions, I guess, but presumably developer NetDevil has figured out a happy medium. And even cooler, LEGO will allow you to "print" real-life versions of the LEGO models created in game. You make it online, they'll send you the bricks you need to make it at home. (For a price, of course.)

LEGO already offers a similar system with a virtual design tool, but I hope adding this feature to Universe will expand its capabilities and brick library—as well as drop the price of custom set ordering.

LEGO Universe: 'LEGO Star Wars Multiplied By A Million' [Game|Life]

Japanese electronics retailer Edion has instituted a take-back program for its customers who purchased HD DVD players, offering to replace the units with Blu-ray players. That is true class.

Throughout March, customers can return any of seven Toshiba HD DVD decks and swap them for a BD unit from Sony, Panasonic or Sharp. If the latter is more expensive, customers need to make up the balance, but if it’s cheaper they’ll actually get a refund of the difference.

Honest / insane retailer swaps old HD DVD for new Blu-ray gear [DigitalWorldTokyo.com]

Recently on Modern Mechanix we looked at this 1935 Popular Science article featuring various attempts to make aircraft that take off and land vertically, the origins of linoleum, a magnetic soap holder, a cute ad for a cowboy spinning rope, a very scary looking talking clock, venetian blind sun goggles and the hobbies of Hollywood stars circa 1936.  Many of our readers questioned the wisdom of this sled mounted stove for ice skating parties. Apparently they are of the opinion that hot things melt ice. This article shows a few of the vehicles devised by Europeans to cope with the gas shortages caused by WWII. We also learned the tricks of skywriting pilots, the dangers of giant man-eating clams and how to duel with yourself.

Core77 details the "Longarm," an ingeniously simple contraption designed by a pig farming woman who found herself in charge of 3,000 stubborn hogs. It's just a retractable swath of red cloth, but something about it causes pigs to shy away from it, making it easy to guide them from pen to pen—and easy to clean, something I can attest from my occasional weekends on an uncle's pig farm is a critical feature.

Canadian pig farmer Mary Haugh had a problem; multiple heart attacks put her husband out of commission, and she alone had to somehow control and herd their 3,000 hogs through the barn. Traditional methods of getting pigs to move are to use a stick, an electric prod or a "chase board," a length of wood the farmer wields horizontally to angle the pigs in a particular direction.
The stick and the prod, in addition to being inhumane, are simply not practical solutions for a single man/woman vs. 3,000 pigs, and for that many animals Haugh would need an impossibly long board that no human could reasonably lift and wield.

Brilliant industrial design from a pig farmer with her back to the wall [Core77.com]

I made a little squawk and clapped my paws as I read down the spec sheet for the "Popcorn Hour NMT A-100," a badass little media streaming front end that appears to do just about everything you'd want out of a set-top box and is inexpensive to boot. Not only can it stream from just about anything on your network—PCs, NAS, attached USB mass storage, even internet streams—but you can also toss in a hard drive (not included) to download movies directly to the Popcorn Hour via BitTorrent. (Yes!)

The A-100, the current model, has enough horsepower to decode MPEG2, H.264, or VC-1 at 1080p. (Some media streamers do not, even if the network can push out a fat enough video stream.)

Network-wise it does pretty much everything you'd expect: UPnP, Bonjour, Windows Media, SMB. You can browse photos on Flickr or watch video on YouTube. I don't see a major codec it doesn't support, including Matroska containers and Xvid. (No Ogg video or audio, but that could probably be patched in.)

HDMI out. Component out. S/PDIF coax digital audio out. (Although strangely only 10/100 Ethernet, not gigabit. And no Wi-Fi.) All with a custom on-screen interface that looks capable if not stunning.

I have absolutely no need for one of these with my current setup, yet I'm still considering getting one. Unfortunately, there's some sort of weird first-come, first-serve setup to allow people to buy the units online, so picking one up looks to be a bit of a chore.

Kolbu reviewed one of these a couple months ago and gave it generally high marks for the price. It exposes a lot of the same rough edges as many cheaply made Asian do-everything boxes. (And seeing how little hardware is actually inside the box is both impressive for its economy but saddening for how little actual hardware you're getting.) It's not going to be an Apple TV killer for most—too many little quirks, like dropped video signals while switching between modes—but for those willing to deal with the occasional snag it looks like you'll get a lot more capability in return.

If only Popcorn Hour would get enough of these units produced that you could just order them straight off the website!

Product Page [PopcornHour.com] (Thanks, Joakim!)

This insulated travel mug is designed to be completely spill-proof, only release its contents into your face after you've pressed a button that allows you to "sip from anywhere on the rim." From the pictures, though, I can't quite tell where the button is. I hope it's not on the top.

Nevertheless, for sloppy slurpers or caffeine addicted trapeze artists, the $25 price may be less than punitive. (Although I have to say that this looks like the sort of design that, if effective as claimed, will soon be co-opted by knock-off vendors soon.)

Catalog Page [Hammacher.com]

• Moon Wall – Moon Wall Projector for $10, $5 shipping or free over $25. [Slickdeals]

• Asus Eee – Asus Eee 2G Surf for $290, shipped. [Dealnews]

• HDTV for PC – Today's Woot! is a refurbished Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick for $45, shipped.

Ed Felten writes on Freedom-to-Tinker:

Today eight colleagues and I are releasing a significant new research result. We show that disk encryption, the standard approach to protecting sensitive data on laptops, can be defeated by relatively simple methods. We demonstrate our methods by using them to defeat three popular disk encryption products: BitLocker, which comes with Windows Vista; FileVault, which comes with MacOS X; and dm-crypt, which is used with Linux.

The root of the problem lies in an unexpected property of today's DRAM memories. DRAMs are the main memory chips used to store data while the system is running. Virtually everybody, including experts, will tell you that DRAM contents are lost when you turn off the power. But this isn't so. Our research shows that data in DRAM actually fades out gradually over a period of seconds to minutes, enabling an attacker to read the full contents of memory by cutting power and then rebooting into a malicious operating system.

Link to paper site, Link to PDF, and a video is below. (thanks, Jake Appelbaum)

UPDATE, 9:44am PT: Declan McCullagh at News.com has an analysis piece here.

(Cross-posted from Boing Boing)

Cartoon genius Tex Avery produced this short in 1953, showing off TVs for smokers, water drinkers, and those afflicted by airplanes overhead. The integration of real footage with the cartoon is fantastic. (I love that the fishing set was actually replicated by SEGA in the '90s in an arcade game, complete with working reel.) [via io9]

Regine conducts a winding interview with Antony Hall, whose creations—if I can try to put his multifarious experiments under a single, details-occluding nut—tend to explore the intersection of electronics, music, and nature. Projects like the "iLog" are basically just electronics stuffed in wood, while "ENKI" connects bioelectric fish to human brains to produce a state of relaxation. In case you were wondering, yes, that is awesome.

Isn't the idea of putting one's "brain-wave entertainment" into the fins of an animal scary? Do you feel that people would trust any other electronic device more than a fish or any other type of animal?

That is a good question. It's an exciting notion this whole idea of "wet-wear" interfacing - but not something that should be taken lightly. I don't like to be on my own if i am doing a test run, and yes I find it very unnerving. I never quite got used to the idea of connecting strangers up to electrodes and the fish. I also worry about the fish. The fish needs to be content and 'happy' for this to work.

In my opinion that most of these commercial devices are made by various humans all of whom have different intentions and issues, namely cost efficiency; and so effectively using quite crude means; cheap microchips. The Black Ghost knife fish is the result of millions of years of evolutionary refinement; but you could still say the same of micro chips.

Interview with Antony Hall [WMMNA]