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AP - Microsoft Corp. and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. introduced a high-tech interactive bar table Wednesday that lets patrons order drinks, watch YouTube videos, play touch-screen games and even flirt with each other.
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 dBTechno | US Congressmen accuse China of hacking their computers NetworkWorld.com - By Steven Schwankert , IDG News Service , 06/12/2008 Two US Congressmen on Wednesday accused China of hacking their office computers, possibly compromising information on Chinese dissidents, the Congressmen and news reports said. Video: US Lawmakers Accuse Chinese of Hacking Wolf says Chinese hacked data |
Reuters - Playing video games for hours on end may
be bad for your health, but, according to an Australian study,
it doesn't mean you are a lonely nerd and won't damage your
social skills.
 Los Angeles Times | Win Metal Gear Solid 4 Boomtown - Get your hands on the PlayStation 3 game everyone is talking about - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Concluding Hideo Kojima’s stunning Metal Gear Solid saga, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is set in a battle-scarred future where ... Buying Metal Gear Solid 4 or a PS3? Metal Gear Solid 4 Launches In New York City |
 NECN | The Nation's Weather The Associated Press - Severe weather, including heavy rain and thunderstorms, was expected in the upper Mississippi Valley and upper Great Lakes regions on Thursday. A gorgeous day Weather repeat: sunny and hot in the South Bay (but not scorching!) |
 Ontario Now | AT&T Internal Email Reveals IPhone Registration Process Wired Blogs - By Charlie Sorrel June 12, 2008 | 4:10:16 AMCategories: iPhone, Our Telco Overlords An internal email discovered by the Boy Genius Report details the activation process to be used for the iPhone 3G. iPhone version of OmniFocus on Omni’s to-do list Majority of iPhone applications in AppStore will be free |
 KCBY.com 11 | Sergey Brin books trip to space VNUNet.com - Google co-founder Sergey Brin has made a down payment of $5m to book a trip to the International Space Station. Brin has joined with commercial space flight company Space Adventures in a new programme in which individuals reserve a spot on a future ... Google's Sergey Brin Books Multi-Million Dollar Space Flight Google founder signs up for space trip |
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Oh, and while I'm on the subject: the book's just gone into its fifth week on the NYT bestseller list, and it's still on the Indie list (formerly the Book Sense list) and as of this week, it's also on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list! Ho-ah! Link
Update: Abi sez,
Slight corrections: it's a blank book rather than a copy of Little Brother, mostly due to printer constraints. Printing out a whole book double-sided on my printer would be soul-destroying, and I don't have signature-sewn editions to tear down.The binding is a "sewn boards" binding, about halfway between hardcover and softcover. The paper that Pablo used for the prints has such a nice feel and weight; I wanted to work with its sensual qualities.
And I confess that it's not one of a kind. I plan to make five or six of this set, one of which will be heading your way in the very near future. I was going to surprise you with it, but that requires secrecy. I got too excited about how the book came out and had to show it off: secrecy fail.
1. Each evening or morning before you start your day, make a short list of your intentions (the result and feeling of something you want) for the day and by each, write the related to do's for that day. Try to keep your list to 5 intentions. Consciously choose what you will do and what you will not do. Keep a different list of what you will review for inclusion on other days.Link2. List only what you really expect to do that day. As other things come to mind, write them on a separate list. By putting these items on a separate list, you are creating the space to be in the moment with each of your day's priorities. Review that list as you plan for the next day and determine how they fit in to your plans. Give yourself some down time, enjoy your successes at the end of the day.
3. Give yourself meaningful blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on each intention. Turn OFF technology each day during those blocks and focus on your intentions.
4. At home, be clear about what technology you'll use and where. Computer in the kitchen? Maybe not. A friend of mine just removed the computer from her kitchen and said she is now far less likely to stop to constantly check email or news. In the kitchen, she pays attention to her family and prepares food. Sometimes they do group family activities at the kitchen table. When she heads into her office to work on her computer, her children know not to disturb her while she works.
AP - Monster Cable Products Inc., the company that's synonymous with expensive video and audio cables, is going wireless.
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I don't think a writer can hit the dystopic key without being misanthropic. I'm actually not misanthropic. I think people are capable of wonderful things. I'm quite fond of them and enjoy their company. I can't do Jonathan Swift. I don't have it in me to do that. I also don't have it in me to say to reader, “This is all real.” I'm enough of a postmodernist that I go in and out of believing in my own narrative. The happy endings, such as they, are are actually a function of that. They're the "that's all folks” at the end, waving the big three-fingered glove. I want to remind people that they're reading a novel about an imaginary future. If I had my way, I'd even be reminding people about the whole culture of reminding people.LInk
Link (via Cribcandy)
This lightweight, portable cardboard table aims to assist on-the-go creative types like designers and students, who are often limited to work on low desks or floors. Made by Sruli Recht from flatpack cardboard pieces, this lightweight, sturdy design offers creatives an ergonomic plane on which to cut, fold, draft or design. Adding even more appeal to this smart and useful design, the table is biodegradable and can easily be folded up to pack into a portable carrier.
Reuters - Brad Garrett is making his
foray into digital entertainment with "Dating Brad Garrett," an
online reality show he is starring in and executive producing.
: Photo: Courtesy VictorinoxThe first spring-loaded Swiss Army knife, the Offiziersmesser, included a single knife blade, two screwdrivers, a can opener and an awl punch.
When it was registered as a trademark by Swiss-blade-craftsman Carl Elsener 111 years ago, no one would have believed that his simple multifunctional tool would dominate the survival/useful gadget market for more than a century.
Over the years, useful attachments ranging from spoons, forks, USB keys, toothpicks, lighters and compasses have all recessed quietly into the elegant steel handle with the familiar White Cross logo. What began with a few surgical instruments and razors led to a revolution characterized by three important qualities: Durability, portability and multiple-purpose utility.
Click through the gallery to see the Swiss Army knife's cultural impact and the current tools it inspired. (Do you have your own favorite multitool? Tell us about it in the comments.)
Left: The classic Swiss Army design for the 2008 collection contains a few more basic tools than the original design.
: Photo: Donald Stampfli/APCuban President Fidel Castro proudly holds up the Swiss Army knife he received as a gift from the Swiss Press Club on May 20, 1998, in the notoriously politically centrist city of Geneva, Switzerland. We’re guessing he used it to chop off the end of a fine Cuban cigar.
The toughest individuals in the world, as well as the not so rugged, carry Swiss Army knives. U.S. presidents have been known to cradle a Swiss Army in their pocket, and astronauts keep them in the space shuttle, just in case.
President Lyndon Johnson was known to commission thousands of personally engraved Swiss Army sets to be sent out to his friends and most loyal supporters.
: Photo: Karl Mathis/Keystone Former President George Bush shows off the Swiss Army knife he received from Carl Elsener, chief of Victorinox, left, in Lugano, Switzerland, 2001. Carl is the descendant of founder Karl Elsener.
The Swiss Army knife was one of the first multifunction tools to be available to the public, and the knife's use on the battlefield contributed to its popularity, especially after World War II. The Victorinox Swiss Army Company is currently the most-recognized tool brand in the world.
The origin of the company’s success comes from an early modification by Karl Elsener. When building the first tool for the Swiss Army, he included a sharp-edged "erasing" blade that could be used to erase the pen handwritings of the Army officers. (He included the corkscrew later on, as a lifestyle-specific addition.)
: Photo: Wenger/Keystone/Photopress Among the many top Swiss Army knives, the 24-tool Champion is often ranked among the most prized and efficient, but the craziest one of all has to be 2007's Swiss Army Knife XXL, left, (created by former rival Wenger, after its 2005 acquisition by Victorinox). Selected by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's Most Multifunctional Pen Knife, the XXL includes 87 tools and 141 functions. But doesn’t it defeat the spirit of the original's weightless portability?
: One of the world's first true gadgets, the Swiss Army knife initiated the quest for the perfect multitool. Today, the dream of a unified tool is mostly fantasy, but there are tons of specialized innovations that follow in the spirit of the original Victorinox standard.
The Crank Brothers Multi-19 bicycle tool includes four different screwdrivers, a chain tool, seven different types of hex keys (all made out of superdurable high-tensile steel), a spoke and an open wrench. It's also ridiculously light at only one-third of a pound.
This type of tool is usually reserved for an emergency, but it’s indispensable for a quick adjustment or repair.
: The Li'l Guppie looks like the metal, horror-movie version of the Nemo clownfish, but this little multitool is no joke. Based on a wrench platform and its older precursor, the Guppie, the Li’l Guppie is one of the most popular form factor tools today: keychain tools.
Even if you are disgusted by its unbearable cuteness, the number of features will undoubtedly win you over. Among its features are an adjustable wrench jaw, a blade made out of high-carbon stainless steel, a screwdriver tip, an additional Phillips screwdriver and a pocket clip. Not only that, but the tail end of the gadget serves as a bottle opener.
: The Shopro multifunction hammer pushes the multitool outside the realm of knives, but also out of the realm of pockets. Not too many multitools provide the weight balance necessary to include a quality hammer. True, it won’t drive like a forged-steel sledgehammer, but it makes up for lack of strength with portability.
The Shopro is able to separate into two different sections, so when the torque (for the pliers) is applied to the connected sections around the handle, the grip functionality is transferred to the jaws. And it’s also very manageable -- it’s about the same size as a Wiimote.
The Shopro also includes pliers, a nail puller, large- and small-slotted screwdrivers, a serrated saw, a large and a small knife and a bottle opener.
: The Leatherman is the brave multitool that dared to question the superiority of the Swiss Army knife as the best multitool out there, and lived to create its own niche. The four-inch long, 100 percent stainless steel Pocket Survival Tool was interesting from the beginning because it fit the needs of everyone from the construction worker to the weekend warrior, mainly because of the simple, durable pliers and the comfortable grip.
That first version also included wire cutters, a clip-point knife, a metal/wood file, a ruler, different screwdriver sizes and an awl punch -- all in a small container which rendered pocket-size the regular toolbox.
By the time Leatherman tools were selling over a million a year in 1993, and Keanu was using it to open elevator doors in Speed, the tool had become a household name.
LifeLock, one of the companies that offers identity-theft protection in the United States, has been taking quite a beating recently. They're being sued by credit bureaus, competitors and lawyers in several states that are launching class action lawsuits. And the stories in the media ... it's like a piranha feeding frenzy.
There are also a lot of errors and misconceptions. With its aggressive advertising campaign and a CEO who publishes his Social Security number and dares people to steal his identity -- Todd Davis, 457-55-5462 -- LifeLock is a company that's easy to hate. But the company's story has some interesting security lessons, and it's worth understanding in some detail.
In December 2003, as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, or Facta (.pdf), credit bureaus were forced to allow you to put a fraud alert on their credit reports, requiring lenders to verify your identity before issuing a credit card in your name. This alert is temporary, and expires after 90 days. Several companies have sprung up -- LifeLock, Debix, LoudSiren, TrustedID -- that automatically renew these alerts and effectively make them permanent.
This service pisses off the credit bureaus and their financial customers. The reason lenders don't routinely verify your identity before issuing you credit is that it takes time, costs money and is one more hurdle between you and another credit card. (Buy, buy, buy -- it's the American way.) So in the eyes of credit bureaus, LifeLock's customers are inferior goods; selling their data isn't as valuable. LifeLock also opts its customers out of pre-approved credit card offers, further making them less valuable in the eyes of credit bureaus.
And, so began a smear campaign on the part of the credit bureaus. You can read their points of view in this New York Times article, written by a reporter who didn't do much more than regurgitate their talking points. And the class action lawsuits have piled on, accusing LifeLock of deceptive business practices, fraudulent advertising and so on. The biggest smear is that LifeLock didn't even protect Todd Davis, and that his identity was allegedly stolen.
It wasn't. Someone in Texas used Davis's SSN to get a $500 advance against his paycheck. It worked because the loan operation didn't check with any of the credit bureaus before approving the loan -- perfectly reasonable for an amount this small. The payday-loan operation called Davis to collect, and LifeLock cleared up the problem. His credit report remains spotless.
The Experian credit bureau's lawsuit basically claims that fraud alerts are only for people who have been victims of identity theft. This seems spurious; the text of the law states that anyone "who asserts a good faith suspicion that the consumer has been or is about to become a victim of fraud or related crime" can request a fraud alert. It seems to me that includes anybody who has ever received one of those notices about their financial details being lost or stolen, which is everybody.
As to deceptive business practices and fraudulent advertising -- those just seem like class action lawyers piling on. LifeLock's aggressive fear-based marketing doesn't seem any worse than a lot of other similar advertising campaigns. My guess is that the class action lawsuits won't go anywhere.
In reality, forcing lenders to verify identity before issuing credit is exactly the sort of thing we need to do to fight identity theft. Basically, there are two ways to deal with identity theft: Make personal information harder to steal, and make stolen personal information harder to use. We all know the former doesn't work, so that leaves the latter. If Congress wanted to solve the problem for real, one of the things it would do is make fraud alerts permanent for everybody. But the credit industry's lobbyists would never allow that.
LifeLock does a bunch of other clever things. They monitor the national address database, and alert you if your address changes. They look for your credit and debit card numbers on hacker and criminal websites and such, and assist you in getting a new number if they see it. They have a million-dollar service guarantee -- for complicated legal reasons, they can't call it insurance -- to help you recover if your identity is ever stolen.
But even with all of this, I am not a LifeLock customer. At $120 a year, it's just not worth it. You wouldn't know it from the press attention, but dealing with identity theft has become easier and more routine. Sure, it's a pervasive problem. The Federal Trade Commission reported that 8.3 million Americans were identity-theft victims in 2005. But that includes things like someone stealing your credit card and using it, something that rarely costs you any money and that LifeLock doesn't protect against. New account fraud is much less common, affecting 1.8 million Americans per year, or 0.8 percent of the adult population. The FTC hasn't published detailed numbers for 2006 or 2007, but the rate seems (.pdf) to be declining.
New card fraud is also not very damaging. The median amount of fraud the thief commits is $1,350, but you're not liable for that. Some spectacularly horrible identity-theft stories notwithstanding, the financial industry is pretty good at quickly cleaning up the mess. The victim's median out-of-pocket cost for new account fraud is only $40, plus ten hours of grief to clean up the problem. Even assuming your time is worth $100 an hour, LifeLock isn’t worth more than $8 a year.
And it's hard to get any data on how effective LifeLock really is. They've been in business three years and have about a million customers, but most of them have joined up in the last year. They've paid out on their service guarantee 113 times, but a lot of those were for things that happened before their customers became customers. (It was easier to pay than argue, I assume.) But they don't know how often the fraud alerts actually catch an identity thief in the act. My guess is that it's less than the 0.8 percent fraud rate above.
LifeLock's business model is based more on the fear of identity theft than the actual risk.
It's pretty ironic of the credit bureaus to attack LifeLock on its marketing practices, since they know all about profiting from the fear of identity theft. Facta also forced the credit bureaus to give Americans a free credit report once a year upon request. Through deceptive marketing techniques, they've turned this requirement into a multimillion-dollar business.
Get LifeLock if you want, or one of its competitors if you prefer. But remember that you can do most of what these companies do yourself. You can put a fraud alert on your own account, but you have to remember to renew it every three months. You can also put a credit freeze on your account, which is more work for the average consumer but more effective if you're a privacy wonk -- and the rules differ by state. And maybe someday Congress will do the right thing and put LifeLock out of business by forcing lenders to verify identity every time they issue credit in someone's name.
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Bruce Schneier is Chief Security Technology Officer of BT, and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.
Say cheezu! Piling into a photo booth for a snapshot session is a staple of schoolgirl life. The ubiquitous purikura (print club) kiosks are equipped with fancy lighting and snazzy image-editing technology. They beat cell phone images by a mile and, priced at 400 yen per "play," they're a bargain. The downside: Printouts on stickers look janky and are not very shareable. Two new portrait machines, Recipe of Goddess 3 and R&B (Rich and Beauty), let teens download JPEGs directly onto their handsets via infrared as the decals are printing out. That way, gals can update their Flickr galleries while they wait.
One of the problems with virtual reality has always been that you had to either confine yourself to a joystick or strap into some crazy Lawnmower Man-style harness. Hardly natural. This April, however, a team based at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, unveiled the CyberWalk, an omnidirectional treadmill designed to serve as a VR-capable movement platform.
Treadmills have been tried in VR before, of course, but early models were unconvincing — either too small to keep goggled wanderers on the platform or too slow, bouncy, or gap-ridden to feel the least bit real. The CyberWalk solves these problems with a stiff, gapless, 20 x 20-foot floor and movement and feedback systems that enable quick, fluid changes of direction.
We know what you're thinking: Halo! But gamers must wait. For now, access goes to spatial-cognition and perception researchers, who will use the CyberWalk to "explore all sorts of things we haven't been able to explore before," says William Thompson, a University of Utah computer scientist. In addition to studying our brains and understanding space and movement, they'll assess potential for military and disaster-response operations and see if the device can be used to treat medical issues such as Parkinson's. After that, and only if you're good boys and girls, maybe you'll get to use it for Halo.
Despite worldwide food shortages and falling farm production in the United States, little attention has been paid to a critical piece of the agricultural production web: Fertilizer.
Industrially produced fertilizer accounts for a huge increase in agricultural productivity over the last 30 years -- the so-called "green revolution" -- but its production consumes about 1.5 percent of all the energy used worldwide and produces a huge amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide along the way.
You'd think that would mean scientists would have an easy time getting funding for research into less energy- and carbon-intensive ways of fertilizing crops. You'd be wrong.
"The fact that I have a Nobel Prize doesn't keep me from losing my funding," said Richard Schrock, an MIT professor who won science's most prestigious prize in 2005. "The amount of money that is required is not available at this point."
More money could lead to a world-changing breakthrough. Schrock and David Tyler, of the University of Oregon, have been closing in, slowly but steadily, on new ways to get the air's nitrogen to react and transform into the ammonia that powers the global food system.
Schrock was able to use a molybdenum catalyst to take protons and electrons -- which would normally stick together to form hydrogen -- and instead produce ammonia. Now he's working on revisions of his process that include different forms of hydrogen.
Tyler, meanwhile, published a major paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in which he reduced nitrogen using hydrogen and an iron catalyst. Tyler said his team "had almost" created the right catalyst for converting hydrogen and nitrogen into ammonia. Some members of his team anticipate a major breakthrough as early as this year.
"There's an enzyme called nitrogenase, found in bacteria, that will make ammonia," Tyler said. "If nature can do it, you'd think scientists ought to be able to reproduce it."
So far, no dice.
If there was ever a field crying out for innovation, fertilizer is it. Most fertilizer production depends on a 99-year-old industrial method known as the Haber-Bosch process, which produces ammonia, the chemical precursor to nitrogen fertilizers. By one scientist's count, the 87 million tons of ammonia that are produced each year by this process feed 40 percent of the world's population (.pdf).
However, the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process depends on using lots of natural gas, both as a source of hydrogen and for the power needed to cook the chemicals.
Given all the demand, natural gas prices have doubled since the mid-90s, and the price of ammonia has tripled. That's bad news for farmers, especially those in the developing world who already have limited ability to purchase fertilizers.
"Why are the Chinese using so much energy?" Tyler asks. "It's making ammonia plants."
Some environmental and organic farming groups contend that just "greening" the process of making ammonia isn't enough. They point to the problems that nitrogen-based fertilizers cause. Nitrogen gets into rivers, which carry the fertilizer to the coasts of developed countries. There, algae feast on the stuff and use all the available oxygen in the water. The result: dead zones off the coasts of countries that use the fertilizers. Other groups argue that heavy input of fertilizers encourages monoculture: planting huge tracts of single, high-yield plant species, a practice they say is bound to be environmentally destructive.
But given rising populations and rising food prices, the world might not be in an either/or situation: We could need new farming methods and new ways of making ammonia.
In a twist worthy of an Arthur C. Clarke novel, the global scale of the problem all comes down to the way that electrons arrange themselves around the nucleus of nitrogen atoms. A nitrogen atom has five electrons in its outer shell, so it has a tendency to share three electrons with another nitrogen atom to create a triple covalent bond, one of the strongest in nature.
Learning how to break that bond was a tremendous breakthrough for human technology -- all the more remarkable given that bacteria can do it with relative ease. But all of the world's nitrogen-fixing bacteria only produce about as much nitrogen as humans do now. With world population estimates continuing to grow, any process that aims to replace Haber-Bosch would need to be able to replace existing nitrogen production and then some, in order to meet the world's growing demands.
So while billions of dollars in venture capital are flowing in to cleantech companies that would only make small differences in the world's energy balance, research into new fertilizer tech is inexplicably underfunded.
"Something like this, the big guys would jump all over it," Tyler said, "assuming we could do it."
1897: Karl Elsener legally registers his "soldiers' knife" for use by the Swiss army.
In an age when nationalism was fashionable, Elsener, a Swiss manufacturer of surgical instruments and cutlery, was a very fashionable man indeed. So he was less than thrilled to learn that the Swiss army was importing Solingen blades from neighboring Germany. Elsener set out to develop a homegrown multifunctional tool worthy of being carried by his local Alpine troops.
His prototype of what became known as the Swiss army knife appeared in 1891. The original -- made with a wooden handle -- included a blade, a screwdriver and a can opener. But Elsener was not happy with it and tinkered endlessly, adding a second blade using a revolutionary spring mechanism, and strengthening the housing.
The addition of a second blade necessitated extra space for the spring, which also opened up more room for other tools.
Elsener created a company, which he named Victoria after his mother, and opened a cutlery factory in Ibach, at the foot of the Alps.
After switching to stainless steel blades in 1921, the company -- which remains a family-run concern to this day -- was renamed Victorinox, "inox" truncated from the French word inoxydable for stainless. Today, in addition to its signature army knife, the company manufactures other precision instruments, especially watches.
The classic Swiss army knife bears the Swiss national symbol, a white cross in the center of a red shield, outlined in white against the red handle.
More than 34,000 Swiss Army knives are manufactured every day, and small wonder. This remarkably versatile tool is standard equipment for everyone from Boy Scouts to building contractors to mountaineers. It is even carried into space aboard the space shuttle.
Oh, and every recruit in the Swiss army still receives a knife upon entering the service. Victorinox supplies the army with about 50,000 knives each year.
Many variations are available, from relatively simple to jaw-droppingly complex.
The SwissChamp model, for example, which sells for around 88 bucks, boasts (take a deep breath): a large blade, small blade, can opener with small screwdriver, bottle opener with large screwdriver and wire stripper, scissors, pliers with wire cutter, wood saw, fish scaler with hook disgorger and ruler, metal saw with metal file and nail file, magnifying glass, reamer with sewing eye, Phillips screwdriver, corkscrew, hook, wood chisel, fine screwdriver, mini-screwdriver, ballpoint pen, straight pin, tweezers, key ring and … a toothpick.
A commemorative knife known as The Giant (it's 9 inches thick), contains 85 devices allowing for 110 functions. It's yours for around $1,200.
Other models reflect advances in technology and include features such as a laser pointer, USB flash drive and even an MP3 player.
Source: Victorinox, eWebtechnologies.com
: Photo: Courtesy VictorinoxThe first spring-loaded Swiss Army knife, the Offiziersmesser, included a single knife blade, two screwdrivers, a can opener and an awl punch.
When it was registered as a trademark by Swiss-blade-craftsman Carl Elsener 111 years ago, no one would have believed that his simple multifunctional tool would dominate the survival/useful gadget market for more than a century.
Over the years, useful attachments ranging from spoons, forks, USB keys, toothpicks, lighters and compasses have all recessed quietly into the elegant steel handle with the familiar White Cross logo. What began with a few surgical instruments and razors led to a revolution characterized by three important qualities: Durability, portability and multiple-purpose utility.
Click through the gallery to see the Swiss Army knife's cultural impact and the current tools it inspired. (Do you have your own favorite multitool? Tell us about it in the comments.)
Left: The classic Swiss Army design for the 2008 collection contains a few more basic tools than the original design.
: Photo: Donald Stampfli/APCuban President Fidel Castro proudly holds up the Swiss Army knife he received as a gift from the Swiss Press Club on May 20, 1998, in the notoriously politically centrist city of Geneva, Switzerland. We’re guessing he used it to chop off the end of a fine Cuban cigar.
The toughest individuals in the world, as well as the not so rugged, carry Swiss Army knives. U.S. presidents have been known to cradle a Swiss Army in their pocket, and astronauts keep them in the space shuttle, just in case.
President Lyndon Johnson was known to commission thousands of personally engraved Swiss Army sets to be sent out to his friends and most loyal supporters.
: Photo: Karl Mathis/Keystone Former President George Bush shows off the Swiss Army knife he received from Carl Elsener, chief of Victorinox, left, in Lugano, Switzerland, 2001. Carl is the descendant of founder Karl Elsener.
The Swiss Army knife was one of the first multifunction tools to be available to the public, and the knife's use on the battlefield contributed to its popularity, especially after World War II. The Victorinox Swiss Army Company is currently the most-recognized tool brand in the world.
The origin of the company’s success comes from an early modification by Karl Elsener. When building the first tool for the Swiss Army, he included a sharp-edged "erasing" blade that could be used to erase the pen handwritings of the Army officers. (He included the corkscrew later on, as a lifestyle-specific addition.)
: Photo: Wenger/Keystone/Photopress Among the many top Swiss Army knives, the 24-tool Champion is often ranked among the most prized and efficient, but the craziest one of all has to be 2007's Swiss Army Knife XXL, left, (created by former rival Wenger, after its 2005 acquisition by Victorinox). Selected by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's Most Multifunctional Pen Knife, the XXL includes 87 tools and 141 functions. But doesn’t it defeat the spirit of the original's weightless portability?
: One of the world's first true gadgets, the Swiss Army knife initiated the quest for the perfect multitool. Today, the dream of a unified tool is mostly fantasy, but there are tons of specialized innovations that follow in the spirit of the original Victorinox standard.
The Crank Brothers Multi-19 bicycle tool includes four different screwdrivers, a chain tool, seven different types of hex keys (all made out of superdurable high-tensile steel), a spoke and an open wrench. It's also ridiculously light at only one-third of a pound.
This type of tool is usually reserved for an emergency, but it’s indispensable for a quick adjustment or repair.
: The Li'l Guppie looks like the metal, horror-movie version of the Nemo clownfish, but this little multitool is no joke. Based on a wrench platform and its older precursor, the Guppie, the Li’l Guppie is one of the most popular form factor tools today: keychain tools.
Even if you are disgusted by its unbearable cuteness, the number of features will undoubtedly win you over. Among its features are an adjustable wrench jaw, a blade made out of high-carbon stainless steel, a screwdriver tip, an additional Phillips screwdriver and a pocket clip. Not only that, but the tail end of the gadget serves as a bottle opener.
: The Shopro multifunction hammer pushes the multitool outside the realm of knives, but also out of the realm of pockets. Not too many multitools provide the weight balance necessary to include a quality hammer. True, it won’t drive like a forged-steel sledgehammer, but it makes up for lack of strength with portability.
The Shopro is able to separate into two different sections, so when the torque (for the pliers) is applied to the connected sections around the handle, the grip functionality is transferred to the jaws. And it’s also very manageable -- it’s about the same size as a Wiimote.
The Shopro also includes pliers, a nail puller, large- and small-slotted screwdrivers, a serrated saw, a large and a small knife and a bottle opener.
: The Leatherman is the brave multitool that dared to question the superiority of the Swiss Army knife as the best multitool out there, and lived to create its own niche. The four-inch long, 100 percent stainless steel Pocket Survival Tool was interesting from the beginning because it fit the needs of everyone from the construction worker to the weekend warrior, mainly because of the simple, durable pliers and the comfortable grip.
That first version also included wire cutters, a clip-point knife, a metal/wood file, a ruler, different screwdriver sizes and an awl punch -- all in a small container which rendered pocket-size the regular toolbox.
By the time Leatherman tools were selling over a million a year in 1993, and Keanu was using it to open elevator doors in Speed, the tool had become a household name.
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 GlobalTV | Pluto gets a new name: plutoid Reuters UK - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pluto, demoted from planet status in 2006, got a consolation prize on Wednesday -- it and other dwarf planets like it will be called plutoids. Pluto's namesakes: Similar bodies are 'plutoids' Pluto is now a "plutoid" |
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 Space Daily | NASA Space Telescope Launches Into Orbit DailyTech - The NASA space telescope GLAST today successfully launched into space aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Flight engineers in Florida were concerned over possible thunderstorms and clouds in the area, but the clouds held off long ... Space telescope launched to spy on black holes Batavia laboratory contributes key component of NASA telescope |
Earlier this week I posted a photo of a box of three play wigs. Today, Theresa sent me the photo below, captioned "my sister in a soft plastic wig with cigarette circa 1963." It's my favorite photo of the year, by a long stretch. There are as many things to like about it as there are stars in the galaxy.
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 Los Angeles Times | NASA readies for Martian soil test, first microscopic images Computerworld - By Sharon Gaudin June 11, 2008 (Computerworld) After struggling for five days, the Phoenix Mars Lander has successfully shaken Martian soil into its oven so it can begin testing it for elements that could support life. Phoenix Mars Lander Fills Instrument With Soil From Mars Mars lander fills test oven with pinch of soil |
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Must List: The five words only edition! Entertainment Weekly - Who likes long speeches at awards ceremonies? Well, I do, sometimes, if the speeches are good... but never mind that! In general, they are a blight on our nation, so kudos to the Webby Awards for insisting each year that their honorees for the best in ... Bad, but Short, Speeches Dominate Webby Awards Some lady is totally over Stephen Colbert |
 This is Money | Google CEO 'occasionally excused' from Apple board meetings Apple Insider - By Aidan Malley and Kasper Jade Google chief executive and Apple board member Eric Schmidt has disclosed during a speech on Wednesday that his unique situation atop the leaderships of both high tech firms has periodically required that he step away ... Google CEO clarifies position at Apple Apple iPhone 3G - more to come I reckon. |
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Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we started things off by looking at a 1939 videophone, then slurped up our morning cup of joe while watching some live-action Bioshock. Joel then reviewed a pair of Radius Atomic Bass earbuds, discussed the quest for the perfect electric cigarette and asked for help in designing the ultimate Jet Age entertainment console. Meanwhile, Brownlee discovered hot glue punk, applauded an insane French hacker who had installed a floppy drive into his Game Boy, wondered about Moore's Law and taught our readers how to drink 24 ounces of beer in under two seconds... then teetered wildly and promptly collapsed; he spent the rest of the afternoon crying over the memories of ex-girlfriends who'd never really loved him. Finally, Beschizza contemplated the first successful lawsuit against Taser and posted a couple of huge giant spider robots. A good time was had by all.
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