Erector's Spykee robot ($370, Fatbraintoys.com — or the black market). It's a still/video camera, a VOIP phone, an MP3 player and, since it's motion-activited, a surveillance system. http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toy_companies/nikko_america_inc/spykee_erector_interactive_robot.cfml]

The ThinkGeek 8-bit Tie ($19.99, Thinkgeek)
-the tie for the codemonkey in all of us:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/apparel/hats-ties/9352/

EyeClops Bionic Eye ($40, Toysrus.com).
-The EyeClops is a handheld bionic eye that allows kids to view virtually any item at 200 times the regular size on any TV screen.
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2671843#prod_prodinfo]



Ans here are some more:
Robopanda ($150, see Robopandaonline.com)
Power Tour Electric Guitar ($50, or $70 with amp, Hasbrotoyshop.com).
Sansa Shaker MP3 player (in pink or blue, $50 for 1GB, $30 for 512MB, Sandisk.com)
U.B. Funkey ($30 for the starter kit, Amazon.com)

For nearly three decades, astronomers have said Venus probably had lightning — ever since a 1978 NASA probe showed signs of electrical activity in its atmosphere. But experts weren't sure because of signal interference.

Now a magnetic antenna on the European Space Agency's Venus Express probe proved that the lightning was real.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071128...venus_lightning

pearly white robot that looks a little like E.T. boosted a man out of bed, chatted and helped prepare his breakfast with its deft hands in Tokyo on Tuesday, in a further sign robots are becoming more like their human inventors.

Twendy-One, named as a 21st century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, has soft hands and fingers that gently grip, enough strength to support humans as they sit up and stand, and supple movements that respond to human touch.

It can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it, serve toast and help lift people out of bed.

http://africa.reuters.com/odd/news/usnT285811.html

Magnetic levitation is an extremely efficient system for wind energy. Here’s how it works: the vertically oriented blades of the wind turbine are suspended in the air above the base of the machine, replacing the need for ball bearings. The turbine uses “full-permanent” magnets, not electromagnets — therefore, it does not require electricty to run. The full-permanent magnet system employs neodymium (”rare earth”) magnets and there is no energy loss through friction. This also helps reduce maintenance costs and increases the lifespan of the generator.

Maglev wind turbines have several advantages over conventional wind turbines. For instance, they’re able to use winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s). Also, they could operate in winds exceeding 40 m/s. Currently, the largest conventional wind turbines in the world produce only five megawatts of power. However, one large maglev wind turbine could generate one gigawatt of clean power, enough to supply energy to 750,000 homes. It would also increase generation capacity by 20% over conventional wind turbines and decrease operational costs
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/11/26...turbine-maglev/

Giant waves, also known as monster waves, have been talked about by sailors for centuries, often related to unexplained disappearances at sea, but no one quite believed them. They have been considered merely a myth until recently, when new studies using technological developments like buoys, radars and satellites have scientifically proven the existence of rouge waves, and that they exist in much higher numbers than it was ever expected.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...71117091502.htm

When people were shown pictures of sculptures in a new study, brain scans suggest they judged beauty by at least partly hard-wired standards.


Researchers in Italy showed volunteers original and distorted images of Classical and Renaissance sculptures. The scientists picked 14 volunteers with no experience in art theory to try to see what role pure biology had to do with judging art.


The golden ratio


The proportions of the statues themselves reflect "the golden ratio," a mathematical figure known since ancient Greece that Renaissance artists often thought embodied ideal beauty. In nature, the golden ratio can be found in the way nautilus shells curve or how seeds spiral on strawberries. It describes hurricanes, galaxies and the flight pattern of a falcon on the hunt.


Specifically, the golden ratio is equal to roughly 1.618. It is unique in that its value is equal to the ratio of its integer part to its fractional part—that is, 1.618 is roughly equal to 1 divided by 0.618.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience...ysuggests<br />

The Ripsaw is an unmanned ground vehicle, yes, a remote-controlled robot, that is big, bad and can tear through anything in its way. The Ripsaw is capable of going 0-50 in 3.5 seconds. This kind of power is result of a 650 hp engine and the 350 pound custom engineered dual tracks. Craziest thing of all, it was all constructed by hand by the Howe brothers, in their spare time.

http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives...w_is_the_b.html

Here are the protocols SETI would follow in case Alien contact is established .

http://www.setileague.org/general/protocol.htm

A comet that has delighted backyard astronomers in recent weeks after an unexpected eruption has now grown larger than the sun.

The sun remains by far the most massive object in the solar system, with an extended influence of particles that reaches all the planets. But the comparatively tiny Comet Holmes has released so much gas and dust that its extended atmosphere, or coma, is larger than the diameter of the sun. The comparison is clear in a new image.


"It continues to expand and is now the largest single object in the solar system," according to astronomers at the University of Hawaii.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20071...iggerthanthesun

NASA will use the cold, harsh, isolated landscape of Antarctica to test one of its concepts for astronaut housing on the moon. The agency is sending a prototype inflatable habitat to Antarctica to see how it stands up during a year of use.

Agency officials viewed the habitat Wednesday at ILC Dover in Frederica, Del., as it was inflated one last time before being packed and shipped to Antarctica's McMurdo Station. NASA is partnering on the project with the National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va., which manages McMurdo Station, and ILC Dover, the company that manufactured the prototype structure. All three organizations will share data from the 13-month test, which runs from January 2008 to February 2009. An inflatable habitat is one of several concepts being considered for astronaut housing on the moon.
http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/07_251.htm

Images taken right after Rosetta’s second Earth swing-by last night are now available. The comet chaser’s navigation camera (NAVCAM) took pictures of regions in the Antarctic and snapshots of Earth and the Moon.

The NAVCAM is one of the subsystems on the Rosetta orbiter used for optical navigation. The pictures were all taken immediately after Rosetta’s closest approach to Earth, between 21:55 CET on 13 November and 00:10 on 14 November while Rosetta was flying at heights of between 5500 to 6250 km from Earth’s surface.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMXWN53R8F_index_0.html
-R

While this mirror helps you try on clothes outside of the dressing room, a new high tech mirror is about to enter stores as your in-fitting room companion. The Magicmirror can identify which item of clothing you're trying on via an RFID transponder in the clothing's tag. It will then show you "promotional graphics" for the item you're trying on and it will display the other sizes and colors the store has in stock. If you have the wrong size, just press a button on the mirror so a sales clerk can bring you the right garment.

http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives...mirror_inv.html

Lockheed Martin Trials Hybrid Airship - The New Super Blimp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKJMxxgd9UI

An Italian musician and computer technician claims to have uncovered musical notes encoded in Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last Supper," raising the possibility that the Renaissance genius might have left behind a somber composition to accompany the scene depicted in the 15th-century wall painting.

"It sounds like a requiem," Giovanni Maria Pala said. "It's like a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus."

Painted from 1494 to 1498 in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the "Last Supper" vividly depicts a key moment in the Gospel narrative: Jesus' last meal with the 12 Apostles before his arrest and crucifixion, and the shock of Christ's followers as they learn that one of them is about to betray him.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europ...e.ap/index.html

The helmet is designed to provide pilots with binocular-wide field-of-view, give night vision abilities and scare enemy pilots at first sight. It was used for the first time last April, making the F-35 the first combat plane without a cockpit-mounted heads-up display in a very long time

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/combat-h...mies-260482.php


BOSCOMBE DOW Futuristic new helmets will enable fighter pilots to see through the fuselage of their aircraft. The headwear being developed for the hi-tech F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will display computerised symbols to help the pilot to navigate and use his weapons. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “It even will superimpose infra-red imagery on to the visor to allow the pilot to look through the cockpit floor at night and see the world below – like something out of Terminator. This is absolutely the cutting edge of technology.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...icle2843615.ece

From concept to construction, the Solar Impulse has been hailed as a savior—the first major attempt to fly a plane without fuel, with eco-eyes set on a sun-powered trip around the globe. And for record-setting adventurer Bertrand Piccard, whom we profiled in a cover story on the aircraft two years ago, Monday’s unveiling of its prototype was a long time coming: He showed off a mock-up of the Solar Impulse at the 2005 Paris Airshow, but now the 201-ft. plane is set for a test flight next fall.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blo...ws/4230299.html

Almost a century after a mysterious explosion in Russia flattened a huge swath of Siberian forest, scientists have found what they believe is a crater made by the cosmic object that made the blast.

The crater was discovered under a lake near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in western Siberia, where the cataclysm, known as the Tunguska event, took place

On June 30, 1908, a ball of fire exploded about 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the ground in the sparsely populated region, scientists say. The blast released 15 megatons of energy—about a thousand times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima—and flattened 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...sia-crater.html

Canadian researchers have promised to squeeze "decades" of cancer research into just two years by harnessing the power of a global PC grid..
The research team is led by Dr Igor Jurisica at the Ontario Cancer Institute, and scientists at Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health Network.

The scientists are the first from Canada to use IBM's World Community Grid network of PCs and laptops with the power equivalent to one of the globe's top five fastest supercomputers.

The team will use the grid to analyse the results of experiments on proteins using data collected by scientists at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, New York.


http://www.itnews.com.au/News/64560...-computing.aspx

A six-person startup is readying a modular, open source hardware/software system resembling a set of electronic Legos. Bug Labs claims device developers can build "anything" using "Bug," which comprises an ARM11-powered base and various modular add-ons
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS3871478989.html
http://www.buglabs.net/

Three autonomous vehicles crossed the finish line within the 6-hour time limit here at the DARPA Urban Challenge in Victorville, CA. DARPA director Tony Tether flagged the winning vehicles in as they completed the course two or three minutes apart.

First to finish the 60-mile race full of intersections, traffic, turns, parking challenges, and straightaways, was Stanford University's VW Passat, named Junior. Carnegie Mellon's Chevy Tahoe, Boss, came next, at 1:45 p.m., followed two or three minutes later by Virginia Tech's Ford Escape hybrid, Odin.

The bots started the race several minutes apart, and they had to complete different missions taking varying times, so it's not clear who will take home the $2 million first prize, the $1 million second-place prize, or the $500,000 third-place prize. Judges will compare notes and score sheets, which note any traffic infractions and other demerits, and Tether will announce the winners tomorrow morning.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/...s-in-the-w.html

"Oh, the humanity." When these three words were uttered by aghast radio journalist Herbert Morrison -- as the LZ129 Hindenburg airship crashed and burst into flames in New Jersey in 1937 -- it was seen as the end of airships. The other remaining Zeppelin-class dirigible, the Graf Zeppelin II, was destroyed by the Nazi administration who felt the materials could be put to better use with more conventional aircraft.

But, 70 years on, could the Hindenburg-style airship be experiencing a renaissance?

There are two types of craft that are commonly called "airships." The first is basically a balloon filled with a lighter-than-air gas, with an attached pod for the pilot and passengers, and tilting propellers to aid with descent and maneuvering. These are known as 'blimps' and are commonly used for promotional activities, for filming sporting events and by law enforcement agencies for surveillance. But their limited payload make them unsuitable for other purposes.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/10/23/...hips/index.html

Taking up the sci-fi staple of "tractor beams," scientists have developed a way to use light to grab and move minuscule particles on a microchip. The research could lead to fine-grained biological sensors and other precisely built nanoscale devices.

The work by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers could extend the possibilities for "optical tweezers" _ super-focused beams of light that have been used for years to study and manipulate tiny biological structures or even individual atoms.

Optical tweezers have been used on transparent media _ like a microscope slide _ that let the light shine through and hold objects in a tractor beam-like embrace. (This is possible because light's individual photons transfer minuscule amounts of force to particles they hit.)

[url]http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/MIT-research-holds-promise-for-using-light-to-move-tiny-particleson-chips/2007/10/31/1193618925491.html'/url]