Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re a Whovian and need some cool art for your front yard, do what Dulcet’s husband did and build some for yourself. You don’t have to be Davros to build a neat Dalek for your neighbors to admire.

Apparently, he only just learned to weld, and made this Dalek lawn ornament from found pieces of metal, except for the half-spheres. You can’t really find those just anywhere. I’ll let her tell it:

Every time he rides his bike to work, he brings home metal stuff from the side of the road. We’ve been talking about him making something from them for quite a while. A few months ago, he got a crash course on welding from our neighbor who just happens to have a mig welder…The only things he purchased were the half-spheres, which are pipe caps. The eye-stalk in mounted in part of a truck hitch, and swivels up and down. The arm without the laser is made from a jack, and telescopes out. The head is a propane tank sliced up, with pieces of our broken garage-door-opener spring on top. The whole thing is four and a half feet tall.

It looks pretty sweet. I’m surprised the neighborhood kids haven’t made it an altar yet, where they can kneel and wish for the 50th anniversary Doctor Who trailer to show up online.

[via geekcrafts]

Scientists have long known that blackbodies produce radiation and that radiation creates a repulsive effect. However, according to a new study there’s another force at play, one that acts a bit like gravity and attracts objects to the blackbody. They’re calling it "blackbody force."

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A television with a 4K resolution is still pretty rare these days, and also still very expensive. However, that doesn’t mean there can’t be exceptions. Chinese television maker TCL just announced a new 50-inch 4K HDTV with a price tag of just a dollar shy of $1,000, which is less expensive than most other 1080p televisions on the market today.

How does a 4K HDTV cost only $1,000? Well, the biggest factor is that it’s a cheap Chinese manufacturer, compared to top-quality brands like LG or Samsung, but another big reason for the low price tag is that the TV doesn’t come with the bells and whistles like THX certifications and internet-connected Smart TV features.

TCL is the second manufacturer to provide budget 4K televisions, with Seiki being the first, thanks to their 39-inch 4Ker for only $700 and their own 50-inch model for $1,500. However, the TCL 50-incher costs $500 less, meaning that this is the cheapest 50-inch 4K TV around, and it’s probably the cheapest that big-screen 4K televisions will go — at least until a few years from now.

Other televisions in TCL’s lineup for this year include regular HDTV models at 40-, 46-, and 55-inch sizes, priced at $399, $499 and $799, respectively. TCL’s 4K variant will start shipping in September, while their traditional 1080p models will begin shipping at some point next month.

While 4K (also referred to as Ultra HD) is still in its early stages, it seems like the next progressive step in the evolution television. While we don’t see too many 4K offerings on the market just yet (and the ones we see are extremely pricey), we very well may see 4K become more ubiquitous as time goes on, with prices coming way down in the next couple of years.

TCL 50-inch 4K HDTV arrives with $1k price point is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Say goodbye to one of the few remaining cornerstones of childhood. The Monopoly board as we know it is being supplemented with a new version Hasbro believes will appeal more to today’s swaggy youth. Time to welcome in the new age of chaos—because Monopoly Empire is about to be coming to you totally jail-free.

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Sony is the first third-party phone manufacturer to announce Android 4.3 availability for their lineup of smartphones and tablets. The company announced that the Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR, Xperia Tablet Z, Xperia SP and Xperia Z Ultra will all be getting updates to Android 4.3, but details are bit murky at this point.

As for when these device will get the Android 4.3 update, it’s unclear, but Sony says that the Xperia ZR and Xperia Tablet Z will start receiving the previous update of Android 4.2 starting early next month, so we’re guessing Android 4.3 will come shortly thereafter. The 4.2 update for the Xperia Z and Xperia ZL, however, “is well underway.”

Then again, Sony says that they plan on upgrading some of their other devices running Android 4.1 directly to 4.3. Of course, the company didn’t mention specifics on which devices would skip Android 4.2 or when that would occur, but they assure us that they’ll be keeping folks up to date as far as what they decide on.

Android 4.3 Jelly Bean was announced yesterday with several new features, including multi-user account support with restricted profiles, as well as Google Play Games, which is Google’s version of Apple’s Game Center. The latest Nexus devices are already being treated with the update, but Sony is the first third-party company out of the game.

Hopefully we hear from some more phone makers in the near future, including Samsung and HTC, who are some of the dominant companies in the Android market. We’re sure that HTC One and Galaxy S 4 owners wouldn’t mind if their handsets received an update to Android 4.3 in a timely manner.

SOURCE: Sony

Sony Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, and more getting Android 4.3 update is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.