Here, Adam Savage builds one of the best known guns in the universe. Han Solo’s Baster. I mean Blaster. Although, come Thanksgiving, Han is pretty handy with a baster too. He’s an awesome cook, with a fear of getting too close to the freezer.
Adam has already made a Blade Runner pistol and an Indiana Jones revolver, so I’m pretty confident he can do it. Hell, is there anything this guy can’t do? Spoiler alert! He fires first and kicks this project’s ass!
This is a serious replica too, with some super nice detail, courtesy of the guys over at The RPF, who did much of the of detective work to figure out the parts needed. Now we just need to figure out how to get it to fire blaster bolts.
[via Laughing Squid via Nerd Approved]
Comic-Con may not be a vital venue for launching new gadgets, but for many attendees later today, the intersection of tech and art will be just up the street at 6th and Island Ave. — the location of tonight’s Engadget + gdgt Live event. We’re on the ground in San Diego for this evening’s festivities, and we’ve already spent some time exploring the convention center, too, including a mandatory stop to check out Rovio’s hardware-equipped Angry Birds Star Wars 2. As for tonight, you can expect to see lots of hot products from companies like Microsoft, Nokia, iRobot and Western Digital at the Stingaree lounge in the Gaslamp Quarter. As always, we’ll have giveaway items up for grabs, so there’s always a chance that you’ll head home with some awesome gear. And best of all, the event is free! Everything kicks off at 7PM. We hope to see you there!
Gallery: Comic-Con 2013
Filed under: Announcements
Source: gdgt
He suffers. He wins.
(Credit: Fandango Movies/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
Harrison Ford is a man whose self-expression can often be self-contained.
Sometimes, it seems as if his inner anger courses beneath his skin like a pinball waiting for an opening.
Yet he must have been bracing himself Thursday for an inevitable rise in his blood pressure and concomitant fall in his hope for humanity.
For he appeared at Comic-Con to inspire today’s nerds toward his new end-of-the-world-space-battle-and-stuff movie, “Ender’s Game.”
Yet his audience seemed intent on living in the past.
As SlashFilm reports, these nerds look at Ford and only see his characters from the ’80s.
The first question: “What would Han Solo and Indiana Jones say to each other if they met?” This was prefaced with “Lightsabers aside.”
Oh, dear.
For myself, I fear Solo would say to Jones: “Goodness, we look so much alike. It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it?”
To which Jones would reply: “I’m taller than you. Get out of my way.”
And yet Ford was expected to offer a serious philosophical… [Read more]
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Nobody wants to drink their own processed urine like Kevin Costner did in Waterworld. Lord no, that’s disgusting. But drinking your own sweat like Kyle MacLachlan from Dune, now that’s the ticket. And with the help of this new distillation device, people living in even the most parched environments will have easy access to potable water derived from their own bodily fluids.
The Tick Rover travels along a hose that emits CO2.
(Credit: Virginia Military Institute)
Ticks are repulsive, blood-sucking, disease-carrying parasites that can do serious harm to people. They deserve no less than robotic death from above.
Thank the Maker, then, that researchers at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) have developed a tick-slaying robot that uses carbon dioxide to pretend it’s an animal.
The prospect of a blood meal leads the arachnids to their doom. The robot kills 75 to 100 percent of the ticks in its path.
“The only thing more successful is chemical spray,” Jim Squire, professor of electrical and computer engineering and project manager, said in a release.
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The … [Read more]
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Apple Picks Up Locationary
Posted in: Today's ChiliApple has been known to acquire small startup companies every now and then, and well they’re usually nothing to write home about, this one is particular interesting. The Cupertino-based company has acquired Locationary, a location data company that relies on crowd-sourced information for real-time data.
While Apple has declined to comment on the acquisition and what it plans to do with the new resources, it’s no doubt that the buyout will go towards improving Apple Maps, which experienced a dismal launch when it was released alongside iOS 6 last year. The company is continuing to make improvements, but it seems they’re wanting to add a bit more to it.
It’s possible that the Locationary acquisition may be the chance for Apple to put control of the Maps app into the users hands. Seeing as how Locationary is like a Wikipedia for local business listings, Apple could rely on its users to input points-of-interests and other landmarks to keep their maps up to date.
Apple could also make their Maps app a bit more like Waze, with crowd-sourced traffic information that Apple users could submit. Of course, this method isn’t entirely foolproof, but it’s treated Waze well, and it gives you a real-time look at travel information as you drive. Apple hasn’t been to open to the crowd-sourcing trend, so the likelihood of something like this happening seems pretty low. However, Apple has never been without surprises, so a crowd-sourced Apple Maps could be in the works in some way, but we’ll ultimately have to wait and see what happens.
SOURCE: AllThingsD
Apple acquires Locationary for crowd-sourced Maps improvement is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
When you’re cutting your lawn, it always seems to take a lot of time. Not anymore, thanks to this lawn mower, which can mow your lawn at speeds of up to 130 mph. OK, maybe that’s not entirely accurate, but still, it’s fast enough for the Stig from Top Gear!
Honda UK teamed up with Team Dynamics to re-engineer this lawn mower, the Honda HF2620, that has an all-new chassis. It comes with a 1000cc engine that comes from a Honda VTR Firestorm motorcycle, which produces 109hp. Thanks to this engine, the lawn mower can reach 62mph in four seconds. It’s top speed is 130 mph, and it comes with a paddle-shift six-speed gearbox.
The HF2620 can still mow your lawn, but at only 15mph. Well, at least you can get around pretty fast!
[via Autoblog]
While concept behind the Instagram-themed smart camera Socialmatic is one so outlandish you’d expect it to stay conceptual forever, it’s become apparent this week that the creators of this machine are aiming for a real release relatively soon. Confirmed this week are two factoids not known before – one of them a confirmation of the operating system under the hood of this rather squared-off shooter: Android. Whether or not Google will approve is not yet known.
Though past iterations of this machine appearing in social networking pop-ups and conceptual board collections pointed toward a release time “in the future”, the team known as Socialmatic LLC has confirmed that “Pre-order available soon!” is the new most accurate answer for when it’ll be headed to reality. The fact that their newest one-sheet comes with a $299 price-tag is encouraging – an added note “suggested price” reminds us that we’ve not yet actually seen the physical product in any real-world photographs as yet.
The closest anyone’s gotten is a set of two rather realistic renders from ADR Studio Marketing and Communication which show the machine’s size with some rather fine 3D rendering and photoshop magic. The newest Facebook-bound communication from the Socialmatic LLC team shows the newest visions of the device in black and white.
This device is teased with promises of a 14-megapixel front-facing camera, and 2-megapixel camera at the devices, back, and a single (rather tiny) LED flash above the device’s main shooter. This device works with a front-facing LCD display with what the company calls “Mood Assistant A.I.”, reminding users – we must assume – to smile or frown, depending on the wishes of the photographer. It does not appear at the moment that this screen can be used as a second viewfinder for the camera – a much, much more user-friendly use-case.
Have a peek at the Samsung DV150F for the best implementation of a front-facing display on a camera we’ve seen yet.
The Socialmatic will be coming with a Zink instant printer for Polaroid instant-result physical photos, you’ll get 4GB of internal storage, and you’ve got a full-sized SD-HDC slot for external storage. And of course you’ve got full “compliance” with the Socialmatic Network as well. Gotta have that!
UPDATE: Additional press renders have surfaced via Socialmatic itself – have a peek at some additional possibilities in the development of this wild device!
Socialmatic retro smart camera promises pre-orders, remains mum on release is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.