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Whether you classify it as a roadable aircraft or a flying car, Terrafugia’s Transition looks resolutely set on avoiding vaporware status and becoming a bona fide commercial reality late next year. It’s ironic, then, that the latest development is being illustrated with a bunch of renders, but what they show is a significantly redesigned body, which now comes with FAA-approved safety features and brings the hybrid vehicle closer to its final shape. The new design integrates lessons learned from the Transition’s test flight last year to improve the wing shape and retraction mechanism, while also including an impact-absorbing crumple zone in the nose. The two-seater now also comes with a touchscreen center console — because nothing signals modernity better than a touchscreen — and can be seen in all its computer-generated glory on video after the break.

Continue reading Terrafugia’s flying car Transitions into a safer, better, tamer-looking personal transporter

Terrafugia’s flying car Transitions into a safer, better, tamer-looking personal transporter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, 85.3 percent of your best buds are kickin’ it in Cozumel right now, but a few bright minds at California State University, Long Beach have been toiling around the clock in those dreaded summer sessions in order to help create the five-pack you see pictured here. In order to give its already colorful My Passport Essential line a long overdue refresh, Western Digital has now added a handful of limited edition 500GB models with rather stylish exteriors. Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave are the prints to choose from, and all five can be snapped up for a window of time at Best Buy or via WD directly. As for specs? You know the drill — USB 2.0 powered, 256-bit hardware encryption and a two-year warranty. Take your pick for $119.99, dude.

Continue reading WD tosses out high-fashion 500GB My Passport Essential drives, props to the LBC

WD tosses out high-fashion 500GB My Passport Essential drives, props to the LBC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Crazily enough, the device you’re staring at above — jaw solidly on the floor, we’re sure — is real. As in, you can purchase one for you and yours. So far as we can tell, this here watermelon cart (priced at ¥19,950, or a whopping $231) serves to keep your voluptuous fruit cool when being transported from market to mouth, but everything beyond that is lost in translation. What’s curious, however, is that this seems like a device created and sold exclusively in Japan. If we had to bet, though, we’d say it was originally dreamed up by a farmer in eastern North Carolina — you know, the home of watermelon Cook-Out milkshakes, an official watermelon license plate and roads where chop-top school buses are frequently used as watermelon hauling machines.

Watermelon cooler push cart: perfect for those sultry North Carolina summers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you followed the Apple press event and decided that you should probably get a case for your iPhone 4, you could do worse than to pre-order a Vapor iPhone 4 case from ElementCase. The Vapor is machine carved from a solid block of aluminum to form a metal bumper that’s specifically designed for the shape of the iPhone 4, with precision carved openings for the headphone port, microphone and speaker ports, and volume and mute buttons. Since it’s aluminum, it’s light and fits the overall design of the iPhone 4, and a power button was built into the case so it can be turned on and off without having to remove the Vapor.

The finish of the Vapor case is anodized, and while the first iterations are metallic black on black and black on pink, ElementCase expects to release additional colors soon. The side of the aluminum is laser etched with “Vapor” on it, and the company expects to offer custom engraving in the future as well. Best of all, if you’ve been suffering from the “death grip” issue, the inside of the Vapor case is non-conductive, so you won’t lose signal while the aluminum bumper is on your iPhone. ElementCase has the Black/Black and Black/Pink Vapor models available now for $79.95.