I’m fairly certain that the idea of jumping over an island has never crossed my mind in all my years of thinking. But if you’re a champion kitesurfer like Youri Zoon and you stumble across a small enough island, well, that’s just another day on the beach for you. Jumping the damn thing and nailing it is just how you live. Watch Zoon catch the perfect gust of wind and fly over an entire 120-foot island near New Caledonia. Sick.
Because most of us will never take the literal leap of jumping off a damn plane, here’s POV footage from the Leap Frogs aka the Navy’s parachute team. For the San Diego Padre’s home opener, the jumpers took off in a plane and landed right smack inside Petco Park. You can hear the roar of the crowd grow louder as they get closer.
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Another thing that I didn’t know was a thing. People who like to drop through big waterfalls, like Dane Jackson does in this video on the 60-foot La Tomata waterfall in central Veracruz, Mexico. And there’s more, like the 189-foot drop a reader posted below.
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Who the hell looks at a 600-foot cliff in South Africa and says "let’s build a rope swing here"? Mike Wilson and Andrew Kirkpatrick, that’s who. Luckily, they filmed the madness as they sent a bunch of their friends flying on the world’s biggest, scariest, craziest rope swing.
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Watch Mickael Bimboes launching "off a massive cliff in his 3rd place run for the Swatch Freeride World Tour at Aiguille Pourrie, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France." And remember, folks—this guy got the third place. Seriously, watch it all because you are not going to believe how nuts and/or suicidal this dude is.
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Good news and bad news for serial phone-flippers: Starting on the 23rd, T-Mobile’s Jump plan
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A backup battery for your phone is only useful if you’re willing to carry it with you. So Native Union has come up with the JUMP which integrates a little extra power into your smartphone’s charging cable, ensuring it’s light enough to carry and always has a little bit of extra power to keep your device running.
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Just over a year ago on October 14, 2012, daredevil Felix Baumgartner made history with his daring jump from 128,000 feet – setting a record for the world’s highest skydive. Baumgartner exceeded speeds of 825 mph and broke the sound barrier without the use of an aircraft. One of the coolest things about the jump was that there were cameras everywhere to capture the record setting feat.
Video footage captured by some of those cameras has already been viewed, but there were cameras attached to the balloon and to Baumgartner himself, much of which hasn’t been shared publicly. The footage from the cameras attached to the balloon and Baumgartner have now been put together and used to create a documentary commemorating the entire launch. To go along with the upcoming documentary, Red Bull has now offered up footage of the jump from the Baumgartner’s perspective.
The video includes embedded statistics such as air speed, elevation, and biometrics. Check out the 9-minute-plus clip above to see this epic feat from the jumper’s point of view. Be sure to set the video to 1080p and full-screen mode for the best experience. It starts out chaotically, but gradually lulls you into a strange calmness as Baumgartner gets closer to the Earth.
[via Forbes]
It really sucks when your car won’t start. Normally you would have to bother your neighbor or get a stranger to give you a start with jumper cables. Those days are over thanks to Jump Genie. It will give your battery power with no outside help. You won’t even have to lift the hood of your car.
All you need to do is plug it into your cigarette lighter socket and wait as it delivers juice to your car battery. Then just start your car. It might take a while to get things going, but it’s still a handy gadget we should all carry in our cars.
Bonus: When you drive away, all happy and carefree, you can re-charge the Jump Genie as you drive. This takes about 40 minutes. Then it’s ready for the next time. The Jump Genie sells for £29.95 (~$47 USD) over at The Verdict.
[via Red Ferret]
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
