Hasta La Gadget!

As you all know, last Friday a massive meteor entered the atmosphere over the Chelyabinsk Region of Russia. The meteor was large enough that scientists believe significant chunks reached the surface of the Earth. The meteor also caused quite a fireball in the sky and several explosions that shattered glass and injured over 1000 citizens in the area.

Russian citizens in the area are now trying to make a little bit of money by selling fragments that they claim to be from the meteorite online. However, Russian police are having none of that and have stepped in and begun to confiscate supposed meteorite fragments listed online. Russian police officials say that they confiscated about 60g of a substance claimed to be meteorite fragments from a Chelyabinsk resident.

Russian police say that they will send the material to be analyzed to determine its composition and determine if it poses any health risks. Officials are asking people not to buy the meteorite fragments because they are being sold without permits or certification. Fragments have turned up online selling for 10,000 to 500,000 rubles (~$330 to $16,600 USD.)

[via Ria.ru]

The Mars Curiosity Rover has touched a Martian rock for the first time. And, in the process, it gave us the closest, most detailed view of the Red Planet (a tiny part of it) yet, using her Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at ten, two and one inches from the rock. More »

Over the years, people have tried to sell off many artifacts from the Apollo era of space travel. These objects included things like cameras and gloves and at times even little pieces of Moon rock. NASA considers every chunk of Moon rock returned by Apollo astronauts to be government property and has so far barred any sale or gifting to the public.

But as it happens, one of the largest pieces of Moon rock wasn’t returned by any space probe or astronaut, and has now hit the auction block. The rock is a large lunar meteorite called Dar al Gani 1058.  Scientists don’t know exactly when this piece of rock was dislodged from the moon, but it was discovered in Libya in 1998.

This chunk of Moon rock weighs 4 pounds and is the fourth largest chunk that can be legally owned by the public. The rock is believed to come from the lunar highland breccias on the far side of the moon.

This particular piece of rock has an auction starting price of $170,000 (USD), but the auction house projects that the estimated selling price will land somewhere between $340,000 and $380,000 when the auction closes on October 14. The most likely winner the auction is expected to be a museum, but private bidders are also permitted.

[via Huffington Post]

Guitarists and Bassists have many tools at their disposal for practicing fresh news licks without disturbing others around them. One of our favorites is Vox’s AmPlug — a guitar amp-modeling dongle that plugs into your instrument’s 1/4-inch jack, allowing you to connect headphones and an MP3 player to practice privately. Building on the idea, Vox worked with Audio-Technica to simply embed the AmPlug in a new line of headphones, dubbing them Amphones. The company quietly put the cans up on its site recently, and it’s now officially ready to shout out loud about them.

Guitarists can choose from AC-30 (British crunch), Lead (hi-gain) and Twin (clean) variants, and bassists can snag the Bass version, which is based on Vox’s AC100. Just like the AmPlug, each Amphone features volume dials — sadly, these don’t go to 11 — for setting gain, volume and tone, along with a fourth for a built-in effect (compression for the Bass and reverb with the AC30, for example). A duo of triple AAs power the cans and, as you’d expect, the ‘phones have a 3.5mm jack for hooking in external sources as well as a 1/4 adapter to plug into your axe. These Vox-styled units will be available in the US sometime in October for $100 a pop (double the cost of an AmPlug). Hungering for more already? We were able to give a pre-production version of the AC30 model a brief run, and you’ll find our initial impressions after the break.

Continue reading Vox jams guitar amps into Audio-Technica headphones, dubs them Amphones (ears-on)

Filed under: Misc, Portable Audio/Video, Wearables

Vox jams guitar amps into Audio-Technica headphones, dubs them Amphones (ears-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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