Hasta La Gadget!

Now I know what you’re thinking. Most personal computers available today are already modular. That’s true, but what Razer wants to do is to make swapping computer components as easy as replacing the batteries on your remote control.

Project Christine has a base station with a number of slots with proprietary connectors. To build your PC, you just plug in the components to the base. But instead of dealing with fragile chips and odd-looking doodads, Project Christine’s CPU, RAM, GPU, storage drives and other parts will each have its own container.

Each container will be labeled and it will be able to connect to any slot or slots on the base station. No cables, no fragile connectors and no need to figure out which part goes where. In other words, the modules work like USB devices. Project Christine will also have an LED touchscreen that shows the status of its modules.

This means even non-techies can assemble, maintain and customize their own rigs. If you want more storage, then fill the slots with storage drives. Project Christine can have up to five storage drives, one SSD and four HDDs, with the latter configurable to a RAID 5 setup. If you want multiple GPUs, by all means slot them in. The computer can have up to a quad-SLI setup for its graphics cards. Same goes for repairs. Busted power supply? Swap it out. No need to open a dusty case.

The tradeoff here is probably going to be the price of the components, especially if Razer monopolizes the distribution of the modules. But even though it has not released any estimates, the company has a proposal to make upgrading Project Christine easy on the wallet: a subscription service. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan mentioned this idea in his interview with Gamespot. Skip to 4:00 in the video below to him talk about it.

Subscription-based hardware? I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or stupid. Will it also cover repairs? How fast will Razer release module versions of computer parts? Do upgrades to computer parts even come at a steady pace? What if you subscribe and nothing awesome comes out in a year?

I do however love the idea of a foolproof yet infinitely upgradeable computer, and I get what Razer is doing here. It’s taking a page from Apple’s books: make beautiful and easy to use hardware, then charge a premium for it and control the upgrade path.

Upgrade your browser and head to Razer for more on Project Christine.

[via Gamespot]

Behold witchcraft! Some crazy mages who call themselves scientists are making stuff levitate using ultrasound waves. Check out the video below. It demonstrates three-dimensional, mid-air acoustic manipulation, aka levitation. Aka witchcraft!

Scientists in Japan are using this technique to suspend small objects in the air with ultrasound waves and they have created an array of wave emitters capable of levitating objects in any direction. Why do these wizards boast of their magic so openly, unafraid of burning at the stake? I have watched the video. I know magic when I see it! I am holding my pitchfork right now!

Seriously, this video just makes my brain hurt. It is amazing. Check out all of the details on their website. This amazing science is the work of professors Yoichi Ochiai, Takayuki Hoshi, and Jun Rekimoto. They have powerful magics indeed.

[via ViralViralVideos via Geekosystem]

Cryptocurrency is the name given to the variety of virtual currencies out there today. The most popular is certainly Bitcoin. One of the newest is Dogecoin, which started as a joke and then got real. Another new cryptocurrency has been tipped called Coinye West. As you might guess it is a Kanye West themed virtual currency.

The catchphrase for Coinye West is “WE AIN’T MININ’, WE PICKIN’.” I don’t really know what that means. The max number of Coinye coins that can be mined is 66,666,666,666 – something that supposedly is a nod to Kanye’s ties to the Illuminati. This is starting to sound like a Dan Brown book.

Vice says that they wanted to talk to the creators of Coinye West, but they wouldn’t talk on the phone. The reason was simple, and quitelogical. The creators said, “[we] want to stay sorta anonymous in case Kanye gets pissed off.”

[via Vice]

As far as I’m concerned, your dining room can never have too many tentacles. So if you have an extra few grand, this stained glass octopus chandelier can be yours. It even has detachable limbs that can hold candles and glow.

Imagine that Octopus looking down on you are you eat all of your meals, just glowing as if almost ready to attack you and drag you into it’s lair. It was made by Mason Parker of Mason’s Creations. Parker says that each of the tentacles would be about 30 inches-long if they were stretched out, and the lamp itself measures four feet across as it is.

The body and the tentacles can light up separately or all at once. So how menacing it is, is up to you. If you want it, it will cost you $18,000(USD). When you think about it, that’s just $2,250 per tentacle.

[Steampunk Tendencies  via io9]

A few months ago Google rolled out its Street View of some of the facilities at the world famous physics mecca, the European Organization for Nuclear Research aka CERN. The organization decided to have a bit of fun with the virtual tour and set up a scavenger hunt that anyone can join, even CERN employees. It’s basically LEGO Google Street View: the Game.

Right now there are more than 20 LEGO figurines hidden on the two floors of CERN’s Computing Centre. To enter, just go to the CERN Google Street View and find at least three figurines. Be sure to take a screenshot each time you find a figurine. If you can’t see the gorilla minifig in the image above, you probably won’t fare well in the hunt. I’ve found all of them. Okay I’ve only found some of them. Okay just one. Okay I didn’t exactly find the gorilla. CERN gave that one away.

When you’ve found at least three figurines, send your screenshots to TreasureHunt-ComputingCentre@cern.ch. CERN will randomly draw two winners from the valid submissions: one from CERN and one lesser mortal, i.e. the rest of us. The deadline for submission will be on January 31, 2014. Happy hunting!

[via CERN via DVICE]