Hasta La Gadget!

Sometimes I run across tech products that cross two different geek genres. That is certainly the case with this cool flash drive that merges car guy geekery with tech geek appeal. This official BMW flash drive has 8 GB of flash storage inside and looks like the actual M series carbon fiber key fob you get with factory hopped up BMW sports cars.

The flash drive has buttons that look like the ones for unlocking the door and the trunk, and has the official BMW logo and the M logo as well. The USB connector can be extended or retracted by pressing the trunk release button. The other buttons on the flash drive key fob surface do nothing but sit there looking authentic.

If you absolutely have to have one of these for yourself, you can order one direct from BMW for only $38. However, if you go full poser, attach it to your keychain, and pretend you actually own a BMW M vehicle, car guys will mock you.

[via EverythingUSB]

We’ve featured some crazy casemods here over the years, but I can honestly say this is the first one I’ve seen that has blood coursing through its veins. Ok, there’s not actual human blood flowing through the cooling lines of this PC, but it’s still pretty awesome.

The White Silence casemod features a stark white case with clean modern lines, accented by cooling lines filled with blood red fluid and matching red cables. Of course, not all of the blood could be contained, and a bit of it has splattered into the case, for an extra gory effect. If Dexter Morgan had a PC instead of a Mac, this would be his computer. Well, the Authority on True Blood could always go for it.

It turns out the system was built about two years ago, so under the hood is a Core i7 920, a GeForce GTX 295, 6GB of DDR3-1333 RAM and plentiful storage, with two 500GB Samsung SpinPoint drives, two 150GB VelociRaptor drives, and an 80GB Intel SSD.

Check out more details of this crazy looking build over at HardwareLUXX (in German).

[via Reddit]

Anyone that’s ever stayed in a hotel knows that if you open the nightstand drawer next to the bed, you’re going to find a copy of the Bible place there by the Gideons. The Gideons have been placing Bibles in hotel rooms for years and it is estimated that nearly 80,000,000 were distributed last year alone. One UK hotel is replacing those traditional paper Bibles with digital versions on a Kindle placed in each room.

All 148 rooms at Newcastle’s Hotel Indigo now have Kindle readers in nightstand drawers that are preloaded with a copy of the Bible. The hotel claims to be the first in Britain to offer the service. Guests who stay in the hotel that need other religious texts are allowed to download it for free up to a value of £5 (~$8 USD).

Guests can also download other books on the Kindle to read during their stay and those other books will be charged to their account at checkout. I wonder if the books other people download will be left on the Kindle for the next visitor to read. The use of Kindles instead of paper Bibles is a trial that will run until July 16. After that, a decision will be made to keep the Kindle readers and roll the program out to other hotels or not.

[via Telegraph]

Not content to sit on their laurels, nor the $65 million they pocketed
from their lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their
Facebook idea – the Winklevoss twins have launched their own network,
named Zurker.
Part investment opportunity, part chic-magnet, part-democratic social
community, their innovative new wrinkle is to convince members they can
become joint owners of their company.

ACTA, the controversial anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, has been rejected by the European Parliament by a staggering majority. The law was smacked down by a 478 to 39 vote, and has now been completely killed in Europe. Internet activists rallied against ACTA when it was seen to be a legislative act that was far too broad, with criminal sanctions also found in the trade agreement.

While ACTA has been killed in Europe, it could still come to the United States. Still, it would need congressional approval, something which is unlikely to pass given the furore surrounding the act in Europe. Meanwhile, Karel de Gucht, the European Commission responsible for ACTA, says that he keep submitting it before the European Parliament until it passes, but TorrentFreak believes that’s something the body won’t stand for.

ACTA first came into existence in October 2011 following on from SOPA, another controversial anti-piracy bill. While ACTA was presented as a trade agreement designed to combat counterfeit goods, it blurred the lines between piracy and counterfeiting, as well as working in criminal charges for those who fell foul of the law. Anti-ACTA advocates believed that criminal charges for copyright infringement were unnecessary when civil sanctions are already in place, and that the bill would restrict governments from creating their own copyright law if swayed by trade agreements.

European Parliament rejects ACTA in 478 to 39 vote is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
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