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University of Pittsburgh researchers have hooked a monkey’s brain up with an industrial robot arm, giving the animal’s mere thoughts direct control of it.

Comic book fans with iPads: You have two new reasons to get excited today.

A new application, Comic Viewer, has just been approved in the App Store. And today’s update of the popular e-reading app Stanza enables it to work on the iPad — and, more importantly, to display comics.

Comic Viewer comes at a reasonable price of $5, compared to the $8 you have to spit out for Comic Zeal, another comic-reading app. Still, that’s five bucks more than you’ll be spending on either the Marvel or Comics apps, which are currently free.

Comic Viewer, developed by the same guys who made the popular Kevin Smith iPhone app, has most of the features found in other comic book readers: The ability to load it up with CBR and CBZ scans, transfer files via iTunes file sharing, and read in landscape mode.

The problem is that the application doesn’t offer anything radically new or better to distinguish it from the competition. It doesn’t have Comic Zeal’s over-the-air syncing ability, or Comics’ bubble-by-bubble navigation.

Worse yet, it’s less than polished. You can pinch to zoom in, which makes reading the text easier, but then you can’t scroll or pan around the screen. You have to zoom out if you want to move onto the next image.

It does a solid job of displaying content in landscape mode, unlike Comic Zeal, which mostly fails to recognize double spreads. But you can’t zoom in at all while in landscape mode, making it virtually impossible to use.

A neat feature is an integrated web browser used to download content. That’s much less annoying than, say, the Kindle app, which launches Safari to browse the Amazon store.

So how does Stanza fare? Stanza is a popular e-reading app on the iPhone, and its appearance on the iPad should get us all excited. Just like most document-handling apps, you can use iTunes to transfer your files and load up your comics selection onto it.

Though not primarily a comic book reader, it does a good job of displaying CBR and CBZ files. In fact, it might be the snappiest of all the comics apps out there.

Comic Viewer and Stanza join a growing selection of comics readers on the iPad. Yet there isn’t a clear leader of the pack. Comics and Marvel, built on the same Comixology platform, make digital comics look beautiful, but they suffer from a limited selection and lack of flexibility.

Other readers are far from perfect, with annoying little flaws often hindering the reading experience.

Perhaps we’ll have to wait for the Panelfly app, due to come out this summer.

(Photo: Comic Viewer, Denvog.com)

Drahtwerk’s iWebcamera iPhone app was actually released late last week but it, ironically, only worked with a Windows-based PC. The company has now finally rectified that situation with some Mac drivers, however, which will at last let use your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac just like you’ve always wanted. We haven’t yet had a chance to try it out ourselves, but you can grab the app yourself from the App Store right now for $4.99, and snag the Mac drivers from the company’s website linked below.

[Image credit: Brian]

iWebcamera lets you ditch your webcam for an iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Everyone knows you can use Mentos and Diet Coke to make fizzy fountains that shoot soda as much as 30 feet in the air. Now, two guys have harnessed that power for human transportation, with a rocket car powered by Mentos and Coke.

Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz are the guys behind the famous video of a Mentos-and-Diet Coke, Bellagio-style fountain, which they estimate has been seen by more than 120 million people. Four years later, they’re back with a rocket car powered by nothing but Mentos and Coke Zero. The video, which debuted this week, shows the duo’s efforts to set a land-speed and distance record for a vehicle powered by nothing but erupting, minty, fizzy soda.

The video was directed by Rob Cohen (director of The Fast and the Furious). Two dimensions not enough? There’s even a 3-D rocket car video you can watch on YouTube, if you have a pair of red-and-cyan 3-D glasses.

Wired sat down with Grobe and Voltz shortly after a recent performance at Maker Faire to find out how they built their 900-pound vehicle. It contains 108 2-liter bottles of Coke Zero, 648 Mentos, an elaborate-looking system of PVC pipes and pistons, and a complicated rig for dropping all those mint candies into all those bottles at the same time. In this exclusive Wired.com video, the duo explain how they made the magic happen.

As for the switch from Diet Coke to Coke Zero? The two explained that Coke, which is one of their sponsors, wanted to tout the newer diet soda instead of the old one. In fact, almost any kind of soda works, though they say diet sodas work a bit better. The one thing to keep in mind: You want warm soda for the maximum effect; a Coke right out of the fridge won’t fizz nearly enough.

These guys should know: Since their 2006 video launched, Grobe and Voltz have managed to make a living staging Mentos-and-Coke performances and other events.

For more Mentos-and-Coke videos, including outtakes from the filming of the latest video, check out the pair’s website, Eepybird.com.

Video: Wired.com. Produced by Annaliza Savage, camera by Michael Lennon, edited by Fernando Cardoso.

As crazy as Thermaltake‘s fan-equipped keyboard is, we’re sort of shocked that something like this hasn’t made it to market earlier. The gaming keyboard comes with a small 6,000rpm fan that plugs into the top of the panel and blows air across it to keep your tired, perspiring hands cool. We expected it to be a total gimmick, but the fan actually moves a decent amount of air for its size. Beyond the added blades, the keyboard is of the typical “clicky” mechanical variety and has two USB ports along with a mic / headphone jack on its backside. The Challenger Ultimate is the most premium version with 256 backlight cool options, 64KB of memory and 14 macro keys. The mid-range Challenger Pro only has 10 macro keys, while the entry level Challenger has only 6 and 32KB of memory. A marketing rep on hand told us that all three models will retail for under $100, and mentioned the Pro version landing in the $65 range. In other news, Thermaltake also introduced its red-glowing, 4000dpi Black gaming mouse at the show. We know you’re probably dying to see what that small fan feels like (trust us: it’s exactly what you think), but the best we can give you from here are the shots below.

Thermaltake’s Challenger keyboard fans off our sweaty palms originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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