Hasta La Gadget!

Embattled whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks has found refuge in the arms of Sweden’s The Pirate Party. A Swiss branch of the new political party is now hosting the site whose domain has changed from the now defunct WikiLeaks.org to WikiLeaks.ch, a Switzerland-based domain.

The move follows EveryDNS.net’s decision to drop the site late last night, the apparent result of a number of DDoS attacks. EveryDNS’s owner, Dynamic Network Hosting, issued a statement last night, explaining the decision,

The interference at issues [sic] arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites.

WikiLeaks is using attempting to turn lemons into lemonade, using the move to solicite donations. “WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks KEEP US STRONG,” the site wrote on Twitter last night.

A similar message appears at the top of WikiLeaks’ new homepage, complete with the image of a stern looking Julian Assange.

I have a very fear real that, when we’re all long gone, archeologists will unearth a treasure trove of informercials and use them as the basis with which they reconstruct our culture. What if one day all of our great works of art and literature are gone and all that remains are long, eerily cheery ads for products like the Snuggie?

On lazy days when it’s chilly, turning up the heat costs money, and wrestling with blankets is silly. This one’s too big, that one’s too small, and a blanket can’t cover it all?

Is this the poetry of the 21st century poetry?

It’s the opening line to a two minute ad for a new product called “Forever Lazy.” Consider it something of a Snuggie alternative. It’s an adult onsie. It was created by two Wisconsin dudes in their mid-20s attempting to nab a little piece of that sweet, sweet “As Seen on TV” cash.

It’s the self-proclaimed “one piece, lie around, lounge around, full body lazy wear.”

You can pick one up now from the Order Forever Lazy site for the low, low price of $19.95 (plus $9.95 postage and handling). Act now and they’ll throw in a neck pillow and matching footies.

Remember, only 22 shopping days ’til Christmas. Snuggie-like ad after the jump.

Add one more to the list of new tablets that aren’t iPads (but would like to be): CTL just introduced the newest product in its tablet line, the 2goPad SL10 Pro. This tablet takes the 2goPad SL10 and adds a few connectivity and functionality features. It offers the same capacitive screen, Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz processor, and 2GB of memory as the SL10, but throws in a larger 64GB SSD hard drive, Windows 7 Professional, a capacitive stylus pen, a cleaning cloth, and a portable Bluetooth-enabled wireless keyboard with a track pad.

CTL claims the 64GB solid state hard drive is up to 56 percent faster than standard hard drives. Since the SL10 Pro comes with Windows 7 Professional, it can multitask like a notebook or desktop. It also comes with B/G/N wireless connectivity, 2 USB ports, and an SD card slot. Its list price is $799.

Well, Google it’s been quite a ride–from your humble beginnings as a minimalistic search wonder to your ubiquitous email service to your 1984esque photographing every block in the industrialized world. But only now has the primary use of your suite of web-based tools been realized: tricking the vocalization function of Google Translate into beatboxing.

As far as I can tell, this reddit user was the first person to figure out that you can trick Google Translate into interpreting various nonsense words (“pv zk pv pv zk pv zk”) into very beatboxy notes. To make it work, one of the languages has to be German (if you just paste some “notes” in the first translate box, Google automatically detects most of the words as German). Then, just click “listen.”

It’s like the Fat Boys are living in your computer.

This little hacklette has become so popular that if you google the phrase “google beatbox,” the first link is Google Translate.

Many others have globbed on to the trick with their own library of sounds (here and here, for example). But it’s kind of fun to experiment around yourself to see what you can make one of the world’s largest corporations do against its will.

Thanks, internet.

Who is 2010’s tech person of the year? Is it Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s youngest billionaire, who helped transform Facebook into a global juggernaut, donated absurd amounts of money to charity, and was the basis for the year’s most critically acclaimed film?

What about Steve Jobs, who turned the tech world on its head yet again with the introduction of the iPad, which kickstarted the consumer tablet market?

Maybe it’s Meg Whitman, or Carly Fiorina, who both parlayed CEO jobs at prominent tech companies into much-publicized bids for office in California.

I would like to throw my support behind another candidate–that’s right, Justin Bieber (OMG, et al). The 16-year-old Canadian pop singer earned a top spot in tech headlines this year, thanks in no small part a seemingly permanent spot atop Twitter’s trending topics.

Bieber made a name for himself after his young mother began uploading videos of her son performing song covers. He quickly built up a legion of absurdly loyal–and intense–fans who have grown up on social networking. As various social networks reveal their year-end lists of hot topics, the point is made all the more clear: 2010 was the year of the Bieber.

After the jump, check a round up of our Bieber coverage from 2010.