​This is a hand-made leather wrist cuff that automatically "rolls" 4-sided, 6-sided, 8-siced, 10-side, 12-sided, 20-sided and 100-side dice thanks to an unobtrusive switch on the opposite side. It's genius, good-looking and a masterpiece of nerdery -- and you can make one yourself by following the instructions here. All hail Sparkfun's Dia for creating this and showing us the way. Truly, she has touched the Monolith. (Via The Mary Sue)

​The X-Prize Foundation is back, and they're ready to drag humanity kicking and screaming into the future if they have to. Their next target is healthcare, which they feel will be markedly improved if someone would just invent the fucking tricorder already. To that end, the X-Prize Foundation is offering $7 million in their newest contest. From the site:

As envisioned for this competition, the device will be a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements.

Given that each team will take its own approach to design and functionality, the device's physical appearance and functionality may vary immensely from team to team. Indeed, the only stated limit on form is that the mass of its components together must be no greater than five pounds. But because an important part of the qualifying round will be evaluating consumer experience in using it, the limitations set by this competition will force teams to make choices. Teams will have to consider tradeoffs amongst weight, functionality, power requirements, battery life, screen resolution, AI engine location, diagnosis capability, end consumer cost, and so on.

What I love most about the Foundation -- well, besides the fact they're trying to improve the lives of all of humanity -- is that they're actually calling this the "Qualcomm Tricorder X-Prize" contest, because they know a functional version of the fictional Star Trek doohickey is specifically what they're looking for here. Plus, I guess it helps that every single person who will be entering the contest almost certainly knows what a tricorder is -- at leas the ones who stand a chance of winning. It just gets everyone on the same page.  (Via The Mary Sue)

The researchers at the Japan Institute for Science and Technology have been looking into controlled quantum levitation, like researchers at the Japan Institute for Science and Technology are wont to do. But rather than just sit around and write dissertations on it, they decided to make a working hovership racetrack as inspired by the WipeOut videogame series. It's totally awesome.

My favorite part is how the scientists went out of their way to craft WipeOut specific ships for the track. Now, I assume this video is not a fake -- I wouldn't think the Japan Institute for Science and Technology would be cool if their scientists just made up shit and posted it on YouTube with JIST's name on it -- but I am superperplexed as to how the ships are trailing that "smoke." Science, I guess. Thanks to Lorindor for the tip.

​ There are countless ways to make cell phones more convenient, and it seems that the whole idea of a phone pillow's been around in prototype form for years. But it took a Japanese company to get on their feet, seize the reigns of progress, and make that pillow in a star shape. ​ Some of you may wonder why a cell-phone user simply can't put the phone on speaker mode and set it next to the pillow. But it seems that the pillow phone, crafted by Willcom, offers a certain convenient and comforting reassurance, whether you're a woman staring blankly and merrily into space or a stylish young single confessing his deepest-held fears to a pillow shaped like a Lucky Charms marshmallow. (Via Japan Trends)

From Wired:

Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas have hijacked one of nature's most intriguing phenomena -- the mirage -- to make an invisibility cloak. It can hide objects from view, works best underwater and even has a near-instant on/off switch.

To understand how it works, you need to first grasp the basics of the mirage effect. This unusual experience, sometimes seen in the desert or on hot roads during the summer, can trick your brain into seeing objects that aren't really there.

It happens when a big change in temperature over a small distance bends light rays so they're sent towards the eye rather than bouncing off the surface. So if you see a pool of blue water in the middle of the desert it's just the blue sky being redirected from the warm ground and sent directly into your eye. Your brain, being the clever little computer that it is, swaps this mad image out for something more sensible: a pool of water.

With that in mind, the researchers wanted to find a material that has an exceptional ability to conduct heat and quickly transfer it to surrounding areas to mimic the light-distorting temperature gradients of the desert. That material, they found, was sheets of carbon nanotubes.

The nanotubes -- one-molecule-thick sheets of carbon wrapped up into cylindrical tube -- have the density of air but the strength of steel. They're also excellent conductors, making them an ideal material to exploit the "mirage effect."

Through electrical stimulation, the transparent sheet of highly aligned nanotubes can be quickly heated to high temperatures. By transferring that heat to its surrounding areas, a steep temperature gradient is generated, which causes the light rays to bend away from the object concealed behind the device. Therefore, the object appears invisible.

Therefore, HOLY SHIT CLOAKING DEVICES EXIST NOW. KIND OF. There's just insanely hot. Still, all we need to do is to make it wearable, then apply this tech to buxom women in lingerie and we'll officially have created Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell. Truly, it is a glorious time to be alive. (Via WWTDD)

​Steve Jobs is gone. Without a doubt, he will be remembered as a genius and a visionary. He changed the world in more ways than one, and his legacy is obvious in every iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computer sold. He will be missed.

However, it's also worth remembering that Steve Jobs was also human, and not some incredibly gifted alien shot into space from his dying planet by his father. While Steve Jobs helped pioneer many gadgets, technologies and even helped create certain markets that didn't exist before, not every thing Apple made under Jobs was insanely awesome. Actually, some Apple products weren't even that good. In fact, some of these things were very, very flawed. So, in the interest of full reflection here are ten things that were created by Apple while Steve Jobs was in charge that were... not so great.More >>

Looks like the iPhone 4S's new Siri voice recognition feature takes advantage of a previously known artificial intelligence. Please note: I imagine the comments here will be full-to-bursting with tasteless, too soon Steve Jobs death and/or Portal jokes, so the sensitive may want to give them a pass; the rest of you may feel free to make thoroughly sure you're going to hell. Thanks to ItstheRocketeer for the tip.

​From Spoon & Tamago:

Hold on to your butts everyone! That's right. Japan's number one toilet maker TOTO has created a toilet-motorcycle hybrid vehicle that runs entirely on biogas (read: human waste). Theoretically, as long as the driver continues to eat and drink, the motorcycle could run forever! Dubbed the Toilet Bike Neo Project, the campaign is part of the TOTO Green Challenge, the company's stated goal of achieving 50% reductions in CO2 emissions in bathrooms by 2017 (vs 1990 levels).

In just 6 days the highly anticipated toilet motorcycle will take off on a month-long journey from Kyushu to Tokyo, making stops along the way to show off their new innovation and to educate people on the various green initiatives that TOTO is undertaking. ...

Toilet Bike Neo is also equipped with some other cool functions. It uses residual light imagery to write messages in the air as it zooms by (you can see an example by scrolling down to their Sep 26 blog entry). It can also play music to entertain spectators. Finally, the toilet actually talks.

The Toilet Bike Neo begins its triumphant journey across Japan tomorrow, beginning with a trip to a boulder shaped like a giant ass. Yes, seriously. Normally this is the part where I'd offer some kind of opinion or insight on the Toilet Bike, but frankly, I'm too stunned to type. All I can think about is aliens, a million years from now, coming to a desolate, humanity-free earth and finding the Toilet Bike as one of the last artifacts of humanity and basing all their assumptions about the human race on it. And how much I really, really want that to happen. Infinite thanks to Matt H. for the tip.

From Japan Trend Shop:

We all know what's it like. You are sitting on the toilet and you know the people right outside can hear your every noise. Well, now we have the perfect product to help you in this embarrassing situation. Small and clipping easily to your mobile phone, the Eco-Otome Toilet Sound Blocker makes the noise of a toilet flushing to hide the other noises you might be making.

Press the button twice and the sound of flushing lasts for 25 seconds. Press it again twice to stop the noise. It comes in three different designs: pink has a cute 'love' mark; blue is decorated with a ribbon motif; white has a green slogan - after all, this little device means you won't have to flush for real and thus saves water.

I'm actually mildly irritated that these appear to be designed solely for women, what with their cute hearts and ribbon designs. I mean, just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I want to go over to somebody's dinner party and have everyone hear the sounds of my explosive diarrhea from the bathroom (...for example). Although now that I think about it, if I'm asking for changes to these things, I'd ask for a different sound, too -- a generic fan noise, like some bathrooms actually provide -- would be far better. I mean, yes, hearing a toilet flush is better than her a massive grunt, fart and sploosh sound, but if said guests hear the toilet flush six times in rapid succession they know something horrible is going down in the bathroom anyways. Just a thought. Anyways, you can order it here for $31.

​From BBC.co.uk:

Idle home computers are being sought to help search through mountains of astronomical data.

The Skynet project involves using the spare processing capacity of computers as a giant, distributed supercomputer.

PCs joining Skynet will scour the data for sources of radiation that reveal stars, galaxies and other cosmic structures.

...

"As we design, develop and switch on the next generation of radio telescopes, the supercomputing resources processing this deluge of data will be in increasingly high demand," said Professor Peter Quinn, director of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in a statement.

"SkyNet aims to complement the work already being done by creating a citizen science computing resource that radio astronomers can tap into and process data in ways and for purposes that otherwise might not be possible," he added.

...

Those signing up to help will download a small program that will get a computer looking through data when that PC is not being used for anything else.

ICRAR said the Skynet program was small and should not slow down any PC it is running on. Also, it said, data would be split into small packets to ensure it did not swamp a participant's net connection.

So this guy wants to insert a program onto every computer in the world, linking them all together for something called "Skynet"? Yeah, that'll end well. Thanks to Paul F. for the tip.