OMFG: They've Made Real Lightsabers (Kinda) [Science Is Awesome]

OMFG: They've Made Real Lightsabers (Kinda) [Science Is Awesome]: "

An upcoming television show explains why real life lightsabers are a physical impossibility, before building the next best thing. It's like Mythbusters but, surprisingly, made with even more awesome.

According to Variety, the show, Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, will feature Dr. Michio Kaku looking at the reality behind Star Wars' favored weapon of choice. After explaining that light can't be formed into a solid blade, Jedi-style, he then goes to work looking for alternatives, including plasma swords and carbon nano-tubes, with the help of experts in the field. As you can see from the pic, he apparently succeeds. My mind is almost so blown that I forgot to say that I really, really want to see lightsaber battles as part of the Olympics now.

Sci-Fi Science premieres on the Science Channel on December 1st.

Geek Alert: Science Channel Builds a Light-Saber! [BLTV/Variety]

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GVNotifier.NET Puts Google Voice in Your Taskbar [Downloads]

GVNotifier.NET Puts Google Voice in Your Taskbar [Downloads]: "

Windows only: When the AIR-based site-specific browser just won't cut it, GVNotifier.NET brings Google Voice notifications, one-click calling, and SMS to your desktop.

Unlike most clients, GVNotifier.NET hides away in your Windows taskbar and only pulls up small windows when you need them. You can click on the icon to bring up your recent contacts, and click them to bring up a call/SMS window on top. Or, if the desired contact is not in the recent call list, you can right-click on the icon to bring up a separate window where you can dial their number. And, when someone text messages you, the SMS window pops up in the corner so you can text them back right away.

The ease of use of this app is great, but we'd love to see a bit more functionality—mostly some sort of integration with Google Contacts. As of right now, if you don't know your contact's number (and who does these days?), there's no way to call or text any of your contacts that aren't on the program's "recent" list (in fact, I can't even figure out how the list is populated—it doesn't seem to be my most recently texted or my most recently called, although it does contain some people on those lists). It's still great to have the notification and quick-call features of a taskbar client, we'd just like to see a bit more.

GVNotifier.NET is a free download, Windows only.

GVNotifier.NET

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CrashPlan - Free Automatic Backup for Home

CrashPlan - Free Automatic Backup for Home

Only CrashPlan lets you back up to your own drives and other computers for FREE!

FREE! Back up to your own drives

FREE! Back up to another computer

Back up online with unlimited storage

HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000 Changes, 64-Bit Support [Downloads]

HandBrake Updates to 0.9.4 with Over 1,000 Changes, 64-Bit Support [Downloads]: "

Windows/Mac/Linux: If you ever have to rip DVDs to your desktop or convert video, you know how awesome open-source encoder HandBrake is. Well, it's just been updated with over 1,000 changes since the last release, including 64-bit support.

The 64-bit support is probably the most notable change in this build, as it allows you to encode videos about 10% faster than the 32-bit builds—in a lot of cases, bringing encoding up to real-time or faster. And, note that Mac users don't need Snow Leopard to see this improvement, long as they have a 64-bit capable machine (Intel Core 2 Duo or later). Linux users will also be able to reap the benefits of the 64-bit build; unfortunately at this point there doesn't appear to be a 64-bit version for Windows users.

Other changes include soft subtitles (it rips subtitles that you can turn on or off), a live preview mode (so you don't waste your time encoding only to find you had a setting wrong), constant quality encoding (for better quality video and no need for 2-pass encoding), and some cleaning up of the settings. It looks like there are no more presets for PSP, PS3, or Xbox 360, just one "Normal" setting that, in theory, will work with anything that supports Main Profile H.264. Also, AVI, OGG/OGM and XviD encoding have been removed from the program—the HandBrake team has apparently decided to focus on H.264 encoding and get rid of old codecs.

HandBrake is a free, open source download.

HandBrake [via TUAW]

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The Matrix's Bullet-Dodging Scene, Faithfully Recreated in Lego [Lego Matrix]

The Matrix's Bullet-Dodging Scene, Faithfully Recreated in Lego [Lego Matrix]: "

Neo and Agent Smith dodge bullets inside the Matrix. But this version doesn't star Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving; it stars superpowered Lego men in this frame-for-frame, stop-motion recreation of one of The Matrix's most famous scenes.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of The Matrix, a group of fans recreated nearly 900 frames of the film. The entire sequence is animated 'in camera,' with no wire removal, no Photoshop, and no special effects other than what can be created with the Lego blocks themselves. The entire project took 440 hours, and you can see videos of the laborious process on the project website.

You can also see a side-by-side comparison of the Lego version with the original:

[Lego Matrix via Cinematical]

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Tough times in Michigan, but Arizona may have it worse

Tough times in Michigan, but Arizona may have it worse

The Clearest View Yet Of A 1,000 Year Old Explosion [Space Porn]

The Clearest View Yet Of A 1,000 Year Old Explosion [Space Porn]: "

In 1054, humans recorded sightings of the mega-star explosion that created the Crab Nebula. It was so bright it was visible to the naked eye. Now three space telescopes have together created a more complete picture of the debris.

According to National Geographic:

This new picture of the Crab Nebula combines data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope . . . Infrared light caught by Spitzer and visible light seen by Hubble paint the nebula's expanding debris cloud in shades of purple and red. Meanwhile, Chandra's x-ray vision is helping astronomers understand the high-energy particles (seen in blue) coming from the dead star's core, known as a white dwarf.

I just love that weird tendril of x-rays shooting out of the white dwarf. It seems to be emerging from a giant maw in space (which - isn't there a Doctor Who story called Maw In Space? Maybe I'm just on crack).

via National Geographic

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Best Screencasting Tool: CamStudio [Hive Five Followup]

Best Screencasting Tool: CamStudio [Hive Five Followup]: "

It was a tight race in last week's Hive Five with a mere 0.001% of the vote separating the first and second place winners.

Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite screen casting tools. You responded with your favorite app for recording the action in your virtual workspace and we rounded up the five most popular options for a vote. The top two contenders were neck in neck. Both CamStudio and Camtasia Studio took in 28% of the vote, CamStudio coming out ahead by a mere 3 votes. While they might be close together when it comes to votes, they're miles apart when it comes to price—CamStudio is free and open-source and Camtasia Studio is $299.

Following behind CamStudio and Camtasia Studio, Screenflow and ScreenToaster with 12% and 11% of the vote respectively—not only do they share half their names like the first and second place winners but they too were separated by mere votes. Finishing off the Hive Five was Jing with 9% of the vote.

For more information about the contenders and reader comments on the race, check out the full Hive Five.

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Device Doctor is a Free Driver Update Scanner with Promise [Downloads]

Device Doctor is a Free Driver Update Scanner with Promise [Downloads]: "

Windows only: Driver update utility Device Doctor finds outdated drivers on your PC, and helps you download the latest version—without charging you a dime.

Using the utility, which can be installed or used as a portable application, is about as easy as it gets—just click the Begin Scan button, wait a couple of seconds, and you will be shown a list of drivers that can be updated. The download button for each driver will take you to their web site, where you can download the drivers for free, without signing up for anything at all. Most of the drivers come with setup programs, but some of them are nothing more than zip files, and would need to be installed manually—hopefully something they can improve on in the future.

During our testing, we used the application on half a dozen PCs, and had varied results—on our XP test system, Device Doctor worked well and accurately found new drivers, but for Windows 7 we didn't have as much luck, with a few incorrect drivers being thrown at us. That said, Windows 7 was only released recently, so expect that support to improve in the future.

Device Doctor isn't perfect yet, but as a completely free, portable application that you can toss on your thumb drive, it's well worth a look. It might even save you some time searching for new drivers while you are fixing mom's PC.

Device Doctor is a free download for Windows only. Be sure to check out the full How-To Geek review for a more in-depth look, as well as instructions on installing drivers manually.

Device Doctor [via How-To Geek]

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USB-powered mini Yoda figure

USB-powered mini Yoda figure: "

Tokyo-based Cube Works, whose products regularly find their way outside Japan (example: the humping USB dog), has announced a mini Yoda figure (the little green guy from Star Wars) that you connect to your computer’s USB port. The power is needed to make Yoda’s cheeks blush and illuminate his light saber.

The mini Yoda requires Windows (XP or Vista), comes with an installation CD for some reason and runs only on computers with a 1GHZ Intel Pentium processor or better.

The figure is Japan-only, but you can pre-order it over at Geek Stuff 4 U for $65.52 plus shipping (leading time: end of next month).

Via Akihabara News

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