Get ready to put that dilapidated VW bus out to pasture hippies, because Reaction Engines’s A2 concept promises to reach speeds as high as Mach 5 on hydrogen fuel. That is around 2x the speed of the now defunct Concorde with zero carbon emissions. That means you could be out with Greenpeace bitching about Apple products on one side of the country, and back in your hometown on the other side well inside an hour—without feeling like you have harmed mother Earth.

The A2 is designed to carry up to 300 passengers and it will feature a a 2-mode engine (turbojet and ramjet propulsion systems) that will make it efficient at low speeds and able to shift into wicked high speeds with ease. Unfortunately, before the A2 can become a reality, engineers must tackle the problem of producing large quantities of hydrogen fuel without producing carbon emissions. This is certainly no simple task, so it appears that the hippies will have to hold on to those vans a little while longer. [PopSci via Green Blog via Treehugger]

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Who doesn’t want a free HDTV? Nobody! That’s why we’re giving away a free HDTV (up to $1000 value) and a free Windows Media Center Extender so you can watch your TV shows, videos and listen to music no matter where you are in the house. Sound good? Well, you’re going to have to show us that you deserve it this time. It’s not just any old $150 iPod we’re giving away here. Read carefully and follow the rules. Here’s how you can win.

The requirements. Take a picture of you, your wife, your girlfriend, your friend, or whoever, standing seductively next to the lousiest gadget you can find. We’re going to grade on two things, how lousy the gadget is and how seductive the person is.

Here is an example our own Sean Fallon came up with. “I think a hot chick next to a Betamax would be hilarious.” Yes, Sean, a hot woman pouting seductively next to a Betamax machine would be hilarious. But this doesn’t have to be limited to women. If you, a male, leaning sexfully next to an ENIAC or an old time telephone switch gets in the running as well. Remember, we’re grading on two sets of criteria here. Feel free to experiment with the “seductive” or “lousy” part. Remember, you don’t have to be sexy; creativity makes up a lot of it as well. If you make us laugh really hard, you’re golden.

Contest ends on February 8. Send all entries to contests@gizmodo.com with the subject “Media Center Contest”.

Sponsored by Extender for Windows Media Center. Get an Extender for Windows Media Center. Extenders deliver your digital media from your PC to any TV in your home.

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That sweet $70 price chop
Steve
announced for the Apple TV had to
come from somewhere, and we know the only thing Apple
guards more than closely than its secrets is its bottom line. So,
we went to teardown
masters iSuppli for a
fresh estimate to see how much of it was paid for by falling
component costs over the last year. Surprising answer: Not that
much. Apple really is subsidizing Apple TV, a significant
shift in strategy.

This chart makes the damage pretty clear:
Apple barely ekes out a 10 percent profit (a single Jackson) on the
40GB model at the new pricepoint, a far cry from its more typical

50 percent margin.

Andrew Rassweiler, iSuppli’s Teardown Services Manager &
Principal Analyst, says that while the processor is admittedly the
“big unknown for us” because it’s not an off-the-shelf component,
he “doubts it would be anymore expensive than what we’ve assumed.”
The bottom line for Apple’s bottom line here is that “if they were
giving it away before, they’re definitely giving it away now.”

This is a marked change for Apple: iTunes content has existed to
sell the hardware, not the other way around. iTunes income is
incredibly minor compared to hardware sales, not least of which
because the majority of each track, album, whatever goes back to
the label or studio. Apple TV stands to be the first device Apple
makes more money off of the content than the hardware.

Conclusion? Apple is getting aggressive about moving into the
living room, looking at the long run of establishing that
fourth-leg. Besides, it’s better to sell a million at a $20 profit
than ten thousand at $60. [iSuppli]

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Squeezing a stress ball may have been enough for the 1990s, but it’s the 2000s now and we need to take it up a notch. Enter the Optimal Office Mouse, which not only has a spot for you to stick your thumb on to gauge stress, there’s even a software package that lets you perform stress-relieving exercises to alleviate your tenseness.

It can even alert you of your own stress level in case you’re wrapped up in something and don’t know that the veins in your forehead are busting out again. The only worry we have is that this site seems somewhat phony in that it doesn’t have much product info, but maybe that’s how they do things in the UK. No price or availability info. [HotForest via Shiny Shiny]

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One look at this “Tactile MP3″ player concept may have you thinking that it is a device for the blind. While, the control buttons do resemble Braille, this MP3 player is really for anyone that enjoys running their fingers across small raised bumps (and who doesn’t love that!). It also has a clean design and a small form factor that is somewhat appealing. I can definitely see this type of approach being incorporated into real world products somewhere down the line. [Yanko Design]

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Les Machines de l’ile de Nantes are gigantic mechanical animal vehicles currently on display in the French city of Nantes. While they just look like giant models, these things are fully functioning vehicles that people can ride in. Don’t believe me? Check out the video of the elephant, full of people, lurching through town after the jump, you doubter.

[Product Page via BoingBoing and Dark Roasted Blend]

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Both Fortune and Marketwatch are saying that all the unlocked iPhones, which make up about a third of the total phones sold, may be costing Apple $300 million in future revenue kickbacks from cellphone providers. And if Apple doesn’t stop the unlocking madness, what’s the incentive for a provider to pony up that revenue sharing in the first place? [Fortune and Marketwatch - Thanks David!]

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Flashlights are generally there to help you out in a time of need, such as when your power goes out and you need to fumble around in the dark. A flashlight that lights stuff on fire because it’s so powerful might be neat for goofing around with your pyro friends, but something tells me that if you accidentally burned your house down trying to find candles you’d be pretty pissed about buying such a ludicrous item. Luckily, at $300 it’s way too expensive to be a good substitute for matches, so your house is probably safe for now. Hit the jump for a video of the firey flashlight in action.

Suffice it to say, don’t shine this in your eyes or you’ll become blinder than Ray Charles in a closet. [Product Page via I4U]

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While we’re in the De Lorean back to 1996, we might as well revisit one of my favorite controllers ever: the N64’s. (It just needs a better analog stick.) The poster does us one (two) better, tossing around a pair of real, now-rare prototype Ultra 64 controllers like a Halo 3 swag bag or something. Where’s the outrage!? And just how did you feel about the trident back in the day? [YouTube via GoNintendo]

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We’ve told you all about H2O Audio’s Waterproof iPod cases and its improved H3 headphones , but until yesterday we never had the chance to try them out for ourselves. Team player that I am, I hopped in the tub, turned the G-Funk to 11 and took the plunge.

I could hear the tunes clearly underwater, and the case when closed correctly is absolutely watertight down to 10 feet, so I don’t owe Wilson a new iPod classic. (Naturally, due to tub limitations, I couldn’t go down the full 10 feet, but if you have a deeper tub than me, feel free to dive down.) The sound was good and the earbuds did not fall out of my ears while I was listening. However, I did have some trouble keeping the buds locked into the headband.

The case worked great and the controls were surprisingly responsive, especially given the fact that there’s so much case between your thumb and the clickwheel. I did experience a couple of momentary hang-ups, but they could have been from the iPod classic itself. (The classic is known for the occasional lag.)

If you’re looking to take an absurd amount of media with you in the water for swimming, snorkeling, surfing or just the weekly bath, I know no better hardware—and the same waterproof system is available for nanos too. Of course, this level of duck-ass watertightness doesn’t come cheap: the case and headphones sell for $90 and $50, respectively. [H2O Audio]
—Special thanks to Sam Mindel for the video help!

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