Flare Facade is a ‘Living Skin’ for Building Exteriors [Buildings]

This Flare Facade is a fancy building exterior that allows it to “express, communicate and interact with its environment.” It’s certainly neat looking, but it doesn’t seem to have any, you know, practical application. I wonder if it would be possible to stick solar panels on these and have them automatically tilt towards the sun. That would allow them to keep being all neat-looking while also serving a purpose to justify their undoubtedly expensive installation costs. [Flare Facade via MAKE]

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DARPA Developing Weapon Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke Idea From 1955 [Military]

Those of you who are familiar with Arthur C. Clarke’s 1955 novel Earthlight may recognize a new weapon from DARPA dubbed the Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM). In the novel, a commander unleashes “The Stiletto”—a weapon consisting of a jet of molten metal hurled through space by an electro-magnet. The MAHEM concept works in much the same way, using a magnetic field to propel a chunk of molten metal that will morph into an aerodynamic slug in flight.

Other weapons, like the High-Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) round have utilized similar technology for years using an explosive charge instead of a magnetic field as the propellant. According to DARPA “MAHEM could be packaged into a missile, projectile or other platform and delivered close to target for final engagement and kill”—and it would undoubtedly whup some serious ass. Whether the 53 year old idea actually comes to fruition remains to be seen. [DARPA via NewScientist]

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The Master’s Laser Screwdriver Turns Doctor Who into Doctor Pew Pew Pew [Doctor Who]

Doctor Who fans can now get their hands on the Master’s laser screwdriver. Darth Vader to the Time Lord’s Luke (father-son relationship aside), the Master’s laser screwdriver is more powerful than Doctor Who’s—well, that’s what you’d think, wouldn’t you? Although you can get a simultaneous blast from all three laser barrels, not to mention the Pew Pew Pew, it’s not multi-talented like the Doctor’s version. Can you write a list for the weekly shop with this version? No you can’t. Those eight-and-a-half inches of pleasure (when extended) will set you back $18.99. [ThinkGeek]

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AT&T slashing 1.5 percent of workforce

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Networking

Facing down a “sluggish” economy and in light of some recent regional acquisitions, AT&T announced today that it’ll be cutting about 1.5 percent of its workforce, primarily concentrating on management. The company calls it the “next step in streamlining its operations,” and will shelling out about $375 million in Q1 to make the layoffs happen. According to some dubious maths perpetrated by the Engadget staff, 1.5 percent of AT&T’s workforce is about 4,635.75 humans, not a minuscule cut by a long shot. We’d certainly hate to be in Mr. 75 percent’s shoes right now.

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Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 available for download

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Don’t act like you didn’t have April 24th circled in your day planner — heck, you probably stayed up all night hoping Hardy Heron 8.04 would be launched as the 24th dawned in Australia. Regardless of your level of fanaticism towards the OS, the latest flavor of Ubuntu is finally ready for mass consumption. You know what’s waiting for your torrent manager right down there, so why on Earth are you still reading rather than downloading? Get!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, image courtesy of doninside]

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DARPA Developing Weapon Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke Idea From 1955 [Military]

Those of you who are familiar with Arthur C. Clarke’s 1955 novel Earthlight may recognize a new weapon from DARPA dubbed the Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM). In the novel, a commander unleashes “The Stiletto”—a weapon consisting of a jet of molten metal hurled through space by an electro-magnet. The MAHEM concept works in much the same way, using a magnetic field to propel a chunk of molten metal that will morph into an aerodynamic slug in flight.

Other weapons, like the High-Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) round have utilized similar technology for years using an explosive charge instead of a magnetic field as the propellant. According to DARPA “MAHEM could be packaged into a missile, projectile or other platform and delivered close to target for final engagement and kill”—and it would undoubtedly whup some serious ass. Whether the 53 year old idea actually comes to fruition remains to be seen. [DARPA via NewScientist]

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ASUS Lamborghini VX3 reviewed: not nearly as fast as the car

Filed under: Laptops

Last we heard of ASUS’ Lamborghini VX3, we were watching it get lapped by the smorgasbord of other kit introduced at CES. Still, there’s something to be said for a 12.1-inch ultraportable wrapped in sexy hues and accented with leather and Lambo badges — unfortunately, “fast” isn’t it. According to a recent test run over at CNET, the VX3 build quality was second to none, the style touches were easy to adore and the keyboard was surprisingly satisfactory. Unfortunately, the system faltered in more critical areas; partially due to the amount of bloatware that came loaded on, the 2.5GHz T9300 had a tough time surpassing other machines in benchmarking, and for folks hoping that the battery life would help negate that point, critics only yielded 67-minutes during a DVD playback test (and just 2-hours “in anecdotal use”). Even with the sluggishness, the VX3 may not be a bad choice if priced right, but considering the $3,299 sticker, we’d expect this thing to hold the pole position.

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Filed under: Robots

Look Japan, we know you love your robots but is it really prudent to equip them with them frigging laser beams? Why not just hand them maps to our vital organs and special hoses to juice our babies? You’re looking at an actual photo from the Blazer tournament held this week in Fukuoka City, Japan. The competition fitted Kondo’s KHR-1HV with lasers and sensors and then let the teams battle it out in a mock-up city. We truly are the makers of our own doom.

Update: Video added after the break, pew pew… pew-pew, pew.

[Thanks, HolyMary]

Continue reading Video: Blaser tournament unwisely fits Japanese robots with lasers — PEW PEW

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Via [Engadget]

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T-Mobile confirms it’ll have an Android device sometime this year

Filed under: Cellphones

The first Android devices were always scheduled to arrive later this year, and while we’ve already seen a couple prototypes and hacked ports floating around, it looks like T-Mobile is the first out of the gate to confirm that it’ll have phones based on Google’s mobile OS. Speaking at the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference, T-Mo’s VP of broadband and new business division Joe Sims said he’d played with an early version of T-Mobile’s first Android phone and that it would ship in the fourth quarter of this year. Sims said that although he was initially skeptical of Android, he’s now “impressed,” and that T-Mobile would eventually have “more than one” Android phone. Now, if someone would just let us know what this magical phone actually is, we’d be happy — HTC Dream, anyone?

[Via IntoMobile]

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Apple Quarterly Results: Mac Sales Way Up, iPods Pretty Flat [Apple]

No surprise, this quarter was Apple’s best March quarter ever. Here are the bits that matter—2.29 million Macs shipped, 51 percent more than same time last year, so Mac sales are booming. iPod sales are actually pretty flat from last year, up a meager one percent—are we at the saturation point? And 1.7 million iPhones, obviously down from a couple a months ago, when it was all Christmas boom, but not bad considering we’re at the point where people are going to start waiting for the 3G iPhone. Read the whole thing below, but they still won’t comment on their big purchase from last night. We’ll be in on the call for more details in about 20 minutes, updating it live.

Even though iPod sales are essentially flat, revenue is up, due to iPod touch (more expensive, and they don’t break down sales by iPod type, plus shuffle got cheaper). They’re definitely the music industry juggernaut to topple: Apple owns 73 percent of portable music player market and iTunes has 85 percent of market for legally purchased music. No numbers on movie rentals.

Macs’ growth was three and a half times the PC growth rate in March. Desktop sales up 37 percent from last year but notebooks are where the money is: portable sales up 61 percent from last year. 50 percent of retail buyers new to Mac.

Still expecting to sell 10 million iPhones by end of the year. Analyst tries loopy-loop endrun question about lower iPhone supply and declining sales to get them to admit new 3G iPhone, Apple replies (repeatedly to not-so-sneaky iPhone questions trying to get 3G hints) they’re still confident they can hit 10 million. Interestingly, they’re not counting any iPhone revenue from units sold after SDK announcement until 2.0 firmware launches in June—maybe indicates they don’t think people will buy iPhone until 3G launches?

Okay famed Gene Munster gets them to have to launch into their own long loopy answer about why they’re delaying revenue reporting on iPhone when the 2.0 update is free. Seems obvious it has little to do with software. Follow up, another analyst asks about keeping 2.5G iPhone after 3G iPhone out, gets totally shot down.

CUPERTINO, California—April 23, 2008—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 second quarter ended March 29, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of $770 million, or $.87 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 32.9 percent, down from 35.1 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10,644,000 iPods during the quarter, representing one percent unit growth and eight percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone™ sales were 1,703,000.

“We’re delighted to report 43 percent revenue growth and the strongest March quarter revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With over $17 billion in revenue for the first half of our fiscal year, we have strong momentum to launch some terrific new products in the coming quarters.”

“We’re thrilled to have generated $4 billion in cash flow from operations in the first half of fiscal 2008, yielding an ending cash balance of $19.4 billion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the third quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $7.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.00.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q2 2008 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq208/ and will also be available for replay.

[Apple]

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