This Australian production/advertising agency, Umeric, has created two of the best commercials I've seen. The first, for MTVNHD (MTV Nickelodeon High Definition) is my favorite—anyone else reminded of War of the Worlds when watching it? More »

ZDNet is receiving tips claiming Apple will upgrade its Mac Pro line with an Intel Core i7-980x chipset certainly isn't the first time we've heard Core i7-shaped gossip. Supposedly it'll all be unraveled next Tuesday, the 16th of March. [ZDNet via BGR] More »

Pioneer is known to make digital mixers that leave us drooling and wishing for some DJ skills. First they gave us the CDJ-2000 with its beautiful LCD screen, and now they've given us the DJM-2000, a multitouch screen-having per-frequency-mixing beauty. More »

It doesn't matter if the machine you are using is a massive crane or a tiny smartphone: You will always curse in the same way when it crashes. The deafening noise, however, won't be the same. More »

The most fuel efficient hybrid for sale in the US gets 51 MPG, but a startup called Transonic Combustion claims they can improve that. They claim their fuel-injection system will get 64 MPG. More »

Sony's finally put a name to their motion controller, and it's called PlayStation Move. Live Updating More »

With the release of the iPad, among other things, HTML5's been pitted against Flash as the savior of web video. It might be! (Or not!) Either way, a crucial arguing point is that it's more efficient. So, uh, is it? More »

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS. The surprise? It's actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More »

12 Full Color Printed VHS Video Boxes: $9. Full Scale Plastic Washer and Dryer Set: $139. 2 Piece 20" Wide Screen LCD Style Computer Package: $49. Outfitting your entire home with prop gadgets: Probably a bad idea.

If you're like me and ever looked at one of those prop TVs in a store and wondered how much they go for, then the mystery is finally over. You can seek out Props By IDM, a company who sells such fake gadgets, and price check. [Props by IDM via Boing Boing]

Here's some tasty-looking hard candy. And here's that same tasty-looking hard candy scanned by an SEM. Tuns out that there's a company offering to stick almost anything under an electron microscope and we can't help but wonder: What to pick?

SEM Elemental Analysis company ASPEX is offering this great service where people can submit their own samples to be viewed under a scanning electron microscope. They even post results—like these—on the site:

Now, back to the big question: What would you want to see scanned by an SEM? [Aspex via Maria Popova]

Lego biped robots are a dime a dozen, even while some look pretty sweet. This one is special: It's the first walking Lego robot. And, unlike your usual feet-dragging toy robots, it actually walks raising its feet

This definitely not easy to do with Lego or any other material. Maybe this guy should start thinking about building a Big Dog. [Flickr via Brothers Brick]

Here are a few things you don't have time to do when your car plunges into an icy lake: remove a Leatherman multitool from your glove compartment; unfold it; cut through your seatbelt; refold it; smash through your window.

Thankfully there's the ExiTool, a clever little gadget that attaches to your seat belt for quick access when your shit goes "glug, glug, glug." It includes a high-carbon stainless steel slicer, a tungsten carbide smasher, and, just for good measure, an LED light.

Sure, having an open blade attached to your seat belt all the time isn't ideal, but it's definitely more ideal than being trapped in your car at the bottom of some murky body of water.

The ExiTool will be available soon for $27, so if you're the type of person that worries about this thing it's probably a worthwhile investment. [CRKT via The Awesomer]

Buried in a site devoted to early robots is my dream man, Electron. Russian, born in 1967, he has 4ft-wide shoulders, waltzes, plays chess, and while he only understands 112 commands, his steely gaze is reassuringly paternal. [CyberneticZoo via BotJunkie]

According to Jonathan Schwartz—then Sun's CEO—that's what Steve Jobs told him over the phone after Sun presented Looking Glass, a desktop concept similar to Mac OS X's. After that, Schwartz verbally cockpunched His Steveness and shut him up:

"Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?" Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I'd help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they'd found inspiration. "And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too." Steve was silent.

And probably foaming at the mouth, and wanting to send Luca Brasi to get Jonathan brand new cement shoes.

Even while Apple uses BSD as the basis for Mac OS X, I bet Jobs realized the stupidity of his call, realizing that Sun had a very strong IP portfolio, and plenty of ammo to fight Apple back. Something that HTC—or Google, for that matter—, when it comes to phones, don't have. [Johnathan Schwartz via Silicon Alley Insider]

Giz friend Adam Savage, in our estimation, can make just about anything. Here he explains the path he took to turn a toy gun into an astoundingly sharp Blade Runner pistol replica.

I made my first Blade Runner pistol when I was 18, while living in Hell's Kitchen, NYC. I stared at the VHS version on pause and made sketches. Put it together from toys and model kit parts. It's lovely and terrible. (Years later the internet would teach me that the six dollar plastic gun I bought on Canal Street in NYC and cannibalized for the grip was created by Edison Giacattoli, a legendary toy gun designer.)

I made a crazy accurate scratch built when I was 30, from resin and bondo. I had great picture reference but shitty size reference—it was 20% too small. Fuck!

I even had it chrome plated at one point, and I weathered it.

In 2006, the screen-used original surfaced after 25 some-odd years and sold at auction last year for $256,000. Supposedly to Paul Allen.

The last picture is the final iteration. It's 95% finished. My hand-built baby. About 30 to 40 hours of labor spread out over (at least) 6 years. An original Steyr-Mannlicher .222 target rifle receiver and magazine and a Charter Arms Bulldog .44, both demilled and gunsmithed by me (working with hardened steel—FUN!) with custom machined aluminum and steel parts (barrel, grip, butt) and made as close as possible, in every respect, to the original. Painstaking.

That is all I have to say on the subject (probably not). I can't even describe how good it feels to hold it in my hand.

Follow Adam on twitter!

Call me a cynic, but I'm not sure this is ever going to happen: the FCC wants to dedicate a chunk of the wireless spectrum to providing free internet service.

The FCC plans to make its recommendation under the National Broadband Plan set for release next week, which has the goal of making broadband more affordable for everyone in America.

Of course, they didn't, you know, say how they were going to do such a thing. And they're going to have to claw that spectrum out of the cold, dead hands of telecom lobbyists. But you know what? Good for them for actually worrying about what people would benefit from instead of what gigantic telecoms want.

But still. We'll see. [Reuters]

Both Samsung and Panasonic will be flogging 3DTVs in the US by the end of the month, but don't expect to see anything from Sony until June at least. Details on the LX900, HX900 and HX800 do sound tantalizing however.

Japan will start selling the sets on June 10th, with the rest of the world expected to follow suit sometime soon after. Already Sony's making the bold claim that they'll be much cheaper than Panasonic's 3DTV sets—in Japan, anyway.

Akihabara News attended the press launch of of the LX900, HX900 and HX800 3D sets in Japan, which are all of the "monolithic" design, and came back blushing with the news that the LX900 series is the one to aim for. It'll be comprised of four models, all with the Intelligent People Sensors, which adjusts the sound and brightness depending on where people are sitting. It builds on the VE5 TVs launched last year, which could detect when you leave the room, so the TV turns off automatically.

The LX900 will be available in 40, 46, 52 and 60-inch LED-backlit options, will have inbuilt wireless LAN, and include two sets of 3D active shutter glasses (which will be available in grey, blue and pink options). The 46-inch size will reportedly cost 350,000 Yen—about $3,900.

Only 46 and 52-inch options will be available for the HX900 series, which will be LED-backlit, and feature Intelligent MPEG noise reduction. Less attractive, the HX800 eschew the Intelligent People Sensors and MPEG noise reduction, and come in just 40 and 46-inch sizes. [Akihabara News via Reuters]