Here’s a really great image looking back at the royal roots of the three Nintendo big boys; Mario, Link and Donkey Kong. There isn’t any monochrome character love from the old days proper, but it is quite an extensive time line nonetheless, which culminates in the modern day incarnations of our beloved superheroes. Things we have learnt from the image include the fact that Donkey Kong once had breasts bigger than Pamela, Link has been know to walk about without his hat and Mario hasn’t always had enough pixels for a well defined mustache. It is all rather shocking stuff; brace yourself and jump in for the money shot. [Fubiz via Notcot]
Original post by Haroon Malik
The Absolut Quartet is an impressive electromechanical sculpture, which was put together by Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman. Using ping-pong ball cannons to play a marimba, robot fingers to tinker wine glasses and a central computer to control, well, the whole lot, the two creative minds have created the first—to our knowledge—ping-pong ball based orchestra. It may not be our music of choice to chill out to, but we can’t helped but be dazzled by the majestic union of technology and music, once again. Check out the video above for some ping-ponging, ding-donging, da la la la, ting ting musical madness. Be sure to pop down to 186 Orchard st. in NYC to see it in the flesh. [New Launches]
Original post by Haroon Malik
Firefox has just hit 500 million downloads worldwide; it is an impressive statistic and we think everyone who works on the project should get a pat on the back. As if their contribution in creating a kick-ass browser was not enough to the world, the Mozilla team is celebrating by raising funds for 500 million grains of rice, which they will give away to poverty stricken nations.
To be completely honest with you guys, I did kind of download Firefox twice when I was installing it. I threw the extra .dmg file right in the trash, which obviously means they are still on 499,999,999 downloads. What the heck, what’s one download between friends, apart from a heap of rice goodness? Jump in and let the Mozilla team know how much you appreciate not having to choose between IE or Safari. [Spreadfirefox]
Original post by Haroon Malik
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft officially discontinued manufacturing the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on, but it took them a few days longer than we expected. Their statement is finally out, and it signals Microsoft’s official withdraw from HD DVD on the console front.
The good news is that they’ll still continue to support and repair your player based on the standard warranty, but chances are you’ll get little future use out of that player now that no movies will be made for it. What’s still unclear is whether there will ever be a Blu-ray add-on to the 360 that’s cheap enough to sell the Xbox + Blu-ray package at a comparable price to the PS3 ($399ish). We’re guessing that something along these lines will hit within the year. [Gamerscreblog]
Original post by Jason Chen
Paul Knight uses this weird machine to change the appearance of iPhones and iPods into black TiAIN- (titanium aluminum nitride) and TiN-coated (titanium nitride) machines, which are quite more beautiful than the originals. It uses “plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition” to change the nature of the surfaces, a complex chemical process used to coat objects like luxury watches, drill bits or aircraft blades. The finished gadgets are simply stunning.
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Paul’s iPhone Custom has a gold TiN Apple logo and a black TiAIN black front covering a variant of the TiN process described below. The back covers are replaced with black anodized aluminum to eliminate the contrast between the antenna cover and the usual silver colored backing. Another project involved a more minimalist black logo. Either way, they look stunning.
TiN is applied using a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition tool. There is a block of titanium placed into a mahoosive machine [...]
Original post by Haroon Malik