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We’ve seen this crazy motorcycle exoskeleton before, but its inventor Jake Loniak has just mocked up a video showing what it would be like in motion. Yeah, we’re pretty damn impressed, but the guy gets cocky:

I believe a working prototype could be made, but it would take a great deal of time and engineering. This isn’t fantasy. It’s a green vehicle, and all of the numbers are based in the real world.

But who would actually use this? Sure, it looks pretty amazing and you can park it vertically in a garage to save space, but imagine having to unfasten yourself from this every time you get to work. Or the supermarket. Or grandma’s house. At least with a Segway you can hop off and do your business. [Popsci via Crunchgear via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Original post by Jason Chen

OK, so Frank Miller is a famous comic book turned movie guy, who wrote such famous books as 300 and Sin City, the latter of which he turned into a cool movie. Now, the studios have let him off his leash and are letting him make what appears to be an insane disaster of a movie called The Spirit. The newest trailer is below, and if anyone can explain to me just what the hell is going on with Samuel L. Jackson in this thing I would really appreciate it. Thanks Jason Chen for the lovely graphic.

[Vimeo]

Original post by Adam Frucci

newVideoPlayer(”/MythBusters__Exploding_Steak_Myth_giz.flv”, 506, 423,”");Mythbusters returns for a whole new season tomorrow, August 6, and they were nice enough to drop a preview of their first episode off while they were on their way to blowing shit up. One of the experiments they’re going to test is whether explosives can tenderize a steak as well as a traditional tenderizers. Can it? We’re not sure—you’ll have to watch Discovery at 9PM tomorrow to find out. [Mythbusters]

Original post by Jason Chen

Beware the next time your ride an escalator at the mall folks. It appears that they are beginning to stage an organized revolt against their passengers. First an escalator chewed up this poor bastard, then one dished out some payback after some tool disrespected it with a joyride. But that was just a warm up because the escalators appear to be getting bolder. Most recently, a rogue escalator took out 20 passengers in a Tokyo convention center when it inexplicably started going in reverse.

The most serious of the 20 or so injuries reported seems to be a broken leg, but it is clear to me that this escalator was staging a revolt because it was being overloaded by the crush of people. My advice is…stay alert. It is only a matter of time before they start snagging shoelaces with the intent to kill—and once they have a taste for blood there is no turning back. [USA Today]

Original post by Sean Fallon

If you try to get out of your cellphone contract without paying one of those blasted (and newly illegal in California) early termination fees, you’re going to need a meticulously planned and researched counterargument for everything they throw at you. It’s not a small undertaking, and you’ll meet hostile resistance every step of the way. But it is possible.

Ely Rosentock made the above video laying out every argument they’ll use against you and every counterargument you should use to refute it. It’s essentially a guide to refuting their script, and it’s awesome. He discusses Verizon specifically, but it should apply to all the carriers. So, contractually-trapped friends, go forth and break free! Let us know how it goes. [Crastinate via Consumerist]

Original post by Adam Frucci

Toyota’s Segway-competing Winglet may look agile and nimble in photos, but how does it perform in motion? Quite well, actually. A lady with capri pants can ride the M version around with relative ease, using her weight to direct the Winglet around in a figure 8 so other Japanese men can take photos of her from every angle. The only thing left to see is the price. Will this be affordable enough so we can all don our short pants and ride outside in style? [Japan Times]

Original post by Jason Chen

If you thought Red Bull Racing was crazy, you won’t believe the Rocket Racing League. Think NASCAR, but in the air, using planes powered by solid-state rockets flying simultaneously. The racers take off in pairs, separated by minutes, competing against the clock at the same time. That means that they will have to maneuver around the competition, following a 3D track projected in their head-up displays. You know it would be spectacular just with the description, and watching this video of one the $1 million racers in action at the 2008 Air Venture in Oshkosh.

The Rocket Racing League® is an aerospace sports and entertainment organization that combines the competition of racing with the excitement of rocketry. The RRL was established by X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis and two-time Indianapolis 500 champion team partner Granger Whitelaw to advance the technology and increase public awareness of space travel. The NASCAR-style racing league features rocket-powered aircraft that will be flown by top pilots through a ‘three-dimensional track way’ at venues throughout the world. With millions of fans who enjoy racing and air shows, and an even wider audience enthralled with humanity’s next step into space, rocket racing is destined to become the future of racing!

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There are six teams already. If I was a test pilot, I would apply today. Head to Flight Global for an exclusive interview with Granger Whitelaw, CEO of Rocket Racing, explaining what the whole thing is about. If you are going to be at the show, go on Friday or Saturday, when they will fly it again. [Rocket Racing League and Flight Global]

Original post by Jesus Diaz

newVideoPlayer(”/mojave.flv”, 506, 423,”");Remember Microsoft’s the Mojave experiment? Where they took XP users who didn’t know a lot about Vista, stuck them in a room, showed them a mysterious OS that they loved, then revealed that it was Vista. Here’s the video they took of the experiment.

What’s interesting about this experiment is that sure, people who don’t know a enough about Vista are kneejerking their way into hating it. These people are the ones that are easily convinced with a slight-of-hand that Vista is good. But what they didn’t show was the day to day usage of Vista, like accidentally installing an XP printer driver and not being able to print. Sure, we like Vista just fine, but this demographic that Microsoft has in its video would be just the kind to not really be tech savvy enough to fix the aforementioned printer problem.

What can we conclude from the Mojave experiment? Pretty much exactly what we thought of Vista: that it’s not that bad. Definitely not as bad as these people previously thought. [Mojave Experiment]

Original post by Jason Chen

newVideoPlayer(”/legouniverse.flv”, 520, 312,”"); Lego Universe developer NetDevil has given us an exclusive peek into Lego Universe, the massive multiplayer online game where you can use bricks to collaboratively “build in real time”, having adventures through maps that span across all Lego themes: from Space to City to Pirates to Ninjas to Underwater, everything will be in there. After creating the game tools, the game is now in the world design stage, where advanced Lego users are helping NetDevil to create the actual worlds.

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This video was recorded in NetDevil’s second Lego Universe Project event. According to Scott Brown, NetDevil’s president, in the first LUP event they asked these Lego users to give them an idea of what the game should be like, which of course resulted in them building hundreds of actual Lego models of monsters, places, and all kinds of devices, machinery, and vehicles.

After that session, NetDevil started to program the software tools and the models needed to design Lego Universe terrains and structures. Now, in the second LUP event, they have trained those Lego people on the tools themselves, which they are using to create the virtual worlds. Apparently, NetDevil is very impressed by how fast these people—who in their day jobs are mostly engineers—got into the tools after just a three-hour class. Hopefuly that means things are progressing fast and we will see this game—which seems to have great potential—sooner than later.

Original post by Jesus Diaz

One of the great joys of parenting, as I understand it, is being handed a malleable lump of proto-humanity that sees you as some kind of god, absorbing everything you do and say as a lifelong lesson. It’s a big responsibility, sure, but also an opportunity to create a really… unique individual. Which is why I just have to recommend getting one of these absolutely terrifying robo teddy bears for your toddler.

Controlled via a Wii Nunchuk, the evil teddy is a modified BJ Bearytales that can move its mouth, blink, move its arms and instill a lifelong fear of both bears and robots in any impressionable child. You simply tilt the Nunchuk or use the joystick to control it, preferably while hiding in your kid’s closet in the middle of the night, waking them up to this skinned, robotic teddy bear waving its arms all by itself.

Parenting! [Bendering Time via Make]

Original post by Adam Frucci