World’s most expensive home-cinema

This baby costs $6 million but it’s the ultimate home theater experience.

Jeremy Kipnis is a music producer that also invented this incredible home-cinema system. I’m sure you think $6 million is too much for something like this but if you’re really passionate about something, money is definitely no object..especially if you have lots of it.

The Kipnis home cinema is made up of a Sony SRX-S110 Professional Video Projector with a 4,096-by-2,160 resolution, the Stewart Snowmatte 1.0 Gain Laboratory-Grade Motion Picture screen (18×10 foot) , Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Player, Toshiba HD-XA1 HD DVD Player with SATA Drive (72 HDTV Hours Total) and Mark Levinson N° 51 DVD/CD Media Player, HLD-X0 Hi-Vision HDTV MUSE Laserdisc Player,VC HMDH-5U D-VHS recorder. Throw in a PlayStation 3 consoles for hardcore gamers and you have the world’s most “badass” home cinema.

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World’s largest earthquake damper

You might just see a huge steel ball, but this tuned mass damper is so much more.

This 728 tons steel pendulum is installed in one of the world’s tallest buildings, the taipei 101 in Taiwan. It helps stabilize the building in case of strong winds and earthquakes, through simple mechanics, when the building moves in a direction it swings in the opposite direction reducing movement by 40%. You can understand how it works by looking at the small GIF image.

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It cost #4 million to install the huge damper in the skyscraper but architects and engineers said it had to be done. It spans across 4 of the building’s stories and it was assembled on site because it couldn’t be lifted by a crane, due to its enormous weight.

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Here’s a video of the damper in action, on May 12th, when a horrific earthquake hit one of China’s provinces and the tremors reached as gar as Taipei. As the building started to shake, people ran towards the center to see the damper in action, it did it’s job.

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AntWorks – ant farm by NASA

That’s right, this is like a NASA-made ant farm.

Actually NASA only came up with the concept of AntWorks, developed so it could test the development of animal life in a 0 gravity environment. The prototype was created back in 2003 but these days you can buy your very-own AntWorks ant farm directly from the shop for about $40. This small ant habitat is filled with a special gel containing all the nutrients the ants need to survive so you don’t have to feed them, ever. Just sit back and enjoy watching the world’s strongest creatures (they are able to carry 10-20 time their own weight) at work. All yo have to do is lift the lid of the AntWorks colony so air can get in.

Pretty cool gadget this, I’m thinking of getting one myself since I live in an apartment and I’d just be torturing a dog if I kept it here.

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Another home-made rollercoaster

People seem to love having a rolercoaster in their own backyards.

This guy must have seen Jeremy Reid‘s wooden rollercoster and said he simply must top that. And he did, in the way that he built an iron rollercoster in his own backyard. John Ivers from Indiana is the man who built The Blue Flash, a miniature rollercoster, just so he wouldn’t have to wait in line at the amusement park. Judging by the photos, I’d say he did a pretty good job, but apparently he wasn’t completely satisfied so he built an improved version called The Blue Too. Some people just have too much time on their hands, don’t you think?

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The black balls of Ivanhoe

Thousands of black plastic balls cover the Ivanhoe reservoir in Los Angeles.

It might not look like serious business, but The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped 400,000 black plastic balls into one of the city’s reservoirs for a reason. The sunlight mixes with the chlorine and bromide in the water creating a deadly mix which some scientist believe may be causing cancer. The balls are meant to shade the water from the dangerous sunlight.

Sure a tart or some kind of lid would have seemed more normal, but the authorities say a tart would have cost to much too manufacture and a metal lid would have taken too long. So, although it looks like an oil spill, this was the best measure and it’s only temporary, the Ivanhoe and Elysian reservoirs will be covered by 3,000,000 black plastic balls for the next four years.

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World’s first solar speedboat

Finally something solar-powered that’s got some speed.

The Czeerz MK1 is a Dutch-made speedboat that relies only on solar energy, which makes it the first solar speedboat. The 10 meters-long boat reaches the speed of 30 knots which isn’t bad at all for this kind of vehicles. It has a light, carbon fiber shell covered with 14 square meters of solar panels that power an 80 kilowatt engine. Only thing this thing lacks is space, u can only get 2 people in it and they wouldn’t be very comfortable. But after all it’s built for speed not comfort.

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The Sky Bridge of Malaysia

One of the most unusual, yet beautiful bridges I’ve ever seen.

Built on a an island in the Langkawi archipelago in Malaysia, the Sky Bridge rises 700 meters above sea level and spans over 125 meters in length and 1,8 meters in width to offer visitors a spectacular view of the surroundings. The bridge was built crooked on purpose to offer a beautiful view of the chasm beneath and of the sea and neighboring islands.

It has 2 triangular platforms at each end, offering views of the landscape from different angles and also shelter for those who have a problem with the shaking of the bridge. The constructors took all the necessary precautions, building an excellent protection system, so don’t worry you’re safe.

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World’s most extreme modern beds

Now these “sleeping devices” are truly extreme.

Sleeping being what it is, a necessity, you’d think we’d keep our sleeping places as basic as possible, but according to the extreme modern beds collection posted over at Freshome, technological progress affects our very beds. Take a look at the photos for a taste of what I’m talking about, for the whole “shabang”, visit the original source.

Private Cloud – a rocking-chair style bed that promises to revolutionize sleeping experience and couple activity ( if you know what I mean)

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The London-New York Telectroscope

How would you like to see what people in New York are doing all across from London?

The Telectroscope was born from a very old, wacky idea of digging a tunnel to the other side of the world. Many of us had this idea or at least saw it in practice in children’s cartoons but nobody was crazy enough to try it. Nobody except artist Paul St. George who actually did it…sort of. He came across a 19th century article where a reporter misspelled the word electroscope, a device that measures electrostatic charges, and even misunderstood what it does, saying it was a device for the suppression of absence. The idea was a big thing at the time and people’s imagination started working, so St. George thought he’d try to put it in practice.

The Telectroscopes built in London and New York allow passers-by to take a look at what people are doing on the other side of the devices, not through a tunnel built between them but through a trans-Atlantic broadband network and HD cameras. So during the day Londoners can take a look at New York during the night and vice-versa.

The Telectroscope will be available for the public until June 15 and the company that created it wants to host special reunions between family and friends and even a marriage proposal from the other side of the Atlantic.

Read more on this incredible device right here

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The TokyoFlash Infection

Calm down everyone, it’s not a disease or anything like that.

Infection is the name of the new watch released by funky manufacturer TokyoFlash. Combining LED technology with an original, ergonomic design, Infection introduces an innovative and odd way to read time. It has twelve red LEDs that represent hours, eleven yellow LED’s representing the flow of time in groups of five minutes and four green LEDs showing the single minutes.

Although it does look pretty cool and it probably attracts a lot of curious eyes I think this 99% fashion accessory and 1% watch. I mean just think how hard it must be just to get used to it, but who needs the time when u can be cool…

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Fusion Man – The human airplane

Now this must be fun!

Yves Rossy, a Swiss airplane pilot had a dream many of us share, to fly through the clouds, like a bird, but unlike most of us, he chose to actually do something about it and in 2006 he became the first man to fly with wings and four jet engines strapped to his body. On Wednesday he took to the sky in his amazing vehicle in his first public demonstration in Bex, Switzerland, in the Swiss Alps. The stunt also included an emergency parachute landing, programmed to immediately deploy if he blacks out. It was an amazing 6 minutes-performance that showed the world flying isn’t only done in an airplane.

Rossy is now preparing for a flight over the English Channel and he says he dreams of flying through the Grand Canyon, but for that he needs stronger propulsion engines. Right now, his equipment allows him to fly at about 300km/h, so I wonder what bigger engines can do?

One of the most amazing things about the Fusion Man is that he does all his steering just by using his body, which can get really tricky at high speeds.

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The bottle computer

Have you ever seen a computer set up in an empty whisky bottle? Well, you have now.

Janos Marton, a hardware moding enthusiast got the idea for this wacky computer, when he decided to make a quiet, low-power home server. But being so passionate about tuning hardware he wanted something unique for the case. So he went ahead and used an empty 1.5 litre bottle of Ballantines whisky. Pretty original work as you can see from the photos and the way he got all the parts to fit in there so smoothly.

If you want to find out more about how the Ballantines PC was created just hit the link to the original source.

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True Horse Power Vehicle

Now that’s as real horse power as you’ll ever get!

When you first look at the Naturmobil it resembles a normal, modern stagecoach, but as soon as you see the horse in the back, standing on some kind of treadmill, you start to sense something is fishy. The Naturmobil is the ultimate horse-powered vehicle, because unlike other modern cars it’s powered by an actual horse. Naturmobil is a symbol of helping to save the environment and proves how easy it is to build a vehicle that doesn’t need fossil fuel, all you need is a strong horse and a bit of imagination. That brings us to how the Naturmobil functions: you get the horse in the back on the conveyor belt, a pneumatic system lifts the front a little so the horse starts walking naturally. The power of its walking goes into a 36-gear gearbox and makes the car reach a speed of 25-30km/h, but on a long straight road it can even reach 70-80km/h. And don’t worry about the horse, the vehicle’s official site says, sensors in the suspension sense when the temperature of the horse gets to high, or it gets to tired, a DC motor steps in and runs Naturmobil at a constant speed. The horse also has several food and water recipients and even a doo-doo disposal system, so he’s quite comfortable.

I’m really a fan of environment-friendly vehicles, so any prototypes, no matter how wacky they are, have my deepest appreciation!

Uno – The Segway Motorcycle

It’s Segway meets motorcycle and it’s beautiful.

Believe it or not, this little beauty was built by 18 year-old Ben J.Poss Gulak who used Google StretchUp to draw up the plans, since he couldn’t afford professional software. Even though he had some help from motorcycle modders and robotics experts, he deserves to be congratulated.

Unveiled for the first time at the Toronto National Motorbike Show, Uno has two wheels but not one in front of the other, but right next to each other. It’s an electric vehicle with two micro-gyro engines, much like the Segway, one for forward and back and the other for turning. It only has one control, the on/off switch, everything else is done by leaning.

Ben came up with the idea of an eco-friendly vehicle when he was in China where “the smog was so thick, we never saw the sun.”

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The Buddha Phone

You’ll go to Nirvana if you buy one!

Not really, but you’ll definitely feel a lot closer to enlightenment, if you’re into Buddhism. The Buddha Phone is a very cool cellular phone that turned up on the streets of Shenzhen, China and that’s fast becoming very popular throughout the country. Before you say “oh it’s Chinese crap” you should know that besides the impressive design and decorations (they say it’s 24 karat gold plated stainless steel), it also sports a micro SD slot and a touch-screen.

I’m not very familiar with Buddhism but I have to tell you I love The Buddha Phone!

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