By David Ponce

Yes, that’s a chocolate shot. It’s made by a company called Zotter. It’s kind of like an alcohol shot that you see in bars, except with less alcohol and more chocolate. Well… no alcohol. Just chocolate. But hey, it comes in a bunch of flavours, like coconut, almost, and mandarin. Each shot is 12 ml, which really isn’t a whole lot. But hey, it’s a shot of fair-trade certified organic ganache, which only stays fresh for 4 weeks due to its lack of preservatives. Which almost makes the €2,50 justifiable.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ The Fancy ]

By David Ponce

Working in a bar could get a whole lot more hands-off if LayerNation’s “El Tirador” machine takes off. It’s a contraception that makes it very easy to make layered drinks. You just have to load the bottles on top, put the shot glasses under the retractable straws and watch as it makes up to 4 drinks within 20 seconds. A touch screen lets you select what you want to make and yeah… that’s about it. You can watch the video below to see how it’s done, but it looks pretty slick. El Tirador means The Shooter in spanish, and the device was demonstrated last year at the Young Entrepreneurs Society network event in Delft. It’s also being tested in Europe and the company hopes it’ll be used to serve soccer fans their drinks during the Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.

So there appears to be no immediate plans for commercialization stateside, but anyone interested in the tech is free to contact them for more information.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Techcrunch Gadgets ]

By David Ponce

Back in 1998 the world went a little apeturd over the Furby. While Amazon was still just getting off the ground and didn’t much suffer from the craze, brick and mortar stores were crawling under the demand. The £24 ($40 USD in 1998 dollars and $56 today) could be resold for as much as three times its price. It’s now a collector’s item and the company that made it, Tiger Electronics, seems to be planning on releasing a new version for the Holidays 2012. There isn’t much information on it aside from the picture you see above.

Toy expert Peter Jenkinson of www.toyology.com said: ‘The image suggests that the moving facial parts have been entirely replaced by an LCD screen. ‘This will prompt lots of talk, not all of it intelligible, on Furby forums.’

Other “experts” are predicting Wifi connectivity and only Furby-to-Furby interaction. Truth is, no one really knows. And no one is sure if the little fur balls will be able to recapture the insanity of their first arrival.

[ DailyMail ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By David Ponce

Golf balls are covered in dimples simply because this gives them an aerodynamic efficiency rivalled by no other surface texture. And now Nike has unveiled a running suit based off the same design: the TurboSpeed, which they claim can shave up to 0.23 seconds off a 100 meter sprint. That is huge. Just think that in the 2008 olympics, Usain Bolt won the race only 0.22 seconds ahead of third place and 0.20 seconds from second. Had either of the two other contestants simply been wearing the TurboSpeed they might have won. Nike’s suit, which is made from 82% recycled polyester fabric, is the result of twelve years (!) and hundreds of hours of testing in wind tunnels.

It doesn’t appear that it’s commercially available, as there’s talk that only the teams sponsored by Nike will have access to the outfit. These are the US, Russia and Germany. Bolt is sponsored by Puma. Walter Dix (third in ’08) on the other hand is a member of the US team and will be wearing it London. Will it be enough for him to overtake the champion?

[ DailyMail ] VIA [ NewLaunches ]

By David Ponce

Nikola Tesla was a genius. Any geek worth his salt knows this. He was also certifiably insane, which is probably why he was denied credit for much of his inventions. But most of you have probably heard of the Tesla Coil, that device TV shows are very fond of for its ability to produce some fantastic electric discharges. Well, a man by the name of Rob Flickenger has put the device to good use and made a gun out of it. That’s right, Rob’s device is a gun that shoots lighting rays; he calls it The Tesla Gun. There’s no thunder of course, because it’s not actual lightning, but man, that thing shoots some mean electric arcs and can be pointed at stuff. When it doesn’t find ground, it just kind of shoots stuff all over. The gun housing is made from melted down aluminum cans, which was poured into a mold made from a Nerf gun.

The final working Tesla Gun is a portable spark gap Tesla coil that is powered by an 18V drill battery. The electrical system is composed of the aforementioned drill battery along with a flyback transformer that steps the 18V to around 20,000V. A bank of capacitors stores the charge that is then used to strobe the coil itself. The primary and secondary coils are made of ABS plastic wrapped with copper wire, and are used to direct the charge outward through an aluminum toroid (the “barrel” of the gun).

We gotta say, Rob channels the mad scientist look quite well. And he’s done a good job of detailing a step by step of how he made this. So head on over to the links below and watch science in the making.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Geek.com ]

By David Ponce

The Dell XPS 15z is a 15.6 inch laptop that comes packed with a bunch of hardware. We’re talking about a Core i7-2640M 2.8GHz dual-core processor along with a 1080p screen, 8GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive and a 1GB GeForce GT 525M graphics card. And it’s usually pretty expensive at $1,462, but after today’s deal it goes down to $999, which is the lowest price seen by LogicBuy. As always, these puppies are shipped free to your door.

[ $462 Off Dell XPS 15z ] VIA [ LogicBuy ]

By David Ponce

Getting sensitive data off a hard drive isn’t as simple as deleting the files. The true geeks in the audience already knew that. But in case that’s not you, just know that simply deleting a file only tells the operating system that the area on the disc it once occupied is now free to be overwritten. But it’s not until this done, that your data is really gone. There are programs that will format, and reformat any given area with the aim to do just that, but the Data Killer machine goes the brute force way instead. It passes strong magnetic currents over the discs, realigning the microscopic bits on the surface of the platters without damaging them, and it does this quickly, at the simple press of a button.

Our product line-up can handle everything from a single 3.5-inch hard disk, to 14 of them at once. With our larger models, you can also instantly obliterate the data on a notebook PC.

There’s no word on price or availability.

[ DigInfo ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By David Ponce

There comes a time when stuffing little plastic speakers into your ears gets boring. Maybe your ears hurt, or you just crave the look of oversized headphones better. Who knows why you’d want to eschew the convenience of buds for the bulk of headphones, but there you have it… it could happen. Well, you can now print your very own adapters to do exactly that. You do need to have a 3D printer in the first place, but seeing as how the prices on those things are dropping at an astronomical pace, it’s not unlikely you already own one. Created by the Chilean-born, Paris-based designer JC Karich, the files needed to make them have been made available on the Thingiverse, the marketplace for 3D prints for the Makerbot Replicator we discussed back in January. Yes, the finished product looks like Ramen noodles that were wrestled into a headphone shape, but that’s normal for 3D printed objects. The technology is still in its infancy, and if you don’t like the DIY look, you can choose a finer resolution and/or sand them.

Hit the jump for a few more pictures.

[ Thingiverse Files ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By David Ponce

Etsy seller paints these awesome Zelda fire renderings. They’re stretched cotton on wood and come in sizes 24×24 and 20×20. You can ask for custom sizes for an additional cost, although the standard-sized ones will set you back a lovely $150. Shipped anywhere… for a fee.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ BoingBoing ]

By David Ponce

Whether you’re a competitive swimmer, or just learning, you might be interested in the Powerbreather. It’s a snorkel made from an elastic material, and it fits snugly around the head. Like most snorkels, air is inhaled through the back, although water is prevented from entering through the use of a check valve. Air is then exhaled exclusively through the mouthpiece, which in ensure through the use of another valve. This makes it so that no stale air is ever re-inhaled, eliminating fatigue effects associated with snorkel use. And “because of the two interacting valves no water gets into the snorkel when descending.” So what you have is the ability to just swim without ever needing to tilt your head up for air, which would be great for a more effective workout, learning to swim, or just snorkelling in the tropics without swallowing a bunch of saltwater in the process.

There’s no word on price of even availability, but it appears to be a new product out of Germany.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Gear Patrol ]