Some fantastic nighttime photography that shows the effects of artificial light on the surrounding areas. Reminds me of Troy Paiva\’s work in the desert where he uses long shutter times and colored flashes to \”paint\” the subject.
[ From Boing Boing ]

New iPods were introduced today. They look sweet. 10, 15, and 30GB, redesigned cases, backlit buttons, 2 new games, a docking station, and queueing (my biggest wish-feature). Hmmmm….I\’m tempted to sell my \”classic\” iPod and get a new one.

The AK-MP3, a mp3 player built into the ammo magazine of a Kalashnikov automatic rifle. You can use it either by itself or loaded in the machine gun. It holds 20GB and runs for 10 hours on its built-in battery. It also has 8 minutes anti-shock and uses USB2 to transfer files. At first glance it looks like a joke, but I think it\’s legit.

\”This is our bit for World Peace,\” jokes one of the partners behind ABFF, ex-rock-star Andrey Koltakov (BONIFACIY). \”Hopefully, from now on many Militants and Terrorists will use their AK47s to listen to music and audio books…They need to chill out and take it easy.\”

Now you can listen to tunes while you\’re keeping the King of England out of your face.

Chromo is an interesting idea for a clock where colour is used to tell time. Apparently it \”helps your body understand what time it is.\” It sort of makes sense to me, as certain times of day can \”feel\” like a certain colour. For example, evening and nighttime hours are represented by dark, muted colours like blue and turquoise, while daytime is represented by bright, vivid yellows and reds.

There\’s a free desktop clock program you can download. If it doesn\’t help you tell time easier, at least it adds some colour to your desktop. Plus it\’s fun to say \”The Simpsons is on at blue o\’ clock.\”

This little sound system built into a briefcase is neat. It\’s more discreet than a boombox, so you can sneak it into a meeting at work and blast some Beastie Boys while Bob from Marketing is giving his presentation.

CNN previews Half-Life 2 with screenshots! Hard to tell if they\’re in-game shots or cinematics, but anyway. The article also says it\’s due in stores September 30.

\’Bunker buster\’ missiles aim at Moon

Tests have been carried out on ground penetrating missiles using \’bunker buster\’ technology that could be fired into the depths of dark lunar craters to look for ice.

What, they ran out of things to bomb on earth? Now they want to bomb the moon too?

The Two Towers is coming to DVD on August 26th, followed by the extended edition on November 18th. I still haven\’t watched all the extras on the first movie yet.

Interesting piece on the impact the remote control has on our culture. Because of remotes, TV shows no longer have theme songs and commercials are actually entertaining and funny.
[ From Gizmodo ]

E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is next month and Half-Life 2 will be shown there! Interestingly this is the first time Valve has acknowledged that it exists (unlike some other games that are hyped for years). No screenshots or anything yet but it\’s featured on the covers of CGW and PC Gamer. I\’ve been waiting for this game for a long time. Hopefully I won\’t have to wait too much longer, as the game will be released this year.