Author: Adam Frucci

For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I want you to take Sony’s new PlayStation Move and put it in some real contexts. It’s supposed to let you pretend to play with guns, swords and other objects, right? Let’s see it. More »

John Battelle was on a Wi-Fi-enabled fight with United Airlines last night, and he decided to use videochat to say goodnight to his kids. Unfortunately, a flight attendant told him it was illegal. More »

It’s a lousy time to be a record label. Profits are tanking, bands are angry—OK Go just ditched EMI—and YouTube and BitTorrent changed the game. Still, some labels are transforming themselves to help musicians in the digital age. More »

Ever wanted to know exactly where that disembodied penis you just met on Chatroulette is located? Good news! Now you can. More »

If any band could justify not selling individual tracks, its Pink Floyd. What, you just want Summer ’69 but not Atom Heart Mother Suite? Come on. Now, you won’t have that option. More »

NYC hands out a whopping 40 million condoms every year (although to be fair, 15 million of them were used by Jesus Diaz before he got married). Now, they’ll all come stamped with the classic “power on” symbol. More »

Remember this amazing travel mug shaped like a camera lens that Canon handed out to press at the Olympics? Well, now you can pre-order one for yourself for a mere $30 CAD. Sweet! [Vistek via DoobyBrain via The Daily What] More »

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that Cisco is prepping a new line of Flip video cameras to be announced next month at the NAB conference in Vegas. Makes sense! No details on the models themselves, unfortunately. [Silicon Alley Insider] More »

Google added bike lanes and bicycle directions to Google Maps today, allowing you to find routes that aren’t too hilly or congested. It’s pretty awesome! More »

If you’ve bought the Energizer DUO USB battery charger, you might want to uninstall the software immediately. Why? Because it comes pre-loaded with a backdoor that can let someone remotely access your computer.

The United States Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) has warned that the software included in the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a backdoor that allows unauthorized remote system access. In an advisory, the US-CERT warned that he installer for the Energizer DUO software places the file UsbCharger.dll in the application’s directory and Arucer.dll in the Windows system32 directory. An attacker is able to remotely control a system, including the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs. The backdoor operates with the privileges of the logged-on user.

What the fuck, Energizer? You’ve gotta wonder how something like this happens. At least when Sony installed rootkits on people’s computers they were doing so in the name of DRM. There’s not even a poorly-justified excuse for this. [ZDnet via Make]

For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I asked you to turn today’s user-friendly gadgets into cold, utilitarian Soviet-era relics. It’s probably for the best that these don’t actually exist.

First Place—Bobo the Teddy
Second Place—Paul Vasco
Third Place—Goodie to You Dot Com

Apple aired its first iPad ad during the Oscars last night, but it felt like something was missing, didn’t it? It was a voiceover. So I went ahead and added one for them. You’re welcome, Apple!

The attempted bombing of Flight 253 last Christmas was thwarted by passengers, thankfully. But what if he had been able to get the bomb detonated? Not what you’d expect, actually. Updated: There’s some clarification regarding the pressurization on the plane.

The BBC did a test on an old decomissioned 747, putting a dummy with the same type and amount of explosives found on the underwear bomber. As you can see in the above video, the flexibility of the outside of the frame allowed it to absorb the blast. If the bomb had gone off, the plane would have still been able to fly and land.

Of course, the damage inside the plane still would have been horrific. But it’s nice to know that the trusty 747 can stand up to such abuse. [BBC via PopSci]

Update: Just like Gizmodo’s readers, BBC’s readers questioned how accurate this experiment was since it took place on the ground and not in the air, with the plane’s cabin pressurized. Here’s the clarification BBC added as a result:

Some readers have questioned the validity of the experiment given that the plane was tested on the ground. The programme-makers gave this response:

At the time of the attempted detonation, Flight 253 was descending rapidly and its altitude has been estimated to be around 10,000ft.

At that height the difference in pressure inside and outside the plane would not have been great enough significantly to affect the explosion.

So the explosion team ruled that the decommissioned plane’s lack of doors was not a factor in the test.
With this quantity of explosive, the peak pressure and impulse are over quickly and decay rapidly over distance. The doors were sufficiently far away that the overpressure would have dissipated before it reached them.

This draggable, zoomable map of NYC is made from old 8-bit NES elements. It is as awesome as it sounds. [8-Bit NYC via WAXY via Kottke]

Alcatraz was designed to be impossible to escape from by being out on an island in San Francisco Bay. And this vertical prison concept has the same idea: if you want to escape, it’s a long way down.

The design, which was the winner of Evolvo Magazine’s 2010 skyscraper competition, probably won’t be built anytime soon. But it’s still interesting! It would use “pods” to transport people and equipment up to the top levels where everyone is, which is fun. And really, even if this just stays a concept, it might just inspire some filmmakers to include it in a sci-fi movie, which is almost better than it becoming a real prison. [DesignBoom]

Yep, this about sums it up. There will always be Lloyd Doblers, they just keep getting new tools. [Hoop Dreams via Unicornology via Zach Linder]

This week’s Photoshop Contest was inspired by this magical website: turn today’s modern gadgets into utilitarian, Soviet-era devices. No fanciness, just cold usefulness.

Send your best entries to me at [email protected] with Soviet Gadgets in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs under 800k in size, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I’ll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

Last night here in NYC, British pop singer Little Boots used a huge laser harp on stage. We’ve seen these things before and I just don’t get it. Let’s just stick with the normal instruments, shall we? [BrooklynVegan]

If you’re in the military, here’s a tip: don’t put upcoming missions in your Facebook status. You wouldn’t think someone would need to tell you that, but here we are.

A raid on suspected militants in the West Bank was cancelled yesterday after an Israeli soldier updated his Facebook status to read “On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing, we come home.” The solider has since, unsurprisingly, been relieved of combat duty for being a moron. He’ll also spend 10 days in prison for his update.

Trying to educate soldiers on the importance of not leaking classified info to Facebook, the Israel Defense Forces have started putting up new posters in bases:

In posters placed on military bases, a mock Facebook page shows the images of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Below their pictures – and Facebook “friend requests” – reads the slogan: “You think that everyone is your friend?”

I really want to see one of those posters. Anyone in the IDF want to send us a picture? My email address is below. I won’t post it on Facebook, promise. [NY Times]