I don’t want to say that ILM and Weta did a bad job on Avatar’s visual effects, but an Atari 2600 edition of Avatar would still get most of the point across. [Penney Design via GameSetWatch via Kotaku]

5 inches by 3.7 inches—that’s the diminutive footprint of the fully loaded conga-BM57 Core i7 motherboard.

Despite its small stature, the conga-BM57 features an impressive spec list, including a 2.66 GHz Core i7, 8GB of RAM, integrated intel graphics, 5 PCI Express lanes, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 3 SATA, 1 EIDE and Gigabit Ethernet—plus support for dual displays over VGA, LVDS, HDMI, DisplayPort or SDVO.

The price and release date are still unknown, but at this size, it would make one heck of a HTPC that could double for some gaming. [SlashGear]

By now, we’re all painfully familiar with my repeated, personal problems with new, yellow-tinged iMacs—but luckily, our readers have taken the cause beyond one man’s whining. Today is the first of (hopefully not too many) weekly iMac updates.

Can You Safely Purchase an iMac Yet?

In a word, nope.

We’ve received at least 15 tips to our submissionsATgizmodo.com line, all users who’ve received yellow-tinged iMacs since January 1st and documented the problem with photos. (And I’ve received twice that many personally from irate customers with whom I’m extremely sympathetic.)

It seems that, despite the extremely well–documented problem(s), Apple refuses to do the right thing and simply stop shipping these faulty iMacs out. Last I checked, the public’s view of the iMac’s “ultimate display” was not one with pee-like stains at the bottom. Then again, I haven’t run a focus group on the matter.

And you should note, yellow screens are just one element of production problems. According to readers, firmware updates have not completely fixed other screen problems, like black outs or flickering.

Replace or Repair or Return?

I have yet to hear from someone who has successfully replaced a yellow iMac with one that’s perfectly functional. That’s a bad, bad, bad sign for Apple’s current yield. (Hopefully, a few of you will keep attempting, so we can see if Apple gets their act together.) However, it seems that Apple has been pushing more users toward repairing their systems rather than getting them replaced. I didn’t settle for getting a new product (that should be in mint condition) repaired, and imho, neither should you—in which case, some of you will be stuck only with the option to return.

As for My iMac

After being refused a replacement, my iMac stopped booting altogether. It just went dead. Unsure that I could get the inevitable next (broken) version replaced, I simply returned it.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As long as you keep demanding exchanges, checking on new iMacs, I’ll keep posting about them. You can test your iMac here.

Quote of the Week

I’ll also be including bitchtastic quotes of the week in these updates. This one, from Laura:
“I want the imac purchasers, who have already paid their money AND spent countless hours being fruitless with their machine set-ups and troubleshooting attempts, to be put on the top of the list for receiving brand new WORKING machines. An added bonus would be for Apple to do this kindly, respectfully, and without any attitude. We should not be out of pocket, taking time off work and energy to lug these heavy ibeasts across town looking for a repair; it’s a lemon, Apple — you made it, so please replace it. And please do it kindly, respectfully, and communicate to us the process, so that we can all stay in love with all things Apple. “

The Faulty iMac Saga will run every Wednesday on Gizmodo. That is, until Apple fixes and/or admits the problem.

There’s a really funny blog named Running From Your Camera. For this week’s Shooting Challenge, we’re unabashedly stealing their idea.

The challenge: set the self-timer on your camera to 2 seconds, then get as far as you can away from it before the shot using any means you like—judging will be based as much on composition, creativity and general effect as mere distance.

The rules:

1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos need to be taken the week of the contest. (No portfolio linking or it spoils the “challenge” part.)
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings and technique used to snag the shot.
4. Email submissions to [email protected].
5. Include 800px image AND something wallpaper sized in email.

Send your best entries by Sunday at 6PM Eastern to [email protected] with “Running” in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs at 800 pixels wide and larger, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email. [Photo]

The T-fal Actifry promises to fry your favorite foods using just 1 tbsp of oil. Being an avid fan of deep fried miracles including chicken wings, onion rings and french fries, I just had to try it out.

Price

$300 – Out for about a year in the UK, just hitting the US market.

How It Works

I’ve described the Actifry to friends as an ice cream maker combined with a convection oven. Basically, it’s a big nonstick pan equipped with a constantly rotating silicone stirrer. You load all the food into the pan, drizzle it with a relatively small amount of oil and then close the clear lid. The controls include just two buttons—one for on/off, one for a timer. Fired up, hot air blows around making it sound, as you might expect, like a weak hairdryer. The idea is that the air blows the oil around and cooks the food while the spatula keeps everything cooking evenly.

The Cook-Off

I put the Actifry through three crucial tests, constantly questioning whether it was better than a convection oven. The first, chicken wings (buffalo style), because you can’t generally duplicate a the crunch of a fried wing in the oven. The second, sweet potato fries. (Battered food like onion rings will just gunk up the system, so I settled for something that’s also pretty difficult to oven fry.) And last, I made straight french fries—the devices biggest selling point by far.

Chicken Wings
I tossed, I don’t remember how many, chicken wings into the machine. I sprinkled them with a pinch of paprika and a tbsp of oil, then I let the machine go to work. 30 or so minutes later, I smelled that the chicken was done. And I had to admit, the pieces were a beautiful golden brown.

So I took a bite and…they were chewy, just as if I’d baked em. And actually, a bit overcooked as well, since I was going more for texture than taste.

Winner: Tie

Sweet Potato Fries
Traditionally, good sweet potato fries are considered difficult to make—even ordering them off a restaurant menu can be a crap shoot. I actually make great sweet potato fries in the oven, baking them for about 20 minutes before throwing the switch on convection to give each fry a bubbly, slightly crisp skin. Theoretically, the Actifry would cook the potatoes in a similar manner.
Theoretically. What I got, and it’s tough to see here, was basically a pile of fry-shaped mush. It tasted fine—you can’t really screw up a sweet potato—but the fries were limp and occasionally pulverized by the spatula. (The lamb chops, btw, were delicious.)

Winner: Oven

French Fries
At this point, the honeymoon is over. The Actifry is as big as a crock pot, and so far, it’s basically just a crock. But I’m willing to let it all pass if the Actifry is the ultimate healthy french fry machine. A decent fry can be baked, but getting the texture perfect, like a shattering yet silky crème brûlée or crusty yet gooey french bread, is an art tough to match by oven alone.

After cutting Idahos as equally as possible and rinsing away the extra starch, I fired up the Actifry, almost nervously, on behalf of T-fal.
What came out roughly half an hour later was admittedly good. Taking the first bite, I was surprised by the decent balance of crispness and mushy innards. The golden color wasn’t uniform, but I don’t mind a few extra crispy bites in my french fries, and had I attempted fries again, I may have let them cook even longer (and risked breaking them down for super crispiness).

Still, munching through the plate of potatoes with my wife, I realized 2 things. One, I’m not sure this is significantly better than what I could do in an oven (with an oil mister and a bit of flipping). And, two, I’m not sure this is significantly easier than what I could do with an oven. (After all, I still peeled and cut up a few fresh potatoes.)

Winner: Actifry…by a nose.

Mostly Just Hot Air

The Actifry isn’t necessarily a bad idea or a bad product, it’s just a product that 99% of us don’t need—and it’s hard to imagine that it really sells for $300. For french fries, I’d say it’s a bit superior to what the average Joe can pull off in an oven (results vary, I’m sure, resident chef-types). But most of the fried goodness you want to eat can be bastardized just as well with equipment you already own, if not better.

Or, you know, there’s always the option to actually cook foods by submerging them in hot fat. Deep frying is about as simple as cooking gets, if a bit messy and unhealthy. [T-fal]

Cooks decent french fries

Can’t cook much else

Costs $300 more than the oven you already own

Exceedingly healthy

I have the sneaking suspicion that one could collect any partially opaque object, hang it en masse encapsulating a central light source and have themself a clever chandelier. Further investigation necessary, if I could only find my glasses…

[Stuart Haygarth via Very Very Nice via Dude Craft via MAKE]

Note: Use of “themself” explained more here for resident grammarians. I’m trying to bring themself back like Timberlake brought sexy.

Breaking news in the world of sponge technologies: Obsorb is a new nano glass matrix sponge that, when dipped into water, swells to suck the pollutants right out.

Intended to purify our groundwater from dangerous pollutants like gasoline (note: it doesn’t appear that Obsorb can handle crude oil, but I could be mistaken), Obsorb is a hydrophobic material comprised of active glass—in other words, its glass actually bonds with bad chemicals, but it won’t take any water along with the pollutants.

Once full of up to 8x its weight in gunk, Obsorb floats to the water’s surface where it can be skimmed, ringed out (by other chemicals, we believe) and dropped back in the water hundreds of times.

And, if you listen very closely, you can almost hear the Stayfree exec who dropped the ball on the “Obsorb” trademark sobbing into his tie as he gives his letter of resignation one last pass. [Image (not actual Obsorb) and Obsorb via CleanTechnica via Inhabitat]

Allegedly found on Intel’s Spanish Retail Edge Program site, this giveaway teases retailers winning two Core i5 MacBook Pros—which haven’t been announced yet. It’s either a marketing mistake or the most predictable leaked news ever. UPDATE

UPDATE: The same promotion went out in the UK with a completely different graphics package. Such certainly points to a wider Intel promotion mistake (leak) than a single isolated incident.

UPDATE 2: The promo hit in France as well.

[faq-mac via AppleInsider]

And if you’re looking to identify a few of the lesser known systems in this pile, Consollection is basically an mini encyclopedia on the matter. [Consollection via Gamefreaks via GameSetWatch via Kotaku]

I’m going to tell you a tale, a tale of friendship that, with the help of a Chinese automatic nail printer, blossomed into a full-out, wet and sticky bromance.

There Jason and I were, walking through the International Center at CES, our shoulders brushing casually in the intimate walkways. Then we spotted a machine unlike any we’d seen before. A wizened Chinese man beckoned us into this booth, and before we could raise any objections, he placed his finger our our lips, a tacit acknowledgment that this was our first time. Jason took a seat.
Still confused and a bit disoriented, Jason smiled nervously as a camera photographed nothing less than the full earnestness his soul. Looking at the screen, Jason’s stomach dropped at the sheer amount of honesty that could be captured on a webcam and displayed on a touchscreen LCD.
I pretended to ignore Jason’s powerful image as I grabbed a seat myself. The Chinese man took my hand—his touch was warm. He lightly stroked my thumb with a base coat while photographing me as well.
How would Jason and I frame our faces? We joked that the heart cutout was the only way. And then our eyes locked and we realized that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t joking at all.
The photos processed, I tentatively placed my thumb into the machine. It clamped down on my appendage, strongly, and it wouldn’t let go. At this moment, trapped and vulnerable, I could only let the machine finish. To this day, I don’t know if it’s the event’s repression speaking, but the process was quick, professional and I don’t recall the slightest bit of pain. In fact, I didn’t feel a thing.
Jason, having bravely endured the same process, reveals the worthwhile aftermath in this photo. My face has been semi-permanently painted upon his fingernail. He blows on the finish to make sure it’s dry, his lips the closest they’d ever been to my face.
“For better or worse, we’re together in this thing now,” I thought to myself. But just several days following this entire affair at CES, Jason and I have parted ways. Sometimes we IM one another, and there’s the occasional text. But even as the heart has chipped away from my nail, his smile remains.

And if you’d like to duplicate the experience, the ArtPro Nail Printer runs about $1500, takes normal HP ink cartridges and breaks up to 6000 hearts between refills. The company is currently seeking US distribution.

Ten years’ worth of Apple laptops are stacked high in this shot. I was going to list their identities, but then I realized the commenters could probably have more fun with it. Be nice (or funny). [Flickr via Unplggd]

I’ve written a lot about 3DTV and that I consider it occasionally incredible. But the entire concept is tough to explain because, let’s face it, I can’t just embed 3DTV example videos and you’ve probably never seen it. Allow me:

I stood on a crowded CES floor with an assignment I dreaded. I had to look at every 3DTV I could find, an attraction that seemed to be drawing the slowest, most annoying attendees of all of CES into long lines to split a few pairs of glasses.

And these stupid screens are so unimpressive at first glance. To the naked eye, the screen is a tad blurry and maybe even a bit washed out. Then you slip on a pair of lightweight, heavily-douchey, thick-framed glasses. After a moment or two, the world around you goes darker, that once-blurry image sharpens instantly, and suddenly you’re watching 3D.

The image you see will vary with content. You’ll note a light flickering over your eyes, somewhere between the gaping black holes of an old time projector playing silent films and smooth 24 or 30fps video of a DVD or digital projector. But the biggest change is that your TV is no longer a flat pane but a window, an image in which there’s an actual depth your eye can dig through, a digital diorama, if you will.

And if you happen to be looking around a room filled with 3DTVs, or maybe a display of 15 stacked 3DTVs, all of these TVs will have turned 3D. In mass, the effect is a giggle-filled novelty ever so reminiscent of Jaws 3D.

Animation is, by far, the most impressive demo you will see. Impossibly crisp and colorful, the effect is extremely lifelike…for a cartoon. More simply put, there’s a perfect front to back gradient. Every object looks, well, like an object, like something round that takes up real physical space. When, during a clip of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s oily, porous nose protrudes from the screen ever so forcefully, you can’t possibly imagine the moment done justice in 2D. The sense of flesh far outweighs what you see in the illustrative lead shot, because truthfully, these scenes have been designed and rendered with information that our displays have been incapable of showing us. With 3D animation, 3D is no gimmick—it’s 2D that’s the lousy undersell. And your eyes will be able to tell as they savor looking as deep as they can into the frame.

Sports are a vastly different, inferior experience. Basketball, for instance, is interesting in 3D but also indicative of the format’s limitations. For one, the court has depth, but the players are quite flat, like a few paper cutouts are dribbling a ball back and forth instead of fully corporeal, 6’6″ titans. Your mind can’t quite reconcile the image, as it’s somewhere between 2D and 3D, meaning it looks more fake, in a sense, than the simple 2D presentation we’ve always seen (the term “uncanny valley,” though not quite suitable in this context, certainly comes to mind). I assume such is a result from the use of telephoto lenses, which are notorious for flattening even 2D images. The effect is even more pronounced in 3D, meaning that stereoscopic 3D shouldn’t (and can’t) be the end game for sports no matter what ESPN tells you. I could easily imagine a multicam arena setup which these blank (flattening) information spots could be filled, and an actual 3D image (a la Pixar) could be piped to consumers, rendered in real time. The effect in sports could truly be something we’ve never seen before (Madden 2010 crossed with real textures, essentially). As of now, it feels more like we’re playing with paper dolls.

Live action film, specifically Avatar, is something I haven’t seen on a 3DTV beyond a few 3D previews. The fast paced trailers—as opposed to the long, expansive shots of Pixar-style animation—don’t lend themselves as well to the illusion (the 3D planes constantly break), and it’s quite difficult to really assess or describe an effect that your eyes can’t chew on for a while. On an IMAX 3D screen, I’ve mentioned that Avatar showed me textures I’d never seen before. On a plasma, Avatar looks far more like a cartoon, and its depth gradient is somewhere between the 2Dish sports and the all-out 3D animations (probably because Avatar itself is much a combination of the two). In the theater, I opened my eyes as wide as possible to take in the bioluminesence of Pandora. On the small screen, a light flicker distances you, almost unconsciously, from the content. But then again, Avatar never looked nearly as impressive in trailers as it did in final cut form, and 3D missiles firing straight at you will always be awesome.

But when things go really bad…

…watching 3D is nothing but pain. Before checking out an LCD or OLED, you put on the shutter glasses, as if all is well and good, and the lights again dim instantly. Each actual frame of the video are just as colorful, sharp and Y-axis-deep as those you’ve seen on better displays. But the frame rate seems to drop, with your favorite Pixar hero moving without smoothness or extreme subtlety. And of course there’s a flicker on top of the odd frame rate, causing the already subpar image to strobe. The overall effect is akin to playing Crysis on an underpowered GPU along with some monitor that goes dark several times a second. It’s sour stacked on sour, an experience with so little redeeming quality you should cease to even consider it.

That annoying CES line I described at the start of this piece? It was at the LG booth, right before I took a look at their 3D plasma prototype, which is slated to be released later this year for $200 over a 2D model. And right when I was ready to give up on glasses, gimmicks and eyestrain, the experience wiped my memory of it all as I stood there transfixed for at least 5 minutes, disregarding the line behind me and watching the same remarkable animated clips over and over. I thought of a new era of filmmakers speaking in an updated cinematic dialect, and I knew that words couldn’t quite describe the sensations—we simply hadn’t decoded them yet.

(Oh, and if you think all of this is too lovey on 3D, read all of my technological caveats here.)

Sources have told AllThingsD that Vudu is in “meaningful” acquisition discussions, with Walmart being the most likely analog moneybags candidate. Given that Vudu is making its way to most new TVs, acquisition sounds like a good plan for Walmart. [AllThingsD]

In this T2 remix, Skynet Symphonic, John Connor saves the world to a hypnotic dance beat largely composed from cinematic sounds. And on an a slightly related note, Linda Hamilton could kick Arnold’s butt any day. [reddit]

Your mom may have told you not to stare directly into light bulbs or solar eclipses for hours on end, but you know what? You’re a big boy now, so enjoy blinding yourself with 2GB of data. [GeekStuff4U via AkihabaraNews]

If you buy a subsidized Nexus One with T-Mobile and you cancel your contract after the 14-day trial, it’ll cost you between $50 and $200. Sounds pretty standard, but Google will charge you an additional “equipment recovery fee.”

Google has the right to charge you up to $350 if you cancel before the 4 month mark, which is essentially their way of thwarting any plans you may have to sell a former contract phone for profit. But here’s the catch: Google’s fees plus T-Mobiles fees can add up to $550—which is $20 more than the Nexus One costs in the first place. Ugh, this math/cancellation is a bit confusing, but basically, Google will charge you whatever you didn’t pay for a Nexus One due to subsidies. In other words, you’d owe Google $350 if you bought a Nexus One for $180 through T-Mobile—which brings the cost of your Nexus One up to $530 (what it runs unlocked).

Add on any fees from T-Mobile on top of that, and geeze, your contract-less Nexus One is costing you more than a new one unlocked. [Google Terms of Sale via CNET via phoneArena]

There are few more lazily fulfilling practices in this world than to watch someone else Photoshop in time lapse. In this clip, a guy turns himself into a Na’vi (Avatar smurf). Papyrus credits included. [fubiz via DVICE]

Let’s put realism aside for just a moment and imagine a world in which boats swim through rivers, skimming out pollutants through natural biological filters (plants). Now let’s up the ante, and shape these boats like whales.

Vincent Callebaut can take credit for this idea, a whale-shaped boat garden named Physalia. Powered by solar panels and hydro-turbines (how these sub-aquatic turbines don’t slow the boat, I don’t really understand), the boat cruises through dirty water, soaking up the bad stuff with onboard plants and purifying water with its titanium dioxide surface.

Whatever, so long as it also swallows swimmers on command, I’m happy.
[vincent.callebaut via freshome via inhabitat]