Author: Rosa Golijan

LCD displays aren’t exactly made for the outdoors. You have to squint, tilt the screen, and adjust the brightness to decipher anything in bright sunlight. But with NEC’s new color-compensation chip that will hopefully be an issue of the past.

Apparently the chip identifies colors which are “problematic” in outdoor light conditions (such as beige or yellow) and adjusts the contrast accordingly to make them easier to view. There’s no word on when the technology will be integrated into our cellphones, but I hope that it’s soon because between Florida and California, I keep finding myself in bright sunny places. [CrunchGear]

Hardware manufacturer NEC has built a chipset which could allow USB 3.0 to reach speeds of up to 16Gbps. In comparison, the fastest technology hitting the production lines right now is Intel’s Light Peak, “which could provide as much as 10Gbps by the end of this year.”

It will take some time before this chipset is accepted as part of a standard, so for now we’ll have to be content with USB 3.0’s 5Gbps specs. [Electronista]

You might already know that the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second, but now you can confirm that number by playing kitchen scientist and melting chocolate. And then you eating the results.

The folks at Wired think that this physics experiment is ideal for all the leftover Valentine’s Day candy, but I think it’s great all year round.

This is what you’ll be doing:

• Make sure the candy is in a microwave-proof box. Better yet, take the chocolate out and put in a microwave safe dish.
• Remove the turntable in your oven. (You want the candy to stay still while you heat it.) Put an upside-down plate over the turning-thingy, and place your dish of candy on top.
• Heat on high about 20 seconds.
• Take the chocolate out and look for hot spots. Depending on the candy you use, you may have to feel the candy to see where it has softened. With the cherry cordials we used, we saw several shiny spots and one place where the chocolate shell melted through, releasing the sweet syrup inside.
• Measure the distance between two adjacent spots. This should be the distance between the peak and the valley (crest and trough) of the wave. Since the wavelength is the distance between two crests, multiply by 2. Finally, multiply that result by the frequency expressed in hertz or 2,450,000,000 (2.45 X 109)

Ta da. In this example, the final number was a bit lower than the actual speed of light, but it’s still pretty darn close considering the difficulty of finding the exact “hot spots” to measure from. And the difficulty of sacrificing chocolate to science. [Wired]

As a kid, I thought the cartoon world could mix with the real one—like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I don’t think I was entirely wrong. Just look at this odd metal sculpture.

Created by a guy named Neil Dawson, this sculpture is called Horizons and one of the neatest optical illusions I’ve seen today. Not to mention that it’s proof of my cartoon invasion theory. [The Grip]

Remember those coverage maps hovering above people’s heads in Verizon’s “there’s a map for that” commercials? What if they existed in the real world? This man decided to find out.

Helmet hair and crappy reception. Poor guy. [Media Bistro]

This Commodore VIC-20 is running software from a cassette tape, has only 5 KB of RAM, and a processor that runs at 1 MHz. Yeah, it’s vintage. But it’s also the first VIC-20 to tweet.

Using software called TweetVER (short for Tweeting from a Vintage ComputER), the folks at the PC Museum will be accessing Twitter from this VIC-20. You can read the first tweet on Saturday February 20th at 11am EST by following the museum’s Twitter account. (There appear to be some test tweets from a modern computer on the page, so disregard those.)

While we don’t think much about accessing Twitter from any one of our desktops, it should be kept in mind that the average computer today runs on about “3000 MHz and contains 2,097,152 KB.” This translates to about “419,430 times the memory power and 3000 times the speed” of a VIC-20. And despite all that, grandpa VIC-20 is still ready to tweet. [PC Museum]

A while back, MacBook Pro SKUs mysteriously disappeared from Best Buy‘s inventory system. We thought that this could be signaling that the long-awaited MacBook Pro refresh is finally near.

The three new SKUs appearing in the inventory database now could either be those new MacBook Pros or they could be the Wi-Fi only iPads. Either way, there seems to be something new headed in our way. We just don’t have enough information to get excited over yet. [MacRumors via Engadget]

I thought these were lamps with built-in alarm clocks, but they’re actually speakers from toymaker Funko. Not much info about them, but they definitely look like a great match for that Darth Vader alarm clock. [Fanboy via Nerd Approved]

Toy Fair is the annual event where we get to completely regress back to childhood and check out all of the awesome toys coming out for the rest of the year. And well, we love toys.

Remember Frosty the Fire-Breathing Snowman? This is Sparky the Snow-Melting Dragon. He was built by Nick and Anna—the folks who made Frosty—and he’s helping them deal with a snow-filled driveway.

Note that I don’t know what these fire-breathing beasts’ real names are, but I think Frosty and Sparky seem fitting. [Thanks, Nick and Anna!]

Reading while flat on your back’s difficult. You need to either prop up your head or hold the book awkwardly above your face. Why go through that when you can use these glasses to “bend your vision” and remain supine?

Sold by Hammacher Schlemmer, the Supine Reading Glasses use “two optical-quality glass prisms that bend your vision 90º” so that you can be even lazier for a mere $50. [Hammacher via CrunchGear via Fashionably Geek]

3D technology can be confusing, but if you just need to know the basics of how it works and prefer to get your information in picture form, then it’s your lucky day.

Click on the image for a closer look.

Now, if this left you wanting to run out and buy a 3D TV, then you can learn more about those in our guide to 3D technologies. [Online Schools]

I keep staring at this window covering made of Kodachrome film slides and thinking of stained glass windows in churches. It’s so gorgeous and you could easily make a curtain like it yourself.

According to Flickr User YarnZombie, the Kodachrome curtain project was quite simple:

The slides date from the 50s and early 60s, and are all from a lot of slides I got in Kansas City last fall. The majority of slides on the right panel are of horses. Go figure. Travis drilled 8 holes in the slides using a Dremel tool in a Dremel drill press thingy, and I connected them all using aluminum chainmail rings.

I’m not sure if I’d pick horse slides, but I’d love prettying up some windows like this. [Flickr via Craftzine via Make]

Ever trip over a power cord and launch your laptop across the room? Me either, but that’s probably because of my laptop’s MagSafe breakaway magnetic power adapter. If your laptop doesn’t have one, check Lifehacker’s guide for a DIY version.

You’ll need an existing power cord and about $32 in materials:

• Neodymium Ring-Shaped Magnets (enough to cover your adaptor plug with some overhang)
• Wire Studs (to fit into the power socket)
• Steel Washers (asst. sizes, make sure your magnets will STICK to them)
• Thin Copper Foil (Note: aluminum duct tape has too much resistance)
• Electrical Tape
• Two-Part Epoxy Adhesive
• Nail(s)
• Calming Incense (to keep you sane while working with the fiddly bits)

The process of modifying your existing power cord actually seems rather easy, but please follow the instructions closely and don’t poke any wall outlets with the nails. [Instructables via Hack a Day via Lifehacker]

It feels a bit obvious that Apple would want to include some sort of DRM on iPad books purchased through the iTunes store. The interesting bit is that it appears that publishers will have the option of choosing whether to use Apple’s FairPlay DRM technology or to keep their ebooks DRM-free. Even though the format supported will be ePub, which is an “open” format, it doesn’t mean that the books themselves will be DRM-free. [Apple Insider]

Anders Norman’s home burned down recently. He lost everything he owns. Except for his iMac. That still works despite looking like a burnt marshmallow.

Norman describes the events best—even if this is a poor translation from the Swedish:

Unfortunately, the whole house and all things in there completely destroyed, so even the iMac. What’s funny is that it is still in operation. While damaged from smoke and dust and partially melted, but yet, however in operation.

After I plugged in the burned power cord and wiped off the worst dust from the screen I pressed the melted start button. Imagine my surprise when the startup sound sings from the speakers! The screen turns on and the machine connects to the wireless network.

The mouse works flawlessly and the scroll wheel as well. Firefox starts and I take up the article from the local magazine about the fire … Fantastic!

On Friday I bought a new iMac at the Apple Store here in Umeå, which I now rejoice.

I realize that I should be more focused on the fact that this man lost so much due to the fire, but I just can’t stop thinking about s’mores. [Feber via TUAW]

We knew it would come and we’ve seen demos, but at this year’s TED conference Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson confirmed that the publication would hit the iPad this summer. Unfortunately there aren’t details regarding digital subscription costs yet.[Wired]

Of all the xkcd comics, it’s the Valentine’s Day ones that are always my favorites. Even when they’re bittersweet like this one.

You can click on the image for a closer look.

I suppose the lesson is to forget romance once science comes into the picture. [xkcd]

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.

You’re looking at a mosquito who got taken down mid-flight by a “Death Star” laser gun designed by Nathan Myhrvold. The malaria-carrying pest never saw it coming, but you can watch everything happen over and over again in this video.

The idea behind the “Death Star” laser is that it could be used to control mosquito populations in developing countries in hopes of reducing the number of deaths due to malaria, a disease frequently carried by the flying insects. The device was shown off during the TED 2010 conference and does in fact appear to be capable of tracking and killing mosquitoes. Oh, and it was built out of parts found on eBay. [Wired]

Yes, Google will plan my wedding one day. Or at least I might use the wedding planning templates in Google Docs to organize things while wishing that Sergey Brin and Larry Page would personally plan my bachelorette party.

Right in time for the cheesiest of all romantic holidays, Google has partnered with Style Me Pretty to provide 20 different customizable wedding planning templates through Google Docs. There’s a template for nearly everything from writing vows to sorting out seating arrangements.

Not that I’m ungrateful to Google for assisting me in in becoming a ball-and-chain one day, but geez. Getting into the wedding business seems a bit too much. Even for the Big G. [Google Blog via TechCrunch]

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.