Korean designer Wonsik Chae ’s light concept is in the shape of a teabag filled with fluorescent molecules that react to chemicals in a teacup. The result: a new meaning to the words “tea light.” Much like normal cups of tea, you dip the teabag in to start the reaction. You then “draw a light” by pulling up the teabag and letting the fluorescent molecules slip into the chemical concoction. Draw it multiple times to make the concoction darker and thus the light brighter

Continued here:
Tea Bag Lighting Concept is Absolutely Tea-lightful [Lighting]

JS-Kit, a company that offers an array of Javascript-based commenting, polling, and ratings widgets, is acquiring the assets of SezWho, a competing enhanced comment system. JS-Kit will continue to keep SezWho’s service running for the next 30 days, during which users will be offered a choice of moving over to JS-Kit or choosing an alternative system.

SezWho offered a universal reputation system for comments, allowing visitors to log in using their Email address or OpenID, establishing a reputation system that carries across onto other SezWho-enabled sites. And unlike some other comment systems, blog owners didn’t have to worry about handing over their data to SezWho – for quite a while one of the primary criticisms of some competing services, like Disqus, was that they housed the blog’s comment data, effectively keeping their owners hostage (this is no longer an issue, as these services now offer synced comment archives).

JS-Kit’s acquisition of SezWho is not particularly surprising. There’s definitely a need for enhanced commenting systems, but this space is overdue for consolidation. The problem with having all of these discrete commenting systems is that for the most part, they aren’t compatible with each other. Users’ comment histories and reputations are segmented across a handful of competing services, which sort of defeats the point.

And aside from JS-Kit, most of these services are free, leaving them vulnerable to drops in advertising revenue and perhaps also deterring major companies from entrusting their data with them for fear that they might go belly up. In the current economy, most of the services are either forced to shut down or seek an acquisition.

Aside from its acquisition of SezWho, JS-Kit has also bolstered its presence with the acquisition of Haloscan last summer. The company has also established partnerships with a number of major companies, including Sun and World Now.

Some of the smaller services may be dying out, but JS-Kit still has some strong competition. Last fall IntenseDebate, another commenting system, was acquired by Automattic, the company behind the incredibly popular WordPress blog platform. IntenseDebate continues to operate on other blog platforms, and is also slowly having its technology incorporated into WordPress itself.

Another increasingly important player in this space is Facebook, which just released a new commenting widget that allows sites to quickly integrate Facebook Connect with only a few lines of code. Users can have their comments relayed back to their Facebook News Feeds, where the conversation can continue. Some large sites have little interest in handing over their data to Facebook without getting much in return, but it’s a system your everyday blogger will love. And that’s a scary prospect for the rest of the widget makers.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

The rest is here:
Comment Consolidation: JS-Kit Acquires SezWho

Video card technology seems to compete with CPU technology, both of them continuing to obey Moore’s law, and becoming faster and faster with each iteration. Many manufacturers have also taken to increasing the amount of memory on their existing cards. Most the time, this results in at least noticeably better performance, as we’ve seen.

In this same vein, it looks like Sapphire has upped the memory in their Radeon HD 4870 to 2 gigs. Will this result in another significant speed increase? Probably not, but you will be able to use some of the higher quality AA, bigger textures or better shadow mapping. No word on U.S. availability or pricing at this time, but we’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available.

[via Ubergizmo]

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Sapphire launching Radeon HD 4870 with 2GB of memory

The AvaLung backpack does more than just carry your personal belongings; it also functions as an extra set of lungs. Imagine that you’re on the mountain skiing and all of the sudden an avalanches rolls down after you and traps you under the snow. No need to worry, AvaLung saves the day, transforming the CO2 built up under the snow into breathable air. The air is directed to the user’s mouthpiece via respiratory tubing. What about CO2 contamination, you ask? The exhaled air is redirected out the opposite end of the pack. When the user inhales or exhales, valves within the AvaLung open and close to minimize CO2 contamination.

If you don’t want the bulkiness of a backpack but want the extra life support, the AvaLung II (pictured on the right) functions just as well. You can find these through the manufacturer’s website, Black Diamond Equipment, or from Amazon. Prices start at $69.95.

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AvaLung backpack provides breathable air when you’re trapped in an avalanche

I don’t know if this video is new or has been floating around Star War’s fan site for years. Nor do I really care, cause it’s awful entertaining. There is something mesmerizing watching this Russian skater glide around the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic’s rink throwing and catching lightsabers. Hell, maybe if lightsabers were involved in figure skating, I would actually watch it with my wife.

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Solution to increase figure skating’s appeal: Lightsabers

Here is Ozymandias’—Steve Jobs alter ego—computer: A Macintosh SE/30. All in black, because in Nixon’s 1985, Macs are black. It is one of the many Apple references Watchmen . In the movie, the computer runs the classic Macintosh System in inverted video mode, white over black

Here is the original:
Watchmen’s Old School Macintosh SE/30 [Apple]

Not looking the soon-to-be-released Facebook for BlackBerry v1.5 get all the glory, Myspace has gone and loosed v1.5 of their own application. Our BlackBerry handset is giving us all sorts of trouble right now, so we’re not having any luck testing it out for ourselves – so let us know in the comments how it is.

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Excerpt from:
Myspace for BlackBerry gets an update

OEM hardware makers have been making a consumer-oriented push in the last year, not least of which being OCZ, which has put out an interesting DIY computer line designed for hardware tweakers. The latest edition to the line is the Neutrino, essentially a netbook but designed like their other DIY lines: expandable and customizable.

The basic setup isn’t going to be any different from your EeePC or your Wind — 10″ screen, 1.6GHz Atom, 2GB of RAM — but add a 250GB SSD and you’re sitting pretty (and expensive). I think if I were to buy a netbook I’d want the capability to mess around with it, and OCZ is counting on that sentiment to sell the Neutrino.

See more here:
OCZ jumps into the netbook game with the Neutrino

A gang of European blokes just landed in gaol after trying to steal over $300 million in what would’ve been the greatest techno-heist in history.

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What NOT To Do When Electronically Robbing a Bank [Annals Of Stupidity]