These new robotic "stores" that look like giant vending machines are Sony’s latest attempt to merge the simplicity of online buying with the instant access and gratification of shopping at a store.  These large machines have been installed in malls in Atlanta GA, Boulder CO, and Santa Rosa, CA.   Even though this might make buying new products simpler and easier, what happens when your new $500 digital camera gets stuck? You can’t exactly buy another one to push it out.  Via the New York Times

Thanko has developed a solution for an essential problem with the keyboard, the noise factor.  Ever want to stay up late and try to get work done or play games and not annoy your roommate or spouse? Well this seems like the perfect solution.  This noiseless keyboard which appears to only be available in Japan at the moment, produces around 30.2dB of noise.  Now your roommate or spouse will be able to sleep while your up all night playing World of Warcraft.  If you live in Japan, or if you don’t mind having Japanese characters all over your keyboard you can pick up one here.

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These amazing pictures were captured from a High Altitude Balloon’s 2 hour trip up to 85,945 feet.  The balloon was equipped with 2 cameras, one that pointed down and the other focused on the horizon.  Kodak color print film was used and captured 72 minutes of the flight. The pictures below are shown in ascending order.

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Boating is often an activity associated with the rich and famous, and at the same time many wealthy people are also taking an interest in submarines. Exomos, a submarine manufacturer has combined "yachting" with a submarine design and has created a line of luxury yachts that are also able to submerge and act as submarines. Depths for these hybrid subs vary but the one show above, the Proteus can dive to 60 feet. The Proteus can also carry up to 24 people. 16 divers can sit on the outside deck of the boat as it submerges and 8 people can watch from inside. These new line of sub-yachts are sure to make Saturdays exciting for some lucky millionaires. More into at the Exomos website, found via Gizmodo

Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley start-up company is reportedly working on an electric car that can accelerate from zero to sixty mph in four seconds and handles like a high end sports car.  The car runs completely on electricity and has a range of 250 miles.  The interesting thing about this car is even though it has the performance of a gas guzzling sports car it would probably be more clean than the electric hybrid cars out today which still relay somewhat on gasoline. Obviously a car like this won’t be cheap and Telsa even admits that.  They say - "once the technology is established, it will lead to less-expensive cars for the ordinary driver."   That tends to hold true with cars today, most of the new technology we see in ordinary cars originated in a concept car or high end sports car.  You can read more over at CNET

1. Google Adsense
Probably the most popular ad program out there, Adsense offers even the smallest websites and publishers an opportunity to make some cash. Adsense is quick and easy to implement - You sign up and then paste a few lines of html code onto your site. Adsense they automatically finds and displays relevant ads to your sites content. Most ads are ppc or Pay Per Click however some pay you per thousand impressions. A valuable tip for Adsense is make sure to make the ads blend in well with your site. Making them goofy colors to stand out has been proven to hurt your ctr (click through rate).

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Nintendo announced on Wednesday that the Wii and DS will have connectivity capabilities.  This will turn the DS into a controller for the Wii as well and allow you to view your DS games on your TV.  In the past Nintendo has embraced connectivity between portables and their consoles so this doesn’t come as much surprise.  What does come as a surprise however is that this opens the door for a patent that has been approved recently that includes an instant messaging system with a fully customizable user profile, contact list, in-game messaging, and proprietary e-mail functionality for the DS and Wii. Nintendo always seems to have another trick up their sleeves.  Via Ubergizmo

Random.org’s heads or tails service is a site devoted to solving everything from domestic disputes to who gets the ball first in Football. It allows you to flip a virtual coin and the outcome is truly random because the system is based on true random numbers and not just pseudo random numbers that are often used in computer programs. You can even chose the type of coin you want to flip, shown above is the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel. We thought it was a pretty cool modern solution for an old fashioned system and I’m sure because of the new soda machine down the hall and lack of change around now we will be using it quite a bit.
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Lala is an interesting new P2P store that allows you to swap CD’s with other users for CD’s you want. It works like this - You sign up and set up a list of the CD’s you have as well as a list of CD’s you want. Lala will automatically send you an email several times a week telling you to send a CD from your have list to a certain user. Lala provides postage paid mailers to ship the CD’s in and by doing so you can build up credits to receive CD’s on your want list.  Lala isn’t free however the service does cost $1 a CD trade plus 49 cents for postage. However this does beat the 9-17$ CD’s are going for in stores these days. In short, the service is a reliable and fast way to trade CD’s and turn your old CD’s into something new. Check it out over at lala.com

We’ve been playing some Gran Turismo 4 recently and when we ran across this we just had to share it. The HotSeat Racer GT is designed to put you in the race car and features a racing seat, pedals, a wheel, and comes with High Powered Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS ready with 5 Satelite speakers plus a powered subwoofer so you can hear the sweet of Ferrari’s as they pass you. The HotSeat Racer GT also comes with an optional TV mount and works with all video game consoles. Unfortunately the chair isn’t guaranteed to stop you from running into walls and spinning out uncontrollably like we often do. Via ubergizmo