Your digital camera sucks. At least it does compared to the new Hasselblad H3DII-50 MS. The moter of all DSLRs is insanely expensive at $34,000, but I'm sure it's totally worth it. Maybe?

This monster camera can now take four consecutive shots, recording full RGB values at each position. I'm sure that justifies the price! Granted, the photos that this guy takes are exquisite, but are they exquisite enough to justify spending 10 times more than a high end DSLR from Sony or Canon? I'm gonna guess not.

Digital Photography Review via Engadget

Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc. debuted their Focus-Fusion-1 dense plasma focus research reactor in mid-October, after nearly 8 years of research and building. In the blink of an eye, this freezer-sized nuclear fusion demo machine can push more than 100 gigawatts of power through a space smaller than a pin point. By comparison, the entire U.S. uses about 430 gigawatts of electricity every hour.

Unlike standard nuclear fission — which involves bombarding a fuel, like plutonium or uranium, with neutrons to break it up into isotopes and releasing massive amounts of energy — the Focus-Fusion-1 bombards boron atoms with neutrons, turning it into helium and even more massive amounts of energy.

Then there's the price. A new nuclear fission plant costs billions, and requires a community willing to have one. Focus-Fusion-1 costs several hundred thousand dollars, and could shrink the land footprint of typical power plants from acres to basement-water-heater-size, while reducing the cost of electricity to 1/10th of our cheapest available power today.

And the end-products are way better. While the waste from fission will make the lab techs glow in the dark and die horrible deaths if exposed, Focus-Fusion-1's waste products will just make them talk funny.

Via FocusFusion.org and Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc.

You must be tired of being jolted out of bed with a honking, clanging, shrieking or buzzing alarm clock. Those days are over with the Shake N Wake Silent Alarm Clock, either adorning your wrist or nestled under your pillow all night, ready to shake you awake with its gentle vibrations. The best part is, if you're getting up earlier than everyone else in the house, the only one awakened will be you.

We do wish they would've rounded off the design a bit, which could get in the way if you're up for some nocturnal spooning with that significant other.Wearing a bulky alarm watch on your wrist is not that comfortable, either. But it must be popular, because this $25 wrist vibrator is currently out of stock at Thumbs Up UK.

Thumbs Up UK, via Chip Chick

Gallery: Shake N Wake gently nudges you out of your slumber (2 images)   view full gallery

Wouldn't it be great if we could all get jetpacks and go flying this weekend? Well, we can. Often thought of as a far-off technology that's yet to be realized, jetpack technology has actually been around for a while now. Sure, some models are just dangerous toys made by kooks, but the truth is jetpacks are for real, and flying today.

If you have $125,000 burning a hole in your pocket, you could buy a jetpack right now from a company called Tecaeromex. There's a dual-fanned contraption that's already gotten off the ground and might soon be available. A water-powered belt is currently zipping around at 45mph. And there's even a turbojet belt in development that might soon let you fly for 9 minutes and travel 11 miles. Continue reading for a tour of three jetpack types soaring today (and one in the works).

The Imation Pro WX is a 1.5TV hard drive that connects to your computer wirelessly via USB. Pretty cool! Although it's not exactly as unique as it claims.

After all, there are plenty of NAS drives that connect to your computer via Wi-Fi, allowing you to share data over a network or backup wirelessly. And with this drive costing $500, you've gotta wonder if it's worth it to do wireless USB instead of regular USB or Wi-Fi. But hey, at least you have the option now.

Businesswire via Gizmodo

If you're still grabbing a bunch of CDs when you go on a road trip, let me introduce you to the 21st century. Or, more accurately, the 2010 Lincoln MKS, whose dashboard is home to the latest car-stereo tech, including a built-in hard disk, satellite radio and Bluetooth music streaming. Lincoln set me up with one of these vehicles last weekend, and after driving around with a tricked-out THX system for a couple of days, I must say it's going to be hard to go back to just CDs and radio again. It's fun to have so much technology at your fingertips, to be sure, but I was often struck by just how useful it all really is.

Continue reading to see what I'm talking about.

Gallery: Lincoln MKS with THX: Road trips get an upgrade (5 images)   view full gallery

Details on the latest ThinkPad from Lenovo are slowly but surely leaking, and it looks like the X100e is gonna be quite interesting. The 3-pound X100e will have an 11.6-inch display, pack an AMD Neo processor, and have a battery life of about 5.1 hours. Built-in webcam and the de riguer wireless are on the long list of features.

Available in black, white, or red, the X100e will retail for under $500. The ThinkPad X100e is positioned to be a viable mix of the portability of a netbook with the performance of a laptop, at an affordable price. What do you think? Will the X100e make you rethink your laptop when it's released in January?

Via UberGizmo

Gallery: Latest Lenovo ThinkPad, the X100e, packs an affordable punch (4 images)   view full gallery

It's always nice to have an iPhone app that you can whip out and blow someone's mind with. Now you can do so literally with the new Blower app, a piece of software designed to allow you to blow out candles or cool your forehead with your smart phone. In much the same way that the Smule app depends on air being forced into the iPhone, the Blower app forces air out of the phone's speaker.

An onscreen graphic shows a virtual turbine revving up every time you use the app, which is accompanied by a somewhat convincing mechanical whine. You can see the app in action here and download the app on the iPhone App store here.

Via Techeblog

You heard about the Maersk Alabama cargo ship before when it made headlines after a daring rescue mounted by Navy snipers. Well, the vessel had another brush-in with the same pirates off the coast of Somalia, and this time managed to evade capture. Not only were the crew complimented by private security personnel, but they also had another ace up their sleeve: a sonic cannon.

Known as a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, the non-lethal weapon is capable of cranking out enough decibels of noise to permanently damage hearing and even muck up one's vision. Hundreds of them are being used in Iraq, though cruise ships and commercial vessels are now being outfitted with LRADs to combat pirates.

It's paid off for the Seaborn Spirit, a cruise ship that was attacked on November 5th, and now for the Alabama.

WSJ and Spiegel Online, via Neatorama

To call the Chumby One an alarm clock is the understatement of the year. This pint-sized internet-connected gem with its bright, sharp and responsive touchscreen goes way beyond that. It connects to your Wi-Fi network, hooking you up to hundreds of widgets that give you live weather updates, show you video, give you access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, connects you to your e-mail, and does over a thousand other things. That's no exaggeration — there's an enormous list of 1,298 applications that have already been created for it. And if you're into clocks, there are 201 faces to choose from, with more on the way. Click Continue Reading for our review.

Gallery: Chumby One, world's best connected alarm clock and a lot more (5 images)   view full gallery

How do you make a gigantic Ford F650 pickup truck even more over-the-top masculine? Add a 7,000HP GE J85 jet engine, of course.

When blasting, the truck is capable of hitting speeds of up to 200MPH. It's also perfectly street legal, provided the engine isn't firing. If it is, well, the cops won't be able to catch you anyways, so who cares?

Frictionator via Neatorama

Having chicken for dinner? Maybe not after you've seen this video of a the Whizbang Chicken Plucker. As disgusting as it is, if you watch the stomach-churning clip to the end, you'll see how well it works. We're just wondering if it pummels the chicken to a pulp, making it more like ground chicken meat.

And to think, you can build one of these mechanical chicken pluckers yourself, using an old washing machine. But it's probably not recommended for pet grooming.

Watching this reminds us of how grateful we are that other people kill and process the food we eat. Let's just hope they make sure the chicken is dead before they put it into the plucker. Ouch.

Via Gizmodo

If you thought a screaming phone call from your downstairs neighbor was the only way to know if you had a water leak, meet AquaOne Technologies' H2Orb. It'll let you know when you've got a leak or an overflow in your toilet, and it won't steal your mail.

The H2Orb electronic water valve attaches directly to the water valve behind the toilet, while a single float sensor hangs inside the toilet tank. When it spots a leak, it shuts off the water and alerts the user of the leak with an audible alarm and an icon displayed its LCD screen. The whole system operates on a single 3V lithium coin cell battery.

While wasting water isn't a huge problem in much of the U.S. yet, as water prices rise in places with limited resources, the H2Orb could save this precious resource and save users hundreds of dollars a year.

Via AquaOne Technologies

Dancepants is a conceptual MP3 player that seems like a straight-up cruel product. Basically, its a music player that only works while you're running. If you stop, the music stops. If you cramp up or feel sick, you've just gotta push through it. You don't have the willpower or self-control to have power over your own music! You're so weak that you need to be punished for stopping your exercise, no matter what!

The one good side to the product is that it's charged up by your motions, so there's no batter to recharge. At least in theory. I mean, this product doesn't actually exist, so who knows if that would really work.

DesignBoom via Gizmodo

Waterproof cameras are great for the ski slope or running the white water, but they're always too bulky. Until now. Besides being the thinnest rugged camera in the world at just .78 inches, the Casio EX-G1 can take a hell of a beating — even if you drop it from 7 feet onto solid ground or dunk it into 10 feet of water.

Yeah, be careful with that shock-resistant claim, Casio — we have ways of putting that to the test (look what happened to the last big shot who said its product would survive similar rough treatment).

Besides all that toughness, we think this 12.1 megapixel shooter is pretty spiffy looking with its asymmetrical shape. It brings the performance, too, quickly ready to shoot from a standing start, giving you a clear view of the proceedings with its 2.5-inch viewscreen. Look for it in black or red next month for $300.

Check it out from various angles in our NEW gallery format!

Via Casio

Gallery: Casio EX-G1: world's slimmest toughcam (5 images)   view full gallery

The Army has a new laser-based 3D mapping robot, one that can create imagery of a surrounding area using, yes, lasers. It uses a mirror-based LIDAR system that "bounces a laser off a rapidly rotating mirror and gleans environmental information from how long it takes for each pulse to bounce back." Oh, OK!

What's really good about this for the Army is that it does what normally requires a $100,000 setup for about 1/5th of the cost. And what saves the Army money saves taxpayers money, at least in theory. So hey, thanks, robot!

Technology Review via Engadget

Croatian designer Robert Matysiak has come up with a unique take on the robot-aesthetic with his new series of Robolamps. The somewhat unwieldy lamps aren't necessarily the most practical household items, but for robot enthusiasts it doesn't get any better than illumination that doubles as robo-totem.

With otherworldly names for his Robolamp creations such as "Okona," "Saga" and "Ongho," Matysiak has yet to establish a major sales outlet for his creations. If you're interested in populating your home with these lamp-bots you can see more of his selection here and contact him directly here.

Via Crave

It's not often that a gadget makes you think to yourself, "I wish Phoebe Buffay were around to see this. Frolicat* is a laser show for your furball friend that looks a bit like a bowling pin and, thanks to the clever juxtaposition of a red laser and a mirror, allows your cat to go batshit crazy round the house.

Retailing for $17.25 on Amazon, Frolicat has won a slew of awards at various pet expos (in full, Most Awarded New Product, Best in Show Cat Category — excellent punnage there, campers — and Best In Show Cat Category — ditto — in the Becker Best of Show by Marty Beckerzzzzzzzzzzz sorry, zoned out there, narcolepsy strikes again.) It's so cheap, I'm almost tempted to get one to see what my dog makes of it.

*Fro-li-cat, whaaaaat aaaare they feeding youuuuuuu?

Via Technabob