Check out almost any classical violinist, and you might notice that the instruments they use are based on designs first created over 300 years ago. World class players are even willing to pay millions to own an original instrument from the great 17th century Italian masters like Antonio Stradivari.

If you wanted to cross an ocean at great speed you wouldn't go looking for a 17th century ship, so why do we still use 300 year old violins? Surely by using modern design techniques and 21st century materials, we can create a better sounding instrument than a bunch of Italian guys using old bits of wood and some varnish.

That's the thinking behind the Gavari Semiacoustic Violin from Austrian designer Gerda Hopfgartner. Working with a Viennese luthier, Hopfgartner took her inspiration from modern yachts, as well as "feminine curves and sundry corset outlines of the Baroque, Rococo, and Biedermeier ages" whatever that means. While the results certainly look cool and modern, I'm still waiting for a verdict on its sonic performance.

The Gavari violin is being shown this weekend at the Tokyo Designers Week exhibition.

The "Opera," designed by Belgian architect Axel Enthoven, takes obvious cues from the the Sydney Opera House in Australia. We can't fault it for that, either — it's downright gorgeous.

It's just as luxurious inside as it is out, according to the designer:

"…every conceivable luxury: two first class and electrically adjustable beds that become one with a single simple movement, hot and cold water, ceramic toilet, LED lighting and a mobile hob and barbecue, for example, for cooking outside."

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak shows us that a nixie tube watch is probably a better idea in theory than it is in practice. It's so bulky. Sure looks like a lot of trouble he has to go through just to change the time zone. Never mind that, if they could just make these things a whole lot smaller, we'd really be lusting after one.

Woz also talks about how his fellow passengers start to get worried when he adjusts his nixie watch, which to the uninitiated might look like a crude bomb triggering device. Also of interest is how he can smuggle a ceramic knife on board an aircraft without being arrested. We weren't aware he flew commercial.

Via Medgadget

It's hard to tell what the universe looks like, especially since it takes billions of years for the light from most of it to reach us. It's even more difficult to visualize the 70% of the matter in the universe that's invisible.

That's why scientists bring out the heavy iron, IBM Roadrunner, the world's fastest supercomputer, to simulate crazy stuff like dark energy and dark matter for us. It's crunching through data simulating galaxies full of trillions of stars at a sustained speed of faster than one petaflop, or 1 quadrillion calculations per second.

The remarkable power of Roadrunner pushes computational throughput beyond anything ever used before by three orders of magnitude, according to scientists working on the Roadrunner Universe Model. The result is the best look we've ever had at the origins of the mysterious unseen universe. The images will get better — there's a 20-petaflop computer coming in 2012.

Via HPC Wire

Are there any objects you can trust these days? With cameras and their associated gadgetry getting smaller and smaller, virtually anything can be spying on you at any time. Just look at this spying Coke can, for example.

These fake Coke cans have a tiny camera and DVR built inside, as well as a fake bottom that can be removed to reveal a USB port and on-off switch. They also have a remote control so they can be started and stopped from afar. If this is a camera, what else is hiding spy equipment? Maybe it's best not to think about it.

ChinaGrabber via Technabob

Halloween is about candy and fun, sure. But it's really about scaring the pants off your friends for your own entertainment. And why not use technology to help you do so? Here are 7 gadgets that will help you make Halloween into a night of pure terror.

Could the best Halloween costumes be the ones made by fans of old-school games? From titles as ubiquitous as Tetris to obscurities like Day of the Tentacle, this list has it all. Just about the only one that's lacking here is Pong — although, dance too much in that nylon costume and you may well find yourself being batted away by anyone you get too close to.

A quarter-century after Ghostbusters hit the silver screen, it's still as iconic as a collosal Stay-Puft man thundering its way through Manhattan. Especially at Halloween. And if you're a man called Depot Devoid, the only way to go for your spooky costume is to think, "What would Venkman and Spengler wear?"

The Eugene, Oregon, resident upgraded last year's Halloween outfit with a seriously spanky proton pack (as well as swapping his blue coveralls for a pilot's flight suit) that does pretty much everything the original Ghostbusters' proton packs did — except, that is, slime evil ghosties. He used an Arduino, as well as a red and a green laser to simulate the streams. Don't cross 'em on Saturday, Mr Devoid!

Via Instructables

Fans of made-up games shown on TV shows like Star Trek and the like will probably get a kick out of the new IQ Rock (the CORNER Igneous Rock). The futuristically designed object looks like a Rubik's Cube drawn from an alternate universe.

While the makers claim that the game will somehow improve your IQ, it's more likely to serve as an interesting conversation piece for fellow sci-fi obsessives. You can pick up your IQ rock for just $17 here.

Via Brando

Among the plethora of shiny new Windows 7 PCs, laptops and netbooks bowing amid much ballyhoo in the last week are a handful of models with touchscreens.

A gimmick, right? Touchscreens are fine for cellphones and maybe a tablet, but for a desktop PC? What additional flexibility could a touchscreen offer that a keyboard, mouse or scratchpad can't? And won't your computer screen soon be covered with finger oil smudges and streaks? Touchscreens will be a boon to screen-wipey makers, but no one else, right?

I had a chance to reach out and touch touchscreen PCs from Sony and HP over the last couple of weeks, and I've come to the conclusion that for desktop PCs, touchscreens are the most important input innovation since the mouse. Within a couple of years, touchscreens will be a pervasive feature on a majority of new Windows PCs.

But what about Apple? After all, Jobs & Co. legitimized touch as an acceptable interface for the masses with the iPhone. But Apple's new iMac line, as pretty as it is, doesn't include touchscreens.

The implications of Windows touch/iMac no touch after these commercial messages.

Translation is tricky enough, but an app that turns your spoken English into Spanish in real-time? It sounds like something out of Star Trek, and that's exactly what the Jibbigo app for the iPhone claims to do. We tried it out, and we like what we see.

At a glance: Jibbigo would be perfect for any iPhone owner who likes to travel to Spanish-speaking countries. It does well with vital phrases you'd need, such as asking for directions for specific things. It also does it all while offline, so you really only need service for updates. Its price is probably its greatest barrier to entry, and there are a few things it won't do. Click Continue to find out what.

Now you can give up air guitar and start playing your shirt. This ThinkGeek Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt includes its own mini amplifier (that actually goes to 11), and when you strum the shirt with the magnetic pick, it rips out some raucous samples of distorted-sounding guitar chords.

While you can't thrash with individual notes like Eddie Van Halen, you can knock yourself out with 15 different power cords, covering all the major keys. All you need to do is learn where to activate each of the chords located on the shirt's "frets," press your finger there and start strumming away.

Suddenly, you're a guitarist. Kinda. Don't worry, you'll usually only need to remember three chords, anyway. But hey, this $30 playable T-shirt is almost a real musical instrument. Sure beats Guitar Hero. How about an (almost) all-shirt band? Let's watch, listen and learn:

Oh boy, I was waiting for this. Whenever NASA has a launch, there's always some cool photography to follow.

What you're looking at is called a "shock egg," or the Prandtl-Glauert singularity, or a shockwave that compresses air and forces the vapor out of it. You see this kind of stuff a lot in photographs trailing behind fighter jets, but it's especially awesome when it happens to rockets. According to NASA, the shot was taken by one Scott Andrews, who used a Canon of some sort.

This shot is too pretty for the small version up above. Click Continue and I'll give it the big screen treatment, as well as provide some words from NASA.

Inventor Roger Shawyer's antigravity drive could bring George Jetson's flying car into reality. Shawyer says he's working on a version of his superconductor-packing Emdrive that can generate 300 pounds of thrust using a 6 kW input. The idea is to silently lift vehicles, spacecraft or missiles with the Emdrive, and then propel those projectiles forward using other means such as rocket or jet engines.

Is this mad scientist and his antigravity drive for real? We'll see. Scientists all over the world are squabbling over whether it's possible to use the Emdrive's high-power microwaves inside a closed system to create thrust from electrical power. Chinese scientists are building one of the drives to be tested by the end of this year, and the British National Space Centre is investigating his claims — but an Australian researcher calls the inventor a "crackpot" and a "charlatan."

Undaunted, Shawyer is moving forward with his plan to build an unmanned demonstration vehicle, defying gravity thanks to four of his Emdrives. Shawyer says those four modules will silently lift the 1000-pound vehicle, and it'll be propelled forward with jet engines, reaching a speed of 230 knots. This tech could also have scary military implications, allowing weapons to be launched with no exhaust plume, making them undetectable. In 10 years the scientist wants to build a space plane that can make the 10,000 mile trip from London to Sydney in under three hours, or take 40 tons of cargo to the moon in four days.

Here's a video of the Emdrive in action: