It’s not what I would call a Bond-caliber flipping license plate, but the system that a Queens truck driver hooked up in his rig is chock-full of ghetto ingenuity. Apparently, Orlando Payano mounted his license plate on a hinged piece of metal then ran an attached cable through his cigarette lighter. When he went through a toll booth, all he had to do is pull the cord and abracadabra! No license plate caught on camera.

Unfortunately for him, a Port Authority officer was on the lookout for altered license plates at that very moment and saw Payano pull off his magic trick. Like most shirtless criminals pinned to the hood of vehicles, Payano denied everything despite overwhelming evidence. He claims that he didn’t have a cable system in the rig and his EZ-Pass tag should have taken care of the toll. The pictures above seem to refute this claim, but he may retain a lawyer to try and fight the charges nonetheless. Yeah, good luck with that, dude. [Daily News via Core77]

Via [gizmodo]

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iPhone Election ‘08 App: Watch Your Faith in America Get Destroyed in Real Time [IPhone Apps]

If you’re ever pulled away from the constant spew of talking heads, meaningless statistics and rhetorical bile parading itself as election news in order to fill the gaping 24/7 news cycle—you know, to do something other than wallow in political witticisms not half as sharp as as Jon Stewart’s—the 99-cent Election ‘08 iPhone app will ease your withdrawal with slickly presented, constantly updating poll trackers, (theoretical) electoral vote counts (Obama’s winning), and other stats by say, from the perspective of whoever you’re rooting for—Scarlett Johanssen’s email buddy, or the first candidate to successfully employ Emperor Palpatine’s everlasting life clone technology. [iTunes via CG]

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Xbox 360 Price Cuts Officially Arrive Sept. 5, Now Cheaper Than a Wii [Xbox 360]

The across-the-board Xbox 360 price cuts rumored since last month just got official from Microsoft. The standard and Elite get a solid $50 drop, while the Arcade plummets a whole $80, making the 360 officially cheaper than a Wii. The new pricing scheme is:

• Xbox 360 Arcade - $199
• Xbox 360 - $299
• Xbox 360 Elite - $399

Still, Elite all the way, baby. [Kotaku]

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Video: 2100 Barrel Paintgun Sprays Out Mona Lisa in a Quarter of a Second
When the MythBusters shill for the Man, they do it in style. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman were hired by Nvidia to demonstrate the speed differences between CPU and GPU processing. First, we see the pedestrian “CPU” in the form…

When the MythBusters shill for the Man, they do it in style. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman were hired by Nvidia to demonstrate the speed differences between CPU and GPU processing.

First, we see the pedestrian “CPU” in the form of a one-pixel-at-a-time paint gun. Painfully slowly, a smiley face trickles onto the canvas.

Next, the “GPU”, represented by the truly awesome “2100 massively parallel barrel processors”, a big paint gun with 2100 barrels spitting paint all at once. The results is a pixelized rendition of the Mona Lisa sprayed onto a wood-reinforced canvas. Total time elapsed? 275 ms. Watch to the very end to see the slow-mo version.

Mythbusters duo launches new GeForce, codenamed Mona Lisa [TG Daily Via BBG]

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A group of Stanford students has programmed an artificial-intelligence system enabling helicopters to “watch and learn” complex flight stunts. The Stanford team calls the method “apprenticeship learning,” which involves a system recording an expert human-operator flying a automobile and then…

A group of Stanford students has programmed an artificial-intelligence system enabling helicopters to “watch and learn” complex flight stunts.

The Stanford team calls the method “apprenticeship learning,” which involves a system recording an expert human-operator flying a car and then mimicking the pilot’s maneuvers using a combination of GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers.

The students envision that firefighters will be able to use the autonomous helicopters to map out hot spots in wild fires. They could also come in handy for detecting land mines in warfare situations.

Stanford’s ‘autonomous’ helicopters instruct themselves to fly [Via Gizmodo]

Via [wired.com]

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You were up late working last night, and the alarm is already going off, slicing through your ears directly into your throbbing head. The good news? Your alarm clock is the Gun O’Clock, and your bedside table holds its IR pistol that shoots the alarm quiet. The bad news? The gun only works on the clock. Maybe this day is a good day to try out some counseling. [Bandai via Dvice]

Via [gizmodo]

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LG Sets Price for BD300 Netflix Blu-ray Player: A Reasonable $400 [CEDIA 2008]

LG kicks off the press conferences here at CEDIA in Denver. After teasing the Netflix-streaming LG BD300 Blu-ray player, a double threat if I ever saw one, they finally told us the price today: $400, well below the $500 mark LG was aiming to stay under. (Keep in mind, the Netflix box by Roku is, by itself, $100.) LG states the BD300 will be appearing in stores by end of this month or first week in October.

Some added BD300 specs:
Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding
USB Media Plus - MP3, JPEG, etc.
BD-Live and BonusView
Full 1080p output including DVD upconverting
Netflix current content: 12,000 movies and Television shows streaming

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We covered the Gorenje Made for iPod fridge and the iGorenje home appliance program at IFA last Sunday. I’ve spent some time with both and I like what I see, although I’ve some doubts about how practical this can be.

Like someone pointed out before, the life of a fridge is very long, so the iPod dock would probably become obsolete down the line. I also don’t see the point of having your fridge acting as your amplifier: as you can see in the video, you can connect extra speakers to it. The Wi-Fi connection and iGorenje program makes a lot more sense, as it can be expanded in the future to accommodate new appliances and functionality. Plus, it is device independent. Even though you can use any device, however, the interface has clearly been optimized for the iPod touch and the iPhone, which is the handheld they were using for their demos. According to them, they’ve some kind of collaboration contract with Apple, so Steve or someone else in Cupertino must be a fan of the brand.

The iGorenje system works quite well. It uses the Wi-Fi network in your home to connect your web-browsing device to your oven and washing machine, and when it’s released later this year you will be able to control all Gorenje appliances.

iGorenje’s interface is very easy to work out. Just touch the function, choose the options you want and click Begin. The appliance will get the parameters, begin working and give you feedback in realtime, back to your iPod. For the oven, you can begin from a recipe, a wizard that allows you to set the oven according to the kind of food and weight, and a custom program, which can be easily created in iGorenje and then stored. The process is fully automatic, so if you’ve something that needs to be cooked first slowly, then a really high heat in the last minutes, it will handle it for you.

For the washing machine, it’s exactly the same thing. This time you’ve different programs according to the clothes you put in, making it very simple to operate. At last, because washing machine user interface seem to be developed by sadists.

But while the whole thing seems polished and works well, do we really need this kind of sophistication in our kitchens? I may be too old school, but I like too cook in the kitchen, not by remote control. I like the idea of programming the oven in an simple way, even though I will still be controlling it myself. What do you think? Is this the kind of evolution each day home tasks need? [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

Via [gizmodo]

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