Effects shop fulfills amputee's mermaid dream

Good: double amputee gets prosthetic legs so she can walk. Better: double amputee gets realistic-looking mermaid tail so she can swim. Awesome: It's developed and built by Weta, the special-effects company that did all the work for the Lord of the Rings movies, as well as King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia series.

Nadya Vessey's legs were amputated below the knee when she was a child due to illness. At one point, reports Stuff magazine, a child asked her what happened to her legs and she told him she was a mermaid. The idea stuck with her, so she wrote to Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, two years ago asking for a mermaid tail. To her surprise, they said they'd do it.
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Prototype SunCat batteries enable solar charging

Solar-powered phones like the Samsung Blue Earth are great eco-friendly concepts in theory. But let's be frank with ourselves. We won't see these sun-worshipping devices replacing mainstream handsets in the near future. Meanwhile, we still have a mountain of gadgets that need to be juiced regularly, which is why designer Knut Karlsen's idea of integrating flexi solar cells onto rechargeable batteries could be a more immediate solution to reducing our carbon footprint.
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Time-aid watch syncs with clocks near (and far away from) you

Now here's a concept timepiece that could literally stand the test of time.

The brainchild of designers Christophe Koch and Lea Kobeli, Time-aid is a custom-made wristwatch that relies on the imaginary Timex clock network. In short, it is capable of displaying clock faces around the world via a live satellite feed. If you are in London, you could be looking at the Big Ben on your wrist, or the tower clock at the Star Ferry terminal if you are in Hong Kong.

The solar-powered concept is waterproof up to 5,000m and makes use of a wraparound assembly that's purportedly indestructible. That's not all. You also get to tattoo your name, birth date to make Time-aid a personalized timepiece.

Of course, don't expect this to be available soon, but with the Time-aid scoring a big win at the "Timex2145: The Future of Time" competition, we figure someone at Timex could be looking to bring this in production sooner than you think.
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Rinspeed to debut transforming electric concept car

Swiss automaker Rinspeed will debut at the 2009 Geneva auto show an electric concept car that changes shape to conform to the number of passengers on board.

The iChange is a lightweight, 4,280mm (approximately 14 feet) EV sports car with a teardrop-like silhouette designed to maximize fuel efficiency for the single passenger. But with the push of a button, the sloped rear of the car pops up to accommodate two additional passengers, if needed.

The concept sports car forgoes doors, opting for a very ADA-unfriendly clamshell roof. Rinspeed is obviously assuming that in the future, women will no longer wear skirts.

Proving that efficient doesn't have to be boring, the iChange is equipped with three lithium ion batteries, producing a total of 150kW of power that propels the car from 0 to 100 kmh in 4.2 seconds and achieves a maximum speed of 220kmh (about 136mph). The car charges in 3 hours and has a maximum range of approximately 90km.
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IBM's bullet-dodging bionic armor patent, wow

About the only bullet dodging we know of is the kind some people engage in to get out of sticky office situations. Now, thanks to a computer company, it's gone and filed a patent (US 7484451) for a bionic body armor that can dodge the real stuff. And it does all this in a most interesting manner--by delivering a shock to the wearer's appropriate muscles to cause a superfast reflexive move away from the bullet's trajectory. Can technology ever calculate faster than a speeding bullet? Who cares? Imagine mere mortals like us able to do a Neo a la Matrix, with the bionic body armor dictating our moves. Just in case, we'd recommend slapping on the new Knight Rider's special bullet-resistant coating as backup. Even better if this can dodge paintballs. Though there'll be no dodging the expected sticker shock if this bionic armor ever rolls off the assembly line.
Via Tech Fragments

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