The idea behind ferrofluid is to take a liquid that has magnetic properties and introduce a magnetic current through it. The field will then interact with the fluid, pulling and pushing it along the lines of current. When it’s in motion ferrofluid is an amazing thing to look at as it twists and distorts in patterns, looking almost like it’s some kind of alien life form related to The Blob.

It probably should come as no surprise that someone has combined ferrofluid with music and created a new form of art. Morpho Towers: Two Standing Spirals is an art installation where the ferrofluid moves independently to the music and not under human direction. The result looks like a pair of Christmas trees that the T-1000 from “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” might own as branches and spikes appear on the “trunks”, break off and reform as the …

The latest laptop in Toshiba’s Qosmio line has been sighted. The futuristic looking Qosmio G40 is getting a facelift from its predecessors, changing the keyboard base color for a silvery art deco angular finish.

Inside the beast there’s an Intel 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB of RAM, HDMI 1.3 output and two 200GB hard drives. A major change is the inclusion of a HD-DVD-R so that you’ll finally be able to burn your own HD-DVDs. The unit’s 17 inch widescreen display has a max resolution of 1920 x 1200.

Since all we’ve got to go on for the Qosmio G40 are leaked photos and specs at this point, take all intel with a grain of salt until the official word comes down. That said, supposedly Toshiba will let this baby fly loose onto …

This is one of the oddest yet appealing tech concepts seen yet: a laptop designed specifically for the needs of today’s on-the-go desk jockey. The Cario Notebook was designed for the mobile worker, someone who could use a laptop while on call but in the confines of their mobile office (meaning their automobile.)

The notebook is envisioned so that it can hook up to the car’s controls so the user can turn on the A/C or adjust the temperature all through the laptop instead of, you know, reaching over 5 inches and fiddling with the dials on the center console. According to the designers the Cario would only be allowed to operate in heads up display mode when the vehicle was in motion, eliminating the temptation to play a quick round of “Half-Life 2″ while stuck in traffic.

The thin design certainly has visual appeal …

According to a Bloomberg report, sales of the Nintendo Wii Japan continue to dominate over its Playstation rival.

Back in January SlipperyBrick reported that Wii sales were already significantly ahead in Japan after its launch on December 2nd, even though the PS3 launched about 3 weeks earlier on November 11th.

As of March 25th, Nintendo has reportedly sold 1.95 million Wii game console units in Japan, which is more than twice as many compared to 812,000 PS3 consoles sold by Sony in Japan since each of their respective launch dates.

The PS3 is a little more pricey game console, however. Actually sales yen makes the difference not quite as great with the PS3 having 47.6 billion yen in sales versus Nintendo’s 48.7 billion yen during the same period.

[Image via BBC news]

Two months after releasing its first docking station for Apple’s iPod, Sony is back to show off a new adapter that connects your ‘pod to Bravia home theaters. The Digital Media Port iPod Dock, a.k.a. TDM-IP1, acts as the middleman between the two technology titans, a move that Sony had been putting off for some time.

The sleek black appearance weighs about 220 grams and is 90 x 78 x 65 mm, so it doesn’t take up too much space somewhere close to your TV. The TDM-IP1 is compatible with the more recent iPods (like the first and second generation nanos and the fourth and fifth gen iPods/iPod minis), but does anyone still have an older model kicking around anyway?

Sony has priced the adapter at a penny under $100 which doesn’t make it the cheapest iPod adapter out there, but …

Apple has uncovered the specs behind its two new Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro and they’re drool worthy. The company is offering two models, an 8-core or quad-core one, and at different processing speeds.

The higher end 8-core unit consists of two Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors and has a processor clocking in at 3.0 GHz while the two Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors model comes in three processing speeds, 2.0 GHz, 2.66 GHz and 3.0 GHz. Apple claims that the latter speed demon runs up to two times faster than the Power Mac G5 Quad already on the market.

Customers have the option of selecting from three different graphics card options (NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, a ATI Radeon X1900 XT or a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT). You can slide in up to four hard drives offering a healthy 3 TB of disc …

How long has it been since you’ve come across an upright arcade gaming machine that hosts Pac-Man, Gauntlet, Galaga or Joust? The Apex Arcade Machine has those games and 137 more built into the 69 inch tall console with a 19″ TFT monitor.

Even though the design of the machine is very arcade-reminiscent, the software that runs it is a little more up to date. The 140 games actually run on an Intel based system running Windows XP Home which can be interfaced with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Instead of a slot for quarters, games and software can be loaded through a DVD-RW drive in the front and stored on a 160GB hard drive. Speakers and plenty of expansion space come with no extra charge and make the Apex Arcade gaming machine ready to go, out of the box.

This looks to be a …

If you’re looking for a device that will allow you to stream wirelessly the songs you have in your phone or digital music player straight into your home entertainment system, Kyocera’s Bluetooth Music Gateway may fit your bill.

Measuring 87 mm x 74 mm x 20 mm and weighing just 3 ounces and about the size of a mobile phone, the Gateway plugs into your system’s RCA port and then plugs into your music player via the headset jack so you can hear your tunes aloud in your home. If you have a MP3 or phone equipped with Stereo Bluetooth, you can stream the songs wirelessly to the Gateway. You can also send the music (or listen to the radio or TV audio too) to any wireless Bluetooth enabled headset speakers and listen that way too, if you’ve got someone else living with …

The military has been on something of a PR campaign with showing off its latest 21st century combat weapon, a mobile truck that can direct a blast of directed energy at a person up to two kilometers away causing them near-instant waves of pain. The so-called “pain gun” is technically described as the Active Denial System (ADS) and has been called the “Holy Grail of crowd control” by soldiers.

After being stationed by the driver, the square satellite dish mounted on top of the Army Humvee is aimed at the target by use of a video monitor and joystick. After the operator switches the unit on an invisible stream of millimeter waves (at 95 GHz) is directed at the target, exciting the water molecules on the body and rapidly causing the sensation that their …

Rumors are swishing around the grape vine (having originated on the Think Secret rumor website) that Apple may be hatching a secret plan to release its next iteration of Mac OS X, Leopard, in June.

Now before you go throwing a bucket of cold water on the story, you do remember that the iPhone is slated to debut in June, possibly even June 11. Apple CEO Steve Jobs told attendees at last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference that Leopard would be on store shelves in the spring of 2007, and summer does fall on June 21. If a mid-June rollout is in the cards for Leopard that doesn’t give much time for Apple to get the word out and start building some hype before the iPhone steals all of the attention.

Apple hasn’t confirmed all of the features that Leopard will have, but we …

For those times when you want to lounge in a nice hot bath but don’t want to reach all the way up to flick on your iPod shower speaker unit, take a look at this floater.

This is the Victor XA-AW33 from JVC, a digital audio player (DAP) that floats serenely around you in your tub as you rest and relax. The XA, or as JVC has christened it, the “healing player”, has 256 MB of memory and a SD port and weighs just 260 grams so it won’t displace much water.

The 4 AA batteries that you need to run it will give you about 15 hours of play time. Supported file formats include MP3, WMA and WMA DRM and it also has a built-in radio too so you can hear your local stations. Dimensions are …

Today in London EMI CEO Eric Nicoli and Apple CEO Steve Jobs held a press conference to announce that EMI will be offering their entire digital catalog of music to consumers DRM-free. That’s right, DRM-free.

If you’re not familiar with this topic, that does not mean that the music is free, in fact it will cost slightly more, but it does mean that there are no digital rights management rules associated with the songs when you download them, which restrict which devices or how many devices that the songs can reside on. This, according to Jobs, will be no different than buying a CD and ripping it yourself.

This is really big news in the digital music industry. For quite some time now music download services like Apple iTunes have been getting some heat due to the …

Some pictures of the new Sidekick ID from T-Mobile found it’s way into Engadget’s hands via a friendly tipster who found the pictures on a rebate form on the T-Mobile website. The images show the Sidekick sporting three different solid colors of blue, pink and yellow, which seem a little bland compared the recent releases of the limited edition D-Wade and LRG.

Rumors have been floating that the Sidekick ID design will have less “frills” that its Sidekick 3 predecessors by lacking Bluetooth, memory expansion, an MP3 player or a camera. The Sidekick ID will however have all the communication wonders that the SK3 boasts such as IM clients, email, a web browser and phone capabilities, of course.

The simple design along with the rebate indicate that these Sidekick’s might be targeting the more price-sensitive shoppers who would …

The folks over at CNET seem to have gotten an exact iPhone release date of June 11th just by simply calling and asking. Apparently through calling Cingular’s customer service last Thursday they were transferred to sales and given the date. Who knew that all we had to do was ask?

We’ve known a more approximate date since the iPhone was announced at Macworld, but nothing quite this specific. This date also just happens to coincide with the Apple World Wide Developers Conference going on in San Francisco that week which adds a little more validity to the June 11th release date, which incidentally is not far off of the hoaxed June 15th launch rumored last month.

Upon release Apple will be offering two versions of the iPhone, a 4GB model for $499 and an 8GB for $599, exclusively offered …