Something caused this wind turbine in the UK to break. It could have been any of a million things, all very rational. But residents of the village of Conisholme, in Lincolnshire are having none of that. They know that aliens did it. And they don’t need any stinkin’ Men In Black, Mulder & Scully, Leonard Nimoy, Agents from Majestic or Alien corpses to prove it.

They claim that they saw bright lights in the sky “like an octopus’ tentacles” right around the time that the blades were damaged. Others claim that the damage was the result of a “cow-sized ice chunk” and even a “robot stealth bomber” was blamed. According to The Guardian, the mysterious lights were most likely from fireworks being shot off for one of their 80 year old residents. But what are you going to believe, something rational, or stories about aliens in robot stealth bombers?

It was previously announced that Samsung’s Armani Night Effect would be available for 300€ on November 2008 in Europe. As for other regions, we have no idea. There’s some good news for people in the UK however. The Samsung Armani Night Effect is available now in the UK, from January 9th 2009.

The phone comes with 2.2-inch AMOLED display screen, 3.2-megapixel camera, 120 MB internal memory, microSD card slot and supports HSDPA/GSM network. It’s by no means the top of the range in handsets, but it’s focus is on the beauty of simple design and ease of use.

HM Revenue & Customs has released an official report warning that “hundreds of imported counterfeit game consoles seized at UK freight depots were found to have been supplied with potentially dangerous power adapters.” Most of the consoles had been purchased at a huge discount from Asian websites that claimed to sell “genuine Nintendo products” for over 50% off. Yes, these fakes can kill you.

Nintendo has already confirmed that the DS / DS Lites are counterfeit, and the included power adapters were also labeled “potentially dangerous, since they had not been electronically tested and do not meet strict UK safety standards.” The moral of the story is that parents need to stop buying their kids these cheap-ass imitations.

According to the TimesOnline the lack of High-tech garbage cans in UK cities have pedestrians complianing. But not for long. Next year hundreds of bomb-resistant bins with “blast intelligent technology” and LCD screens displaying the news will be placed throughout London’s financial district.

Many bins had to be removed during the 1980s at the height of the IRA bombings as bombs were regularly left in them. So, London has been without places to put their garbage for nearly 30 years? I thought that’s what the BBC was for? I kid. I kid. Though putting the news on garbage bins has a certain irony to it.

When you think Nokia, you think cellphones. But now the cell phone maker is getting into the bench biz. Nokia is setting up musical benches throughout the United Kingdom, in ‘secret locations’, in order to promote their Comes With Music audio service. Each bench will feature three integrated handsets with headphones so passers-by can sample music.

Apparently the track lists will mirror the region where the bench is deployed, so you would get the Beatles in Liverpool and say Black Sabbath in Birmingham. You probably already want to steal the bench since it’s neat and all. You can’t. Each will be under close supervision by a security guard and a “performer”.

Ask anybody and they’ll tell you Apple invented the iPod. Not entirely correct according to Apple themselves, who has credited a UK man as author of some of the original patents that outlined how today’s PMPs work. Kane Kramer had no idea about iPods back then, but he sketched out a rudimentary media player in 1979. Sadly, financial difficulties in 1988 meant he couldn’t renew the patent and so it entered the public domain. Apple then used the concept as evidence in their legal case against Burst.com, who were accusing the company of patent infringement and looking for a slice of iProfits.

Kramer’s PMP was called the IXI, and stored only 3.5 minutes of audio and oddly enough it even looks just a bit like what eventually became the iPod. The inventor had to endure ten hours being questioned by Burst’s legal team, who had claimed that the intellectual property of four patents they held was being used by Apple without payment or agreement. Obviously now that Apple has fessed up, Kramer is looking at some kind of compensation. Apple did give Kramer a free iPod that apparently broke after several months. Sadly if not for the lawsuit Kramer may have lived in relative obscurity and we would never have known.

Sheds are not gadgets, but sheds do house and hold many of our gadgets. Over at an interesting site called Readers Sheds they like to showcase all kinds of sheds.

One that comes up again and again is the Tardis. They have literally appeared everywhere throughout the UK. Apparently these sheds are also capable of being bigger on the inside and get frequently attacked by Daleks.

We had already seen some iPhone price cuts overseas for what many felt was to help clear out the non-3G inventory of phones in Europe, but now it appears that O2 has complete run out of stock with the 8GB and 16GB iPhones. We’ve still seen no official word on the release date, price or specs of a 3G iPhone but we can’t imagine it could be far off now that the inventory in the UK is depleted.

O2

Stun guns that look like phones are nothing new, but they usually look pretty crappy. That’s not the case with this Sony Ericsson W700. It looks normal, but has a stun button that delivers a 900,000-volt electric shock via two small metal prongs.

British Police recently confiscated this W700 phone and it’s the first time we are hearing about a Sony Ericsson W700 stun gun. The price seems to be between $50 and $100. Interestingly, UK police use 50,000V stun guns. The police were shocked to find it.
The 21-year-old man was charged with aggravated burglary of a business and possessing an offensive weapon.