Richard Rawlings of Gas Monkey Garage has spent years turning rusted wrecks into rolling works of art. His team loves big ideas that take cars to new places. A six-wheeled Ferrari Testarossa is a big idea. Stretching the classic 80s wedge into a six-axle beast would combine Italian style with American excess. But what started as a handshake deal between Rawlings and builder Alex Danton has turned into a public feud over money, credit and unfinished metal.
ASUS introduced a device 15 years ago that blurred the line between an input tool and a standalone machine. The Eee Keyboard PC housed a full Windows computer within the body of what appeared to be a standard keyboard. After a long wait, it was released in mid-2010, just as netbooks were reigning supreme in portable computing and businesses were pursuing ever-smaller footprints. For $600 ($893 today), you got a silver wedge weighing more than 2 pounds, ready to connect to a TV or monitor for web browsing, movie playback, or light work. ASUS referred to it as a living room companion, something to use for quick chores without having to pull out a whole laptop.
Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works engineering team knocked it out of the park earlier this month. An F-22 Raptor hurtling through the Nevada sky at breakneck speeds was communicating with an unmanned drone from inside the cockpit. The pilot flew the fighter with ease, commanding the drone’s motions from the plane’s seat. This test flight was a first for a fifth-generation aircraft, since it seized full control of a loyal wingman while still airborne.
Fossibot builds phones for people who push devices to their limits, and the F113 takes that to the extreme. This thing weighs 500 g (1.1 lbs), with a body made of reinforced plastic and rubber that can withstand drops from 2 meters and submersion in water up to 1.5 meters. IP68 / IP69K certifications for water and dust resistance, and MIL-STD-810H for extremes mean you can take this to construction sites, hike through mud or rain without breaking a sweat. A side-mounted strap lets you hold it like a tool, which comes in handy when you need both hands free but still want quick access.
On July 30, 1987, Bandai launched Karaoke Studio in Japan, making it the first of its kind and a genuine pioneer in the area of karaoke games. TOSE manufactured and published this Nintendo Famicom bundle, which included much more than just a cartridge. It came with an additional piece of hardware, a large device that slips directly into your Famicom’s cartridge bay, as well as a special grey microphone that plugs right in. Guinness World Records has even labeled it the first karaoke video game, and it’s easy to understand why, with its super-accurate voice detection system and very excellent song collection.
Porsche recently handed over the keys to a fully customized Panamera Turbo Sonderwunsch that had been created just for one lucky owner in Dubai. This bespoke beauty is a one-of-a-kind vehicle designed from the ground up to suit the owner’s specific preferences. And this isn’t the only one-of-a-kind; the company’s Sonderwunsch program creates all sorts of interesting vehicles for customers who enjoy getting involved in every detail, from the paint job to the inside trim.
Black Friday shoppers are rushing through the aisles, their eyes transfixed to the screens and overwhelmed by discount offers, but just one machine cuts through the pandemonium with calm assurance. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 CPU, priced at $1,349 for Black Friday (was $1,599), arrives as a reliable solution for anyone who requires and expects their tools to simply work.
A YouTuber named smill just finished a playthrough of Minecraft using only a receipt paper for visuals. He turned off his monitor, took screenshots of the game one by one and fed them straight into the printer. Each frame came out on a strip of thermal paper, a long blurry record of his adventure. By the end he had defeated the Ender Dragon, so you can finish the game this way if you have the patience and a stack of paper rolls.
Maker RCLifeOn came up with a crazy idea one day: why not remove the board from that hydrofoil setup and replace it with something with pedals and gears? The result is a contraption that promises to glide over the water on plastic and wood wings, driven solely by the rider’s own two legs and the gentle hum of an electric engine. Months of scribbling down ideas and late-night printing sessions later, that concept finally hit the water for the first time.
