Gizmodo: Top
Up until a few years ago, any lengthy feature on Bill Gates usually elicited a fair amount of words on the Gates-Jobs rivalry. The two tech behemoths were always pitted head-to-head, with the writer pulling together some conclusion on how the soon-retiring Microsoftie was the better businessman, while iMan had a clearer vision of how technology could be both beautiful and functional. But of all the profiles I have read during my exhaustive research of this feature, not one of them mentioned what is without doubt the most important bit to me: sexiness. Before Gates leaves Microsoft full time in little more than a week, we should do one more comparo of the two and explore who is hotter-to-trot. Is it Ladies Love Cool Jobs for the cutie from Cupertino, or does the Redmond romeo just shade it?
For fun: Fun? Fun is for losers. I like to make money. And white things that go "bleep" silently. You think I'm kidding? Well, fuck you, you virgin.
My job: In the words of one of my many imitators, "Dude, I invented the iPhone. And the iPod, the iMac, the MacBook, the Lisa... *continues ad infinitum*
Favorite hot spots: Hawaii, California, NYC, my meditation cushion.
Favorite things: Money, White things, iTunes, calligraphy, the kids, jeans, black turtleneck, Windows Vista (just kidding), Dylan, the Beatles, Coldplay, beards.
Last read: WSJ, FSJ, Gizmodo, The Art of War by Sun Tzu
About me and who I'm looking for: I'm the best. So if you want to be with me, you'd better be the best (although that place is already taken. By me). But the best in your class—as long as that class is Alpha. Impatient, I don't suffer fools gladly. I fight to win, so that means I'm aggressive. I love blondes—like I said, there's only room for one brunette in my life, and that's me. And did I tell you I'm a genius?
For fun: Giving stuff away. Swim night with the kids, driving fast, Africa, oiled-up Graeco-Roman wrestling with Ballmer, oiled-up wrestling with anyone, actually.
My job: I am currently retired
My ethnicity: Binary
Favorite hot spots: Washington State, Harvard, Yale, my beautiful, throbbing brain.
Favorite things: Hoodies, money, research labs, books, science, long romantic walks on the beach discussing phosphates and malaria vaccines
Last read: "Steve Ballmer's Day, 06.20.08", a pamphlet by some guy I've got spying on my replacement, 1001 of the Best Binary Jokes Ever; balance sheets, The Bridges of Madison County.
About me and who I'm looking for: According to Brian Williams, I'm a "brilliant, powerful, let's face it, sexy and good-looking leader of men and women." As for what I'm looking for, well, basically, anyone who's free five weeks from Tuesday, because I've got a window at 7.30pm.
Going back a quarter-century, Jobs was always sexy—as you can see from the hilarious clip below. It is Gates, however, who has come a long way. This vid proves that the Seattle-born brainbox was the '80s equivalent to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, that is, not a natural-born sex bomb:
Let me leave you with an anecdote. About a year and a half ago, just after I'd started working here, I had a strange dream. In it, Blam was scheduled to interview Steve Jobs for Giz but, as the appointed hour approached, there was a change. "He wants you to do it," Blam said, coming over to my imaginary desk in the open-plan office of my dream. "Me?" "Yeah," said Blam, the hurt evident in his voice. "But I don't know anything about him," I bleated.
"I know that," said my boss. You've got 30 minutes to prepare."
In the event, though, the interview was an absolute disaster. There was me, a bunch of questions scrawled on my reporters' pad, in the kitchen, making him a mug of tea, and Jobs, chasing me between kettle and cupboard, brushing off all attempts to give him a hard ride, instead asking me how I liked my men (answer: scrambled.) It was not the most successful of interviews—I was far too earnest and uptight, while he behaved like that randy old goat from the speeded-up bit of The Benny Hill Show. I woke up feeling both attracted to him, yet at the same time repelled.
I have yet to dream about Bill Gates.
With apologies to Melinda Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs.
Last Friday, we posted a public bus surveillance video that captured a barbarous attack on a man "for his iPhone." Since then, MacBlogz has spoken with the unnamed victim. And—no huge surprise here—he felt that the robber was going more for blood than his popular Apple product.
The attacked lasted 2-3 minutes and they left out the part where I actually grab the guy by his balls and twist and pull them...This was more of a hate crime than it was from him trying to steal my iPhone. If he wanted the iPhone it fell from my hands and slid under the seat. My interview was pulled from the local website possibly because I mentioned hate crime.
He also reveals that the bus driver had left the vehicle and that one of the bus passengers was actually friends with the assailant. For the full account, be sure to hit the link. [MacBlogz]
Forget about the Lego Airbus A380 and the Lego Death Star, because this video will show you the mother of all Lego models: the 750,000-brick Kennedy Space Center. Using 1,506 square feet, it took 2,500 hours to build. It includes a 6.13ft-tall Space Shuttle on the launch pad, the space center with a 9ft-long Saturn 1B rocket, and the Vehicle Assembly Building—8ft long x 6ft high x 5ft wide—made out of 50,000 Lego bricks. I know. Mindblowing. This thing is so massive that it can probably affect Earth's orbit. Update: if Lego's Kennedy Space Center is the mother of all Lego models, Giz reader Florian Frischmuth has sent us his pictures of the father: the 1,300,000-brick Lego Allianz Arena stadium in Munich, Germany. This titan contains a mindblowing 30,000 mini-figs inside.
Forget about the The Allianz Arena Lego model was built following the original plans from Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron, using 4,209 hours of work and over a million pieces. It can glow red, blue, and white using interior LEDs, achieving the same lighting effects of the original stadium thanks to a special translucent brick specially manufactured for the project. [Giz's Lego Trip]
Two weeks ago today, a tornado ripped through Illinois. At points it was up to a quarter mile wide, and it did enough damage, cracking giant powerlines like toothpicks and yanking old-growth trees right from the ground, that it completely closed the major highway I57 for a 35-mile expanse south of Chicago.
I was lucky enough to be traveling that day (on the way to the airport for WWDC) and pulled off the road just in time to intersect with the tornado at its worst. Inside a gas station with no basement and plenty of active fuel lines, it was the first time in a long time?maybe ever?that I genuinely feared for my life, that I thought things were over. Watch that video above. Then know that I was a lot closer.
But as I've played the scenes back in my head over the last several days, it's not the storm that’s proven to be the most haunting. It's the way the people reacted. Because in the gas station, I watched a group of 20 scared people not take shelter, but stand in front of a wall of glass to record the event?to make some YouTube clips.
I was going to get off at this exit anyway?I needed gas. But it was just as good since it the rain was coming down too hard to see anymore. I pulled over at a station right off the highway to fill my tank. After swiping my credit card and starting the pump, the city’s tornado sirens screamed through the rain.
At the station’s entrance, a few of us gathered transfixed by a particularly ominous cloud. In a sky of flat grey, this was a distinct saucer of charcoal hovering just on the other side of the interstate.
While one man impatiently checked his cellphone for a weather radar update, I noticed what was so peculiar about this one cloud of the countless others I’ve seen in my life. It wasn’t heading in one direction as a unified mass. Instead, occasionally you could make out a wisp heading north or south at random. “That cloud is unnatural,” I said. The man looked at me blankly and returned to his cellphone. Maybe the red-dotted weather map could tell him something his eyes coupled with millions of years of survival instinct could not.
The station’s attendant put out her cigarette and headed inside.
I did too.
It was more frenetic in there. People pieced together various weather reports with what they could see through station’s large panoramic window.
“It’s half a mile wide,” someone said. “And heading our way.”
I ingeniously opted to move away from the window?a whole three snack aisles back, in fact. My plan was “to duck” and/or run into the bathroom. I knew it was stupid, but death by glass and Bugle impalement has to beat just glass, right? And, as lame as this sounds, I didn’t want to be the only one ducking and covering the men’s room.
One girl called her family. I reached into my pocket to call my wife, and realized I’d left my phone in the car. The wind was picking up now, a lot, and after seeing my car jostling in the storm, I opted not to make a run for the phone. That wasn’t an easy decision.
It’s petty, but I was jealous as that girl verbalized her fears consoled by someone in her ear. Would it be poor etiquette to ask her for her phone once she hung up? “I know you might have other loved ones to call, but would you mind letting me have the last familial conversation before we both die?"
Maybe I was just being dramatic. Maybe this was just a bad rainstorm.
Then, almost on cue, three funnel clouds dropped from the dark mass, flittering in the sky. It was almost beautiful.
They didn’t reach the ground; the storm was almost toying with us. While my stomach dropped and my eyes began to well, the former hodgepodge of frightened travelers in the window became a paparazzi shooting gallery armed with digital cameras and cellphones, as if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were slam dunking their baby in the parking lot. Naked.
The funnel clouds disappeared for a moment as if the storm were taking a deep breath. And when it finally decided to exhale, a giant tornado spiraled into our view. To describe it as dark would be an understatement. It looked evil.
But even with this new development?the worst of our fears manifesting in a fearsomely corporeal way?the people just kept shooting their cameras. Would these videos be their legacy? Were they so resigned to their own deaths that they wanted to leave a record, should mother nature get the best of them? Or did they feel safe, shielded from a force that would be reported to throw a semi clear across four lanes of traffic by a 2.4-inch LCD screen and some silver-spray painted plastic?
I don't know who said it. It may have been me. It may have been someone more composed than me. "Everyone get in the bathroom now!"
The tornado, literally, looked to be heading right for us.
And so we sprinted for the men's gas station bathroom (the group somehow realizing that, yes, it’s time to put away the nifty gadgets). There I kneeled on the floor with some young teenagers who giggled at our predicament, a few college girls who just wanted to get home and a blur of others. People got very quite as the storm got louder. Suddenly, the power cut. We sat in darkness.
The ground shook for a moment. No one said a word.
I'm not sure how much time passed?probably just one or two minutes. People began to talk again, tentatively. A father impatiently peeked his head out of the room, opening the door and standing in the frame. The sunlight?the little that there was through the clouds?felt like a cancer on my skin. I wanted to be back in the safe, smelly cave. I didn’t want to hear another clueless radio report. I didn’t need to check the storm in five colors on some guy’s EVDO-equipped laptop.
This time I know it was me. "Get in or out but close the fucking door please!" He left along with a few of the more adventurous. The rest of us stayed.
I attempted to reposition myself with the more conservative in the stall, but the tiny bathroom had become quite difficult to navigate in the pitch black. As I fumbled my way along the tile, I feebly called out if there was any room for me. This tornado had sized up my manhood, and my cracking voice was a sad, official measurement of where I stood on that scale.
Then someone turned on his BlackBerry and beckoned me over with a welcoming smile. I could make out the faces in the blue light. A teenage couple hugged one another. And the business man with a shaved head warmly offered me a seat.
Squatting beside them all on the damp floor, there was no where in the world that felt more comforting. We introduced ourselves around our artificial campfire. The boy asked his girlfriend, "Is this the first time you've ever been in a boy's bathroom?" She said that it was.
"It's always this exciting," I assured her.
Behold the biggest Lego airplane in the world, made after the largest passenger airplane in the world, the Airbus A380. Made at a 1:25 scale-9.5-foot long, 10.5-foot wingspan, 3.2-foot tall—the Lego A380 uses 220 pounds (100kg) of bricks. That's a mindblowing 75,000 pieces in eight colours—15 Lego Millennium Falcons. With that amount of bricks, and knowing how long my Falcon is taking, I'm not surprised that it took 600 hours for the entire team of professional Legoland model builders to assemble this beast. [Giz's Lego Trip]
Behold the 
Fortune has a nice package for Bill Gates' upcoming departure from Microsoft?the best is their exclusive gallery of 15 rare photos from throughout his life, narrated by Bill himself. I think my favorite pic is the leather biker jacket slung over his V-neck Cosby sweater at a Harley event?or the fist pump when he gets a Jeopardy question right at a company dinner?two sides of the same man, fiercely charitable and competitive. [Fortune]
I already have a GPS unit but I'll be dammed if I'm not throwing it out because the guys at Mio have come up with a Knight Rider branded GPS unit with voice prompts by the one and only Mr Feeny KITT William Daniels. Apparently, you will recognize his familiar voice as soon as you fire it up and hear "Hello Michael, where do you want to go today?" As an added touch, the display is flanked by a series of red LEDs that mimic KITTs hood-mounted lights. Further details are scarce, but we do know the Mio Knight Rider GPS will retail for $299 when it is finally released. [Next Autos Thanks Dan!]
Wilson caught this limited edition Red OLPC at the company's headquarters near MIT's campus in Cambridge today. The limited edition run of 100 is made for developers working on the dual boot Sugar Linux and Windows XP system, and has specs identical to the regular OLPC, except 2GB of RAM 2GB flash memory—the minimum required for Windows. As you can see, the color scheme is the inverse of the all-red prototype you may have seen before. There are no plans for a public release, so the closest you'll get to seeing this may be in the gallery below.
For many of us, the first day of summer starts just before midnight tonight. That means it is time to start thinking about how to beat the heat when the temperatures soar and the air conditioning unit in your home or office inevitably breaks down. In this scenario, survival means being prepared for anything. The following summertime gadgets will ensure that you have all of your bases covered.
First off, let's talk a little about clothing. Naturally, wearing the proper attire can make a huge difference on a hot day. Light colored clothing, shorts and flip flops are one way to do it?but if you are looking for something a little more advanced, I have a few examples here you should keep in mind:
USB "Air Conditioned" Shirt: Plugging this shirt into the USB drive of your computer will pull in cool air to your body using fans positioned on the lower part of the back. Available for $169. [Product Page and Link]
Nike PreCool Vest: This vest takes things a few steps further than the air-conditioned shirt when it comes to keeping your core temperature down. The innermost layer of the vest is filled with frozen water and it is insulated by an outermost layer of aluminum. Unfortunately, the vest is only available to Olympic athletes, so it looks like you will have to do one of two things to get your hands on one?undergo a complete physical transformation into a world class athlete, or be patient and hope that Nike releases it to the general public one day. [Link]
Insulated Evaporative Cooling Hat: Solar powered hats with fans are a dime a dozen, but if you really want to stay cool, this cap should do the trick. Just run it under a faucet and let the sun draw heat away from your head by slowly evaporating the water. Apparently, it can keep your head up to 30% cooler than the outside temperature?and a waterproof lining ensures that your head stays dry. And as anyone who has ever watched a survival show knows, you could always urinate on something like this if the going ever got rough. Available for $24.95. [Hammacher Schlemmer]
Sometimes basic air-conditioning just isn't enough to stay comfortable in the heat. When indoors, these gadgets will keep you extra cool (or downright frigid):
Ice Sauna: If you have the means, the latest trend in many European countries is to install an ice sauna in your home. This particular sauna, dubbed the "Snow Room," was developed by a company called MNK?and it can keep the temperature at a brisk 10 degrees below zero. But I must warn you?if you manage to lure a chick this hot into one of these things, keep in mind that penis frostbite will bring a party down real fast. [Link]
"Air Conditioned" Bed: If ice saunas are a little too extreme for your taste, you could always cool down at night with an "air-conditioned" bed. Using similar technology as the shirt mentioned earlier, this device will draw air in into the pad and circulate it under your body while you sleep. Available for $399. [Product Page via Link]
Luxury 18-headed shower: A cold shower is not just for sexual frustration?it can be a great way to escape the heat as well. This monster luxury shower is an 18-headed beast that will all but drown you in water. Plus it has a powerful floor nozzle that looks as though it will give you a cold water enema. Now that is refreshing! Too bad it will cost you $100,000 to install. [Tag Signature via Link]
When outdoors, a swimming pool is an ideal way to beat the heat. But not everyone is fortunate enough to have one at their disposal. Here are some alternatives:
Big Wave Trampoline: Pools are great, but what if I am looking for something a little deadlier? This 13-foot Big Wave Trampoline will keep you cool and give you that adrenaline rush you so desperately crave. Available for $11.95. [Super Fun Trampolines]
Universal Shower Diffuser: Staying hydrated is extremely important when it is hot outside, but sometimes you just feel like pouring that bottle over your head to cool off. This gadget fits on any standard PET bottle and restricts the flow of water so that it can be dispensed like a shower head. That means you can enjoy a quick soak and still have some water left over for drinking. Unfortunately, the dude in this image has the wrong idea. Available for around $50. [Made in Design via Link]
Finally, what you put on the inside is just as important as what you put on the outside when it comes to staying cool. And when I think of a hot day, two things generally come to mind: booze and ice cream.
Taisin Ice Sphere Mold: Perfect on-the-rocks-drinks require perfect ice?and this mold from a Japanese company named Taisin can help you achieve that feat by creating perfect ice spheres. When a chunk of ice is placed inside the press, the mold gradually closes around it as it melts. The result is a sphere that melts slowly in your drink?ensuring that it does not get watered down. The Taisin mold can produce 30-40 ice balls in an hour and it is available in 55, 65, 70 and 80mm sizes. [Taisin via Link]
The Scoop & Stack: By the looks of things, the Scoop & Stack can make quick work of getting ice cream out of a container. And the cylindrical shape means you can stack that sucker to the sky. Available for $14.95. [Wrapables]
As reported from an NBC affiliate, this surveillance video (from May 21st) has just been released that depicts a particularly vicious attack on a Columbus, OH, bus?all to acquire an iPhone. A hooded teen lunges at a man who was wearing headphones on his way off the bus. No one did anything to stop the attack (not that you can blame a woman with child for not stepping in). Surprisingly, despite sustaining injury from blows to the face and body, the passenger did not lose his iPhone. Anyone with info on the teen is asked to call 614-645-8477. [WCMH via Macblogz]
As reported from an NBC affiliate, this surveillance video (from May 21st) has just been released that depicts a particularly vicious attack on a Columbus, OH, bus?all to acquire an iPhone. A hooded teen lunges at a man who was wearing headphones on his way off the bus. No one did anything to stop the attack (not that you can blame a woman with child for not stepping in). Surprisingly, despite sustaining injury from blows to the face and body, the passenger did not lose his iPhone. Anyone with info on the teen is asked to call 614-645-8477. [
I recently had the opportunity to learn more about TiVo’s award-winning remote control when I met with their Senior Director of Consumer Engineering Paul Newby, father of the TiVo remote. Aside from hearing the story of how the remote slowly sprouted into the "Peanut," I found out some unknown stories behind the clicker. Stuff like TiVo butting heads with Sony, rare remote colors that no one outside TiVo will ever own (or see until now). Or how the remote could get a QWERTY or lose all its buttons in favor of a touchscreen. As I sat down with Paul and began to weed through containers of foam molds and old remote prototypes, I asked him to start from the beginning and explain how TiVo had turned a Peanut into one of the world's most loved remotes.
History & Design
By the spring of 1998, TiVo was developing what we all know now as the DVR. During the design stages, their designers knew they would not only need to create a DVR that was extremely functional, but also a corresponding remote control that would allow seamless and intuitive use.
This is where Paul Newby enters.
“I came to TiVo when we were still called Teleworld, and when we started off we grabbed off-the-shelf remotes. These remotes had multiple rows and columns of keys, and it was clear this wasn’t going to work. What we decided to do early on was make a remote that grabbed attention off the coffee table.”
When Newby pushed his designers to create a remote that would stand out, he was shocked by the initial designs. The reasonable ones resembled items like a bread-stick or a spatula, but there were few that were so crazy they looked more like a toad.
There was one designed that was nicknamed the Peanut. Once a few foam prototypes were made, the designers called the shape a success.
“It became obvious early on that to achieve the seamless trick play and control we were after for our new PVR/DVR creation, the remote must be comfortable for long periods of in-hand use. This and an iconic look, were motivations for the more distinctive, organic, peanut shape.”
This peanut shape saw slight variations from mold to mold, with some that were wafer thin to others that were more like a thick slab. With the final prototype, designers and the TiVo team felt that a medium amount of curve was the best for a remote.
Once the shape had been finalized, the designers and engineers began tackling other details to the remote. Aspects like button layout and electronics were now on the drawing board. But throughout the tedious work of refining, the designers began to poke fun at the decision they made.
“There were a lot of jokes about the shape. Not just the obvious ones,” said Newby. “I can remember some referencing to an earlobe, or the shape of the lower back/butt area."
Like any remote, the designers were adamant about keeping the remote’s button layout as simple as possible. But with the DVR’s numerous features, the designers needed to create lots of extra buttons. To keep things straight, each button needed to have a distinctive feel, giving the ability to control the remote without even looking at it, which Newby described as a “key Braille-ability" surprisingly helped by the "blank finger parking spots between keys" that were equally important.
Eight and a half months after the team started in July 1998, the first remote was done.
Throughout the whole design process, Newby continually told his design team to try anything, but to always keep two things in mind.
“Number one, get up from the desk, and number two, be ready to endure someone telling you in less than an ideal way that your baby stinks.”
Without knowing it, Newby’s last bit of advice was crucial when TiVo started to work with other manufacturers who were reluctant to use this strange Peanut remote.
Dealing With Manufacturers
At this point, TiVo's designers felt that they had developed one of the most ingenious remotes on the market. Sadly, when TiVo began working with manufacturers such as Sony and Hughes (Direct TV), they did not feel the same.
“The process was very very very, frustrating and quite frankly, I was surprised.”
Because some of the manufacturers didn’t want to use the Peanut shape at all, the TiVo decided that if a different remote was going to be supplemented, it had to have some core requirements.
A big yellow pause button and characterize thumb buttons were a necessity. But as hard as TiVo pushed, these were the exact type of buttons that the manufactures insisted against.
“Using a bright color on remotes was not something that these companies did. Anything thing with character images on it, the companies didn't want to use.”
In the end there was consensus, but it wasn't easy getting there.
Series Updates
With each Series update the Peanut saw a slight change in design.
“We’ve toyed with other shapes in the background but always come back to the peanut. The subtle shift from Series 1 to Series 2 allowed more free space between keys, space for partner branding, and improvements for manufacturability. The shift to Series 3 made refinements in key snap, backlight, fore/aft directionality, and balance.”
During the change from Series 1 to Series 2 there was an interesting internal change that many users never knew about.
“We set the IR emitter power fairly high on the early Series 1 production remotes. This had the effect of being able to control TiVo from any number of off angle positions. It also turned out that, in some cases, a user could even drape themselves and the remote completely in a blanket, yet still blast through the blanket to control TiVo.”
Among designing and updating the remote, this concern for battery life would stay as a major concern for adding features. For example, Newby's team has a Series 2 remote that was back-lit, but backed off because of power concerns.
With a back-light feature finally being added to the Series 3 remote, the team decided to use 4 AAA batteries rather than 2 AAs. (As a bonus, the heavier remote had a better center of gravity.) The batteries offset some of the power drain, but there is also a slight decrease in life, even with the light sensor selectively enabling the remote's illumination.
Even within the Series 3's lifetime the Peanut remote has seen some changes. When the first Series 3 remote shipped with the Series 3 TiVo, it had a painted gray bezel. Now that the Series 3 TiVo is being killed off for TiVo HD, TiVo’s flagship remote is the Glo remote. The major different between the original Series 3 remote and the new Glo remote is the bezel, which is now a shiny chrome which is cheaper to make.
Rare Remotes
Among the various colors of remotes that were produced, there are a few that were far less common.
For the first version of the remote, TiVo made a translucent array of colors that mimicked their logo's color. Sadly though, these remotes never actually made into the public's hands.
The rarest of them all is a rubberized blue five-year remote. This remote is only given to employees who have worked with TiVo for more than five years. More of an award than actual remote, it even has its own stand that displays it proudly. This remote was originally made in a rubberized Series 2 form, but has now been updated to the non-rubberized Glo form.
In the same vein as the five-year remote, there is now a 10-year.
“My team is working on a 10 year remote, and we're right on the cusp.”
“It will be a permutation of the Glo in a steel blue color.”
Future
With TiVo continually adding features to their DVRs, there is a growing need for a remote that will complement new features. The TiVo design team has acknowledged this, and Newby assures that they are are always working on improvements.
"There's probably about two and half of us at any given time designing the next remote."
With the next generation TiVo remote on the drawing board, I wondered what the possible additions could be.
When I asked if adding a small QWERTY keyboard was a possibility for the next generation, I was surprised by Newby’s answer.
"Let me just say we're ping-ponging the idea. You wouldn't be disappointed."
If they had given the idea of adding a keyboard though, then I figured I had to ask if there was possibility of incorporating a touchscreen for future use. Once again Newby’s response sparked my interest.
"We've either given it thought or were in the process of prototyping it. I'd say it's a healthy combination of both never been done, done before and what's been done well elsewhere."
"So you name it, were thinking about. But we are carefully at what we throw at it."
Also, thanks go to Danny.
Move over Millennium Falcon, because there's a new Best Lego Set Ever in town: the $400 Death Star. Almost 4,000 pieces of absolute nerdgasmic technological terror now available to order, showing 14 scenes that happened in the no-moon during the original trilogy. We have all the official information and three high definition photos that show every angle of this amazing set, with 21 amazing mini-figs, including Han and Luke dressed up as Lego Imperial Stormtroopers.
#10188 Death Star?
Ages 12+. 3,803 pieces.
$399.99Recreate the action and adventure of the Star Wars? movies with the ultimate Death Star? playset! This detailed battle station features an incredible array of minifigure-scale scenes and accessories from Episodes IV and VI. Its different decks include the Death Star control room, moving turbolaser turrets, hangar bay with TIE Advanced starfighter, tractor beam controls, Emperor’s throne room, detention block, Imperial conference room, droid maintenance facility, and the powerful Death Star superlaser, plus much more! Swing across the chasm with Luke and Leia, face danger in the crushing trash compactor, and duel with Darth Vader for the fate of the galaxy. With over 3,800 pieces, the Death Star measures 16” tall and 16?” wide when completed. Includes 25 Star Wars minifigures and droids!
Death Star is a LEGO Exclusive available for pre-order on www.LEGOshop.com starting July 1, 2008 and can be found in LEGO Brand Retail Stores starting September 1, 2008!
Includes the following 7 new and exclusive Star Wars minifigures and droids only found in this set!
Luke Skywalker? (Stormtrooper outfit)
Han Solo? (Stormtrooper outfit)
Death Star Trooper (x2)
Phlutdroid?
Interrogation Droid
Death Star DroidOther minifigures and droids include:
Obi-Wan Kenobi?
R2-Q5?
Emperor Palpatine?
Darth Vader?
Grand Moff Tarken?
Emperor’s Royal Guard? (x2)
Stormtrooper? (x2)
R2-D2?
C-3PO?
Princess Leia?
Chewbacca?
Luke Skywalker? (Jedi Knight)
Mouse Droid
Dianoga (Trash Monster)
Luke Skywalker?
Han Solo?Product Features:
Death Star Control Room
Death Star Turbolasers
Hangar Bay Control Room
Superlaser Control Room
Death Star Superlaser & Weapons Bay
Manned Turbolaser
Emperor’s Throne Room
Hangar Bay
Detention Block
Tractor Beam Control
Trash Compactor Scene
Swing over the Gap
Meeting room
Droid maintenance
Okay, so the iPhone 3G is going to be the second coming of Jesus in pocketable form, but maybe you're a rebel and don't wanna look exactly like the estimated 27 million other tools expected to be running around with an iPhone by 2009. You wanna be different. (Or maybe you can't seem to break out of that damn Sprint contract.) Still, you do want a touchscreen, 3G data, a music player and all that jazz. Is there an iPhone clone worth buying from your carrier? Relax, we've done the work for you and broken down the top three nationwide carriers' best iPhone wannabes into a single chart.
To sum that up, the Instinct is easily the best, most feature rich iPhone clone on the block, and at $129, is a steal for Sprint customers. My major problem with it is the touchscreen itself?I think the Vu's touchscreen is way more responsive. (Wilson likes it just fine, favoring it over Verizon's cloneys.) The Vu has everything superficial down right?the touchscreen, keyboard (best of the bunch) and phone body?but is really lacking in the feature department, and therefore not really worth the new $199 price, which hinges entirely on its Mobile TV function. If you married the Vu's body and touchscreen to the Instinct's features and price, you'd have a champion here, and a serious iPhone challenger. Too bad LG and Sammy hate each other.
The Voyager isn't considered an iPhone clone anymore, not in the strictest sense, though most of its problems stem from Verizon software rather than the hardware. As Wilson said in his review last fall, it's ambitious but flawed?and the flaws are mostly on Verizon. I'm really hoping Verizon lets the Dare just breathe, because the Vu proves LG is best left to its own devices. The Glyde is just a truly terrible phone. Most clay bricks are more responsive than its touchscreen, especially around the edges, and the crappy, sluggish Verizon software doesn't help. And its keyboard ain't much better.
One thing they all have in common is a shitty browser. There isn't a mobile browser that touches mobile Safari yet. Even when they could render HTML correctly, moving and zooming around the page (especially ones that aren't mobile optimized) is an exercise in self-control?how long can you take it before stabbing your eyes out. Opera mini does load on the Vu, and it's better than the included browser, but it worked kinda wonikly at times. For me, that's a critical flaw in all of these phones.
Best to worst: Instinct, Vu, Voyager, and Glyde.
