STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

Psychedelic Space Station Concepts From The 70s Will Blow Your Mind

40 years ago, the world was still high on the astronomical success of the moon mission and on the idea that space age innovations would keep happening at a breakneck pace. Well, we got the shuttle, and we got the Mars rover(s). What we did not get, however, were mind-bending super space stations capable of holding entire civilizations inside.

But that doesn’t mean we weren’t thinking about it. Back in the 1970s, a handful of artists drew up intricate renderings of said mind-bending super space stations for NASA. They make the International Space Station look like a flying tin can — which is essentially what it is. In these concepts, the space stations are big enough not only to support suburban-looking neighborhoods with houses and blonde-haired dudes in polo shirts but also entire farms with livestock and everything.

Certain aspects of the designs themselves should look somewhat familiar. There’s a lot of stockthrown into the centrifugal design that would enable artificial gravity, not surprising since it popped up in movies like2001: A Space Odyssey around the same time. And most of all there are lots of colours. Don’t forget that the 60s had just ended and the days of disco were just beginning. There’s a solid chance that one or two of these futurists did a little bit of drugs.

[MIKA27]

The Orbits Of 1400 Asteroids NASA Says Could Smash The Earth

In case you didn’t have enough to worry about, NASA says there are over 1400 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) orbiting our sun. If it makes you feel any better, this visualisation of their orbits is kinda pretty. The beauty of impending destruction.

If you’re really wondering, Asteroids fall into the PHA category when they get relatively close to our planet’s orbit, but in NASA speak “relatively close” means within 4.7 million miles. PHAs are big enough to cause unprecedented damage if they hit land, or massive tsunamis if they hit the ocean. Thankfully, they only do so about once every 10,000 years. And NASA says “none of these PHAs is a worrisome threat over the next hundred years.”

If you just need to satisfy your morbid curiosity, you can read more about each one of those asteroids here on NASA’s Near Earth Object database.

[Fuzz]

Psychedelic Space Station Concepts From The 70s Will Blow Your Mind

All those renderings brought back a huge wave of nostalgia. I've got dozens of books from my childhood with similar renderings. Space exploration and colonization felt like just within mankind's grasp back in those days.

Though, nowadays when I look back on those designs, I just imagine the problems that would occur when the artificial gravity fails... millions of tons of water just floating away and then crashing back down when gravity is restored...

[MIKA27]

Harvard Scientists Have Just Invented Human-Rat Telepathy

Humans have long wished to see through the eyes of other animals — like Bran Stark’s Warg ability, say — but so far the best we’ve achieved is mounting GoPros on them. One Harvard research team, though, has just brought us a step closer to that goal with a prototype noninvasive brain-to-brain interface allowing test subjects to control a rat’s tail with nothing more than their thoughts.

The study, which has been published in the journal PLOS One, used an EEG headset to “read” the human’s brain functions, an intermediary computer to interpret and translate the that data into electronic signals, and a transcranial focused ultrasound device that activates a specific region of an anesthetized rat’s brain, causing the rodent’s tail to twitch. It’s essentially a human-rat mind meld using a computer to translate the respective thoughts. As the research results explain:

Transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS) is capable of modulating the neural activity of specific brain regions, with a potential role as a non-invasive computer-to-brain interface (CBI). In conjunction with the use of brain-to-computer interface (BCI) techniques that translate brain function to generate computer commands, we investigated the feasibility of using the FUS-based CBI to non-invasively establish a functional link between the brains of different species (i.e. human and Sprague-Dawley rat), thus creating a brain-to-brain interface (BBI). The implementation was aimed to non-invasively translate the human volunteer’s intention to stimulate a rat’s brain motor area that is responsible for the tail movement. The volunteer initiated the intention by looking at a strobe light flicker on a computer display, and the degree of synchronisation in the electroencephalographic steady-state-visual-evoked-potentials (SSVEP) with respect to the strobe frequency was analysed using a computer. Increased signal amplitude in the SSVEP, indicating the volunteer’s intention, triggered the delivery of a burst-mode FUS (350 kHz ultrasound frequency, tone burst duration of 0.5 ms, pulse repetition frequency of 1 kHz, given for 300 msec duration) to excite the motor area of an anesthetized rat transcranially. The successful excitation subsequently elicited the tail movement, which was detected by a motion sensor.

The best part: the technique is completely non-invasive. Neither the rat nor the human had to have their heads sawed open or have electrodes embedded into their grey matter. Instead, the humand subject activates the system by watching a specific, computer-generated pattern. The EEG helmet knows to look for the brain waves generated by that specific pattern and, once it finds them, sends a command to the intermediary computer. Initial test have shown the system to be about 94 per cent accurate with just a 1.5 second lag between initial thought and tail twitch.

This is still a very preliminary design so don’t expect to be Doolittling your way through the local zoo anytime in the next decade. Researchers still aren’t even really sure what happens if they reverse the flow of the commands and put a rat at the controls of a human body. Plus there’s the whole ethical dilemma of technological telepathy; whether it’ll be like the cool internal comms from GITS or Big Brother literally getting in your head, that will need to be sorted out.

[MIKA27]

An Awesome Donkey Kong Rack For Your Coffee Capsules

Not everyone has the time to painstakingly brew the perfect cup of coffee each morning. That’s why simple capsule coffee machines like Nespresso have become so popular. And if you’re embarrassed at taking a shortcut for your morning brew, you can distract your judgemental coffee snob friends with this brilliantDonkey Kong-inspired Nespresso capsule rack.

Made from precision cut anodized aluminium, the CapsuleKong can store up to 50 of the cups that are loaded at the top and roll back and forth to the bottom like tiny barrels hurled by an equally petite gorilla. At $US170 it’s a lovely addition to any kitchen a retro gamer calls home.

MIKA: I think this looks pretty good, I have a Nespresso machine myself. One thing though... I can’t help but wonder how you access the capsules stuck in-between?

[MIKA27]

Toxic Water From Fukushima Is Leaking Into The Ocean At Emergency Levels

According to Japan’s nuclear watchdog group, highly radioactive water from the now-destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant has leaked into the ocean through an underground barrier and is now quickly rising towards the surface. Today, that same group reported that the toxic water has caused the ocean to exceed levels far above the legal radioactive limit.

The head of of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority, Shinji Kinjo, told Reuters that the radioactive leakage has created an emergency they’re struggling to contain. What’s more, any attempts at countering the problem from the Tokyo Electric Power Co are only a temporary solution, as Tepco’s “sense of crisis is weak.”

In the first few weeks after the tsunami and earthquake that destroyed Fukushima and sent Japan into a state of crisis, the Japanese government, citing the emergency situation, allowed Tepco to drop thousands of metric tons of radioactive water into the Pacific. Until now, Tepco had been attempting to prevent groundwater from coming into contact with the plant, but now, the levels of radioactive waste in the ocean have forced them to admit that tainted water has, in fact, been leaking at a troubling pace.

Workers had injected chemicals into the ground to harden the shoreline along the No. 1 reactor building, but that only effectively solidifies ground at least 1.8 meters below the surface. And as Masashi Goto, a retired Toshiba Crop nuclear engineer who worked on several Tepco plants, told Reuters:

If you build a wall, of course the water is going to accumulate there. And there is no other way for the water to go but up or sideways and eventually lead to the ocean. So now, the question is how long do we have?

Contaminated water could easily rise to the surface within three weeks and once it does “it would flow extremely fast.” Which makes the claim of the task force overseeing Fukushima’s accident measures that “new measures are need to stop the water from flowing into the sea that way” seem like a vast, vast understatement.

[MIKA27]

Fatberg: CCTV emerges showing the bus-sized build up that threatened to flood London city streets

Notorious lump even has its own parody Twitter account

Video footage has emerged showing the 15 foot, bus-sized mixtures of food waste and sanitary wipes now known by the nation as the 'fatberg'.

The huge lump, even has it's own Twitter account now - @KingstonFatberg, posting tweets such as "squatter's rights mate, you can't touch me".

Workers had to spend 10 nights removing the congealed lard ball clinging to the top of a sewer pipe using high pressure jet hoses.

The congealed lump has been festering in drains beneath a road in Kingston, south west London, before being discovered by a Thames Water CCTV investigation after residents complained of being unable to flush their toilets.

The video shows a camera that has been placed into the pipe by engineers as it move along beneath the fatberg.

The sewer had been reduced to just five per cent of its normal activity.

The fatberg had been clogging London's sewers and was dangerously close to flooding the streets with raw waste, with water officials saying man holes were dangerously close to overflowing.

[MIKA27]

Incredible Paintings on Maps Unify Countries

Madrid-based Spanish artist Fernando Vicente uses maps for more than geographical purposes. For his Atlas series, the creative illustrator paints on old maps, transforming countries and whole continents into people, animals, and skulls. The collection of acrylic paint portraits applied and integrated into each map, similar to the work of Ed Fairburn, gives the lands a new sense of life.

While cartography can be seen as an art in its own right, Vicente manages to transform each informative sheet into an interpretive piece. The images he adds to the maps are translucent enough to recognize the underlying contours of nations and the separation between ocean and land while simultaneously appreciating the artist's ability to connect masses of land into one unified figure. His work presents an organic vision of the world, as though countries are not disconnected from one another and share a spirit guardian.

Fernando Vicente website

MIKA: Simply stunning!

[MIKA27]

Diver Almost Gets Swallowed Up By a Whale Shark

This photo will make your heart beat a little faster with the uneasy thought of being eaten by a whale shark! Professional marine photographer Mauricio Handler captured the intense moment during a dive in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, when more than 600 of the 40-foot-long animals gathered to feed on tuna spawn.

The massive whale shark, the largest fish in the sea, was in the middle of eating when the diver almost got sucked in along with the creature's lunch. Fortunately, the diver escaped the shark's clenches, which contain up to 350 rows of teeth. In reality, the animals don't have very good eyesight and, upon capturing the diver, probably would have just spit him out.

The Maine-based photographer regularly leads diving expeditions and he says, "'I feel as if it is my job to show people what they have never seen before. I'm there trying to get a unique angle so I put myself on the edge, right in the action. I want people to realize these animals are here but one day they will not be."

[Fuzz]

An Awesome Donkey Kong Rack For Your Coffee Capsules

MIKA: I think this looks pretty good, I have a Nespresso machine myself. One thing though... I can’t help but wonder how you access the capsules stuck in-between?

Short answer... you don't!

You'll need to plan your next 50 cups of coffee very carefully... or just drink the same variety for a while.

[MIKA27]

Amygdala Says JFK Ordered Marilyn Killed

The official record says Marilyn Monroe died of a barbiturate overdose in the early hours of August 5, 1962, but there is a distinct possibility the Hollywood starlet died on the evening before, on August 4. There is also still speculation it wasn’t a suicide at all.

Thus, the incident is tainted by one of those pervasive conspiracy theories that reaches all the way to the office of the president of the United States. It’s amazing how quickly conspiracy theories spread when a few basic questions don’t have concrete answers. We can blame the amygdala for many such theories.

The amygdala is made up of two almond-sized chunks of brain matter that communicates directly with the prefrontal cortex. It is the part of our brains that lights up like a cigarette smoker after a 6-hour plane ride when we encounter potential danger. It is where we get our fear response, and subsequently, the place where the roots of anxiety disorders get their sustenance.

Monroe’s life was tragic from the time she was a little girl. Her father’s identity was a mystery, her mother was mentally unstable and struggled financially. Monroe bounced from foster home to foster home and was reportedly even sexually assaulted at one of those stops.

While she did finally succeed as an actress and become an international sex symbol, she was plagued by her genetics and her past. She went through two high-profile divorces with Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller, developed a substance abuse problem resulting in several overdoses, suffered multiple miscarriages, and by the end of her life, was known to be a nightmare to work with on the set.

Legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder, who directed Monroe in Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot, said after his second time working with the star, “I have discussed this with my doctor and my psychiatrist and they tell me I’m too old and too rich to go through this again.”

Then there are the rumors of a relationship with President John F. Kennedy, who is alleged to have gone as far as telling Monroe he would leave his wife for her. JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy, is also alleged to be sexually involved with Monroe. Both men would also meet their own untimely demise. To add more fuel to the conspiracy theory fire, Monroe sang Happy Birthday to President Kennedy, May 19, 1962, just a few months before her death. At the event she was introduced as “the late, Marilyn Monroe.”

And these are just the highlights of Monroe’s *Moderated* up life.

So when she is found lying face down on her bed dead, with the phone receiver in her hand, it’s easy to see why speculation would run rampant. When you add the unanswered questions and oddities surrounding her death to the equation, it becomes ripe for conspiracy theory.

Here are just a few examples of alleged weirdness surrounding Monroe’s death:

• When police arrived, around 4:30 a.m., the housekeeper was allegedly washing sheets
  
• The last person she was known to have spoken to on the phone was Peter Lawford, President Kennedy’s brother-in-law
  
• The girlfriend of Monroe’s agent, Arthur P. Jacobs, reported Jacobs was informed of Monroe’s overdose around 10:30 p.m., reportedly no medical help would arrive at the scene for another five hours
  
• Lawford claims to have been told by Monroe’s attorney she was dead of an overdose around 1 a.m., still a few hours before medical help would arrive
  
• Monroe reportedly had trouble swallowing pills, even with water, yet the first investigators on the scene report there is no glass and no water near the bed Rudimentary toxicology reports would indicate she had to have taken somewhere between 50-90 pills to achieve the levels discovered
  
• The amount of drugs in her system was enough to kill 10 people, and would allegedly have killed her long before she could have taken that many
  
• A pathologist reported the conditions of Monroe’s organs did not coincide with someone who had swallowed a large amount of drugs. He concluded the coloration of her stomach and intestines, plus the lack of capsules in them, meant she did not take the drugs orally
  
• Monroe’s organs were destroyed before being fully examined, as were photographs of them, and reports completed by a toxicologist.
  
• Witnesses then change their stories, and the housekeeper even decides to move to Europe
  

So Monroe’s death had everything a good conspiracy theory needs to get off the ground. It had a tragic victim, but one the public adored, a connection with a politically powerful family with their own shady pasts, a timeline that didn’t make sense, and a bumbled follow-up investigation.

Sure, it could have been a situation where Monroe’s handlers made bad decisions while trying to manage yet another embarrassing overdose situation to avoid the bad publicity, and then took their time to figure out how to save themselves from being implicated in her death. That could have happened, but with all of the other factors at play the equation of ‘Kennedy^2 + Infidelity = Dead Starlet’ also seems to make sense.

This is where we arrive at the amygdala and our brain’s determination to connect the dots to assess a threat.

Any time there is an entity of great power and wealth involved in a situation, believing that entity used its influence to affect an outcome doesn’t take much stretching of the imagination.

It’s happened before.

It will happen again.

That’s just the way things go.

When power and wealth flexes its muscle, those who lie in their way are often powerless to defend themselves. Powerlessness leads to fear, fear leads to anxiety, and that all stems from the amygdala.

Paul Whalen heads the Whalen Lab at Dartmouth College. The Whalen Lab has made its sole mission to study the amygdala and its connection to emotion and anxiety.

He was recently quoted in New York Times Magazine in regard to the amygdala and conspiracy theories:

Economic recessions, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are massive, looming threats, but we have little power over when they occur or how or what happens afterward. In these moments of powerlessness and uncertainty, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks into action. Paul Whalen, a scientist at Dartmouth College who studies the amygdala, says it doesn’t exactly do anything on its own. Instead, the amygdala jump-starts the rest of the brain into analytical overdrive — prompting repeated reassessments of information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now. This may be a useful way to understand how, writ large, the brain’s capacity for generating new narratives after shocking events can contribute to so much paranoia in this country.

When the answer isn’t obvious, our brains go to work trying to figure out what information we need to find it. When that happens, our prefrontal cortex works to calm the amygdala’s response to potential danger and surprise by relying on knowledge we believe to be true.

Our healthy distrust of the government then often becomes a liability in our efforts to find the truth because elaborate scenarios start to take shape as we fill in the blanks to those missing answers.

“Our opinion is the amygdala was built to always consider things are negative, just in case they are,” Whalen said in his 20-minute TED Talk presentation about his studies of the amygdala.

In some ways, conspiracy theories are a defense mechanism, much the same way overweight people insult themselves to beat bullies to the insulting punch. When we construct, or buy into, a conspiracy theory it is just our way of making sure it doesn’t happen to us, because we know elements of those theories sometimes turn out to be correct.

“Optimism takes work. It takes a little bit more effort. You were built to be a pessimist. These systems were built to protect you. And you have to know that, and its useful to think about this circuitry, you gotta do a little bit more work to keep yourself happy,” Whalen said to conclude his TED Talk.

In the case of Marilyn Monroe, an optimistic view is a troubled actress succumbed to her demons and finally went too far. End of story. The details surrounding the investigation were just run-of-the-mill human errors muddying up the documentation of what happened. It has been more than 50 years since she died and there hasn’t been any valid evidence presented proving otherwise.

The pessimistic view can be found in the countless books written about the conspiracy surrounding her death and all of the speculation about the influence of power and wealth that goes with them.

It’s hard to believe it was just another suicide, especially when new claims about her death continue to crop up, but as Whalen said, optimism takes work.

While it is fun to believe Monroe was murdered because of her involvement in a high-powered love triangle, it might be time to be a little more optimistic about a woman who helped usher in a sexual revolution.

[MIKA27]

Buffalo Trace Experimental Bourbon:

Already one of the best distilleries on the Bourbon Trail, Buffalo Trace isn't one to rest on their laurels. The pioneering distillery is in the process of releasing the Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection ($46 each), the returns from testing recipes and barrel treatments that began two decades ago. For their most recent wheat entry, the same bourbon recipe was put into barrels at different proofs (from 125 to 90) and aged for 11 years and 7 months. All four were then bottled at 90 proof. There isn't a bad one in the bunch, so grab one for your collection or all four for a taste test experiment of your own.

[MIKA27]

This Giant Floating Orb Is Built Out Of New York City's Discarded Umbrellas

If you happen to be walking around the northern tip of Manhattan these days, you’ll see a strange sphere floating in the water near the Inwood Hill Park. From afar, it looks like a geodesic dome stitched together from thin slivers of metal, but inching closer, you’ll notice something startling. It’s made of trash.

That’s right. Husband-and-wife duo Amanda Schachter and Alexander Levi built the so-called Harvest Dome 2.0 out of some 450 discarded umbrellas that they collected from trash cans and sidewalks around the city, and it’s kept afloat by dozens of empty two-liter soda bottles. But really you’d never know it was refuse based on how elegantly it blends into the landscape. However, it’s not just about the materials. “This is not ‘eco-art,’” Schachter told Fast Company. “That term is way too reductive. It’s closer to performance architecture, if you had to label it. It’s more about involving people.”

And it was a team effort. Harvest Dome 2.0 is so named because Harvest Dome 1.0 didn’t quite make it to its final destination. With funding from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Schachter and Levi actually built Harvest Dome 1.0 in the summer of 2011 and set it afloat on the Bronx River. However, due to inclement weather, it washed ashore on Riker’s Island, where the New York City Department of Corrections found and subsequently destroyed the work of art.

The couple took to Kickstarter to fund their second attempt at the project and raised more than their intended goal of $US7,500.

They built the second 24-by-18 foot sculpture over the course of this summer and sent it on a different route down the river. It will be on display in the inlet of Inwood Hill Park for the month of August in what they call a “physical revelation of the city’s accumulated water-borne debris.” It’s also just an awesome thing to see floating around your local park.

[MIKA27]

Hunter S. Thompson Would Have Loved This 'Psychedelic' Driving Range

Golf is an annoyingly frustrating sport to play, but it can also be one of the most relaxing — if you’re any good. So I can’t imagine the type of mental fortitude needed to even hit a ball in this elaborately trippy shooting range built for professional golfer Rickie Fowler.

In preparation for the 95th PGA Championship that tees off this Thursday, Fowler and his caddy Joe Skovron headed to the Uline Sports Arena in Washington, D.C., which was converted into a “psychedelic driving range.” With its projection-mapped targets and laser light show, the incredibly ridiculous and elaborate course appears to change with every shot on target. Fowler’s targets ranged from 45 to 78 yards away.

[MIKA27]

The First Icebreaking Ship That Drifts Sideways To Cut A Larger Path

Like an arctic version of the Tokyo Drift, a new icebreaking ship called the NB 508 will actually drift sideways through frozen lakes and rivers. It’s not to capture some incredibly boring sub-zero gymkhana footage, though, but to clear a larger path through the ice for other ships to follow without getting stuck.

Icebreakers typically plow straight ahead through frozen channels, but that means only ships as large as the icebreaker itself can follow in its path. So using a set of three rotating propulsors that can spin 360 degrees, the NB 508′s asymmetrical hull can plow sideways through an ice field creating a larger channel for other ships to safely navigate.

When it enters service sometime in 2014, in its perpetual drift the ship can cut a 164 foot wide path through ice up to 24 inches thick. And that has the potential to increase the size and traffic in the Arctic corridor shipping routes between Europe and Asian. But when the ice gets thicker, up to 40 inches, the NB 508 can still run straight ahead like a traditional icebreaker, creating a narrower but still usable path in its wake.

http://youtu.be/rd7sEPZKBGE

And for reference, this timelapse shows how a traditional icebreaker plows its way through various types of ice.

[MIKA27]

Shanghai's Insane, 26-Year Transformation Summed Up In Two Photos

What happens when you give Shanghai’s financial district 26 years and a few billion dollars of makeover money? This miraculous transformation, which hit a staggering 632 meters-high just this past Saturday when the Shanghai Tower became the world’s second tallest building.

This first photo of Pudong, which is just east of the Huangpu river, was taken in 1987 and shows what’s barely recognisable as a city. You can see clear across to the horizon over a land that’s still speckled with patches of green.

The second photo, taken just last week and from exactly the same location, tells a very different story. Though plans to develop Shanghai’s “Pudong New Area” into a “Special Economic Zone” were only launched by the Communist Party in 1990, a short amount of time was all the city’s financial district needed to become an area steeped in towering, steel-coated futurism.

This area is now the proud home of Shanghai Tower, the world’s second tallest building, which was just completed this past Saturday. But China isn’t done yet — they have every intention of taking the number one spot, too, with a planned 2,749-foot “Sky City” that would outrank the current champion, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, by a full 10.5 meters.

Regardless of whether or not they succeed in that particular goal, these photos prove that Shanghai has done just fine in securing itself as one of the World’s great cosmopolitan cities.

[MIKA27]

This Approaching Storm Front Video Is Both Beautiful And Terrifying

http://youtu.be/Kl5_yDEtMYU

Imagine standing on the beach, watching the largest and most terrifying storm you’ve ever seen in your life rapidly roll towards you. That’s the scene that one smartphone snapper caught on camera a few days ago. The end result is beautiful and terrifying.

The storm approaches a beachfront in Belgium, and as it rolls towards the coastline, the sky gets darker and darker, illuminated only by the flashes of savage lightning from within the cloud.

It’s so terrifying that it actually sent some people running for their lives from the clouds. Phew.

Check out the amazing footage, I know I wouldn’t be standing there for that long!

[OZCUBAN]

This Approaching Storm Front Video Is Both Beautiful And Terrifying

http://youtu.be/Kl5_yDEtMYU

Imagine standing on the beach, watching the largest and most terrifying storm you’ve ever seen in your life rapidly roll towards you. That’s the scene that one smartphone snapper caught on camera a few days ago. The end result is beautiful and terrifying.

The storm approaches a beachfront in Belgium, and as it rolls towards the coastline, the sky gets darker and darker, illuminated only by the flashes of savage lightning from within the cloud.

It’s so terrifying that it actually sent some people running for their lives from the clouds. Phew.

Check out the amazing footage, I know I wouldn’t be standing there for that long!

Nothing quiet like a northern hemisphere summer

[MIKA27]

Our Best Look At The Budget iPhone Yet

Rumour has it that Apple is set to release a new budget version of the iPhone next month. A blog and/or human person called Sonny Dickson has published a huge gallery of images which supposedly show the back housing of the “iPhone 5C.” Is that what the cheap iPhone looks like, if it even exists? I sure hope so.

Now, we don’t know anything about this Sonny Dickson character, so please take these images along with heavy dose of scepticism. But let’s pretend for the sake of amusement that these are real images of a real Apple product that is actually going to be announced, and that somehow ended up in someones assured grip. Again, not likely!

As has been previously rumoured, the new images would appear to reveal a plastic build, as opposed to the iPhone’s anodised metal.

Additionally, the phone’s body appears to have rounder edges than the iPhone 5.

The headphone jack, speakers, and lightning port are on the bottom, just like on the iPhone 5.

There are plenty more pictures over Sonny Dickson. Do you think it’s real? Or maybe more importantly: do you want it to be?

MIKA: Sorry guys, don't want to start off an Apple vs Android debate but I have both, "Unfortunately" an Apple iPhone 5 for work which replaced my Blackberry and I must say, I hate the iPhone 5. I'd happily use the Blackberry over the ip5. The build quality is rubbish, it scratches & dents easily and drops out all the time with calls. Its not a carrier issue either as my Samsung S3 is on the same carrier and where I have 4 reception bars on the S3, I only get 1 bar on the iP5!?

I think the iPhone 4S was a much better unit compared to the iP5.

You might find this budget version, if it's true, will be better than the 'Premium' unit alot are currently using....

[MIKA27]

Bruce Willis Shouldn't Use Sylvester Stallone as a Reference for Future Apartment/Job Applications

They are action hero veterans and business partners, who once joined forces to flog burgers through their Planet Hollywood chain.

But now Sylvester Stallone has branded his fellow ageing movie star Bruce Willis “lazy” and a “failure”, after the Die Hard actor departed from the lucrative Expendables franchise.

Willis had been in negotiations to reprise his role as CIA agent Mr Church in the third instalment of The Expendables, Stallone’s all-star throwback to the 80s action-movies with which the Rambo star once dominated the box office.

However Stallone, 67, announced via Twitter, with some glee, that Willis, 58, would now not be returning.

“'WILLIS OUT... HARRISON FORD IN !!!! GREAT NEWS !!!!! Been waiting years for this!!!!,” he wrote.

Stallone appeared to twist the knife by telling the world that his former screen partner in the first two Expendables was indeed, expendable. “GREEDY AND LAZY ...... A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE,” he tweeted, moments later.

A spokesman for Mr Stallone, who co-wrote and directed the first outing of The Expendables in 2010, confirmed the actor had been talking about his old colleague but refused to comment further. Willis has yet to respond.

Relations have soured between Stallone and Willis since the pair, along with fellow action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, launched the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain in 1991.

Willis is walking away from a franchise which has taken a combined $574m at the global box office.

But Willis, who blamed a grouchy recent appearance on the BBC’s One Show on “jetlag”, may not have forgiven Stallone after it became apparent that he was only the third choice for the role of Church, who hires the film’s eponymous band of muscle-bound mercenaries, led by Stallone’s Barney Ross, to carry out dangerous missions.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was initially offered Mr Church but upgraded instead to fellow mercenary leader Trench. Kurt Russell then turned it down before Stallone, seeking a “big action name” remembered his old pal Willis, who accepted after being granted a scene alongside both Stallone and Schwarzenegger.

It is not known whether Ford will take over the role of Mr Church or be given a new character. At 71, Ford remains as busy as ever and is also due to star in forthcoming films Anchorman: The Legend Continues, Star Wars: Episode VII and Indiana Jones 5.

Production on The Expendables 3 is set to begin this month for a 2014 release. The film is expected to feature Jackie Chan, Wesley Snipes and Nicholas Cage, with Mel Gibson also tipped for a role. The series has previously featured 80s survivors including Mickey Rourke and Dolph Lundgren.

[Fuzz]

Our Best Look At The Budget iPhone Yet

MIKA: Sorry guys, don't want to start off an Apple vs Android debate but I have both, "Unfortunately" an Apple iPhone 5 for work which replaced my Blackberry and I must say, I hate the iPhone 5. I'd happily use the Blackberry over the ip5. The build quality is rubbish, it scratches & dents easily and drops out all the time with calls. Its not a carrier issue either as my Samsung S3 is on the same carrier and where I have 4 reception bars on the S3, I only get 1 bar on the iP5!?

I think the iPhone 4S was a much better unit compared to the iP5.

You might find this budget version, if it's true, will be better than the 'Premium' unit alot are currently using....

You're obviously holding it wrong. To solve the problem, get one of these gadgets for your iPhone....

[ramon_cojones]

Our Best Look At The Budget iPhone Yet

MIKA: Sorry guys, don't want to start off an Apple vs Android debate but I have both, "Unfortunately" an Apple iPhone 5 for work which replaced my Blackberry and I must say, I hate the iPhone 5. I'd happily use the Blackberry over the ip5. The build quality is rubbish, it scratches & dents easily and drops out all the time with calls. Its not a carrier issue either as my Samsung S3 is on the same carrier and where I have 4 reception bars on the S3, I only get 1 bar on the iP5!?

I think the iPhone 4S was a much better unit compared to the iP5.

You might find this budget version, if it's true, will be better than the 'Premium' unit alot are currently using....

right, no bias here LOL!!! my favorite part is how you prefaced you have both as if it was a voluntary decision to purchase the iphone which qualifies your opinion

ps. bb is a piece of antiquated junk

[MIKA27]

right, no bias here LOL!!! my favorite part is how you prefaced you have both as if it was a voluntary decision to purchase the iphone which qualifies your opinion

I had no choice in the iPhone 5. It was given to me by my employer. If I had a choice, I'd rather the 'antiquated' piece of junk Blackberry.

[MIKA27]

You're obviously holding it wrong. To solve the problem, get one of these gadgets for your iPhone....

[MIKA27]

You should start your own blog Mika. This thread is better than most online tech blogs!

Old ones? Yes. New Z10? Hells no.

On a side note, what does Apple do when they can't innovate anymore? Bring aesthetic gimmicks. Fanboys' jaws drop. LOL

http://gizmodo.com/f...fter-1040746797

IMO, it's hard to beat Samsung's S4 and Note2.

Amen Timy!