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Media Platforms Design TeamOver at Reddit, user movielover278decided to see how a Super Star Destroyer from Star Wars would look over the island of Manhattan. As you can see, the ship is actually bigger than the island of Manhattan itself, extending from the southern tip of Manhattan into the south Bronx, roughly to the Bruckner Expressway. We’re guessing movielover278 was basing this off an Executor-class Star Dreadnought, the 19-kilometer-long capital ship of Darth Vader that crashed into the Death Star Mark II at the end of The Return of the Jedi....

Why bother trying to make phones easier to use when you could instead make them charmingly harder to use? In that spirit, we present a rotary dial for touchscreen cell phones.View full post on YoutubePaweł Zadrożniak is behind the invention, which is exactly what it looks like: a cell phone that makes calls using a rotary dial. According to Zadrożniak, the accessory uses a “Nordic Semiconductor nRF51422 chip (NRF51 DK board)” and a dial from an old phone to generate the correct pulse signals so that the phone understands what numbers are being pushed....

Q: I want to sell my old Windows Mobile phone. However, I can’t seem to get all of my personal account information off it. Is there a way to completely clear my phone before passing it on?A: If your Windows Mobile device was managed through your office’s Exchange server, your IT department may be able to wipe it remotely. If it’s not a work-issued phone (which I suspect, since you are looking to sell it), you’ll have to do it yourself....

Victor Bout, alleged to be the world’s most notorious black-market arms dealer, was doing what he does best when he got caught: selling illicit arms to whoever wanted them. He saw a good client in the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and was offering the group 100 shoulder-fired Igla antiaircraft missiles, designed in Russia. There were two problems with this. One, the FARC is designated as a terrorist group by the United States....

On August 5, when the Mars Science Laboratory reaches the fourth planet, it will deliver the car-sized Curiosity rover to the surface through an audacious, complicated method called Sky Crane. From a hovering rocket-powered platform, cables will lower Curiosity to the surface. We asked Steve Sell, an entry, descent and landing engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has worked on the project for six years, how the crazy idea came about....

It commands respect in a way that no swooping Italian supercar can. Its purposeful design, like Porsche’s iconic 911, says speed without any extra glitz. Right off the bat, the sheer size of it is striking. It’s huge–at 183.3 in. long, it’s almost a foot longer than a 911, and it’s half a foot wider than a Honda Civic, at 74.6 in.But size doesn’t matter. It’s about the angles. If it were human, it’d be Jason Statham instead of Roger Moore–the kind of guy that flicks a cigarette on the ground and then unloads a really big handgun until every round in the clip is gone....

North Carolina’s Uwharrie National Forest is laced with off-road-vehicle trails, the most notorious of which, Daniel, is rated extremely difficult. Daniel’s vehicle-mangling brutality is such that the park plans to fill in some of the more treacherous ledges, smoothing out the boulder-strewn ascent to render the terrain more accessible. Lucky for me, they haven’t done that yet, because I’m here with the American Expedition Vehicles JK350. And it doesn’t need any help....

Media Platforms Design TeamGlazed ceramic tile is one of the most durable building products ever produced. It’s wear- and stain-resistant, easy to clean, and impervious to water. When properly installed, a tiled surface can last for generations. Yet tile has an Achilles’ heel: The grout used to fill the joints between the individual tiles is, by comparison, porous, soft, and easily stained. In most instances grout can be restored to like-new condition with a good cleaning....

Media Platforms Design TeamSurveillance technology provides a vital shield against terrorism, and cheap modern electronics make it easy to fill the city streets with closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg recently toured London’s ring of cameras, seeking information on how to bring it to the Big Apple to thwart terrorist attacks. But unless the feeds from those cameras are constantly monitored, they only provide an illusion of security....

Media Platforms Design TeamBAGHDAD, June 30 — “You’re not gonna get shot, but you might get exploded,” says Sgt. Ryan Witko, a noncommissioned officer (pictured above) surveying damage to Humvees, Stryker vehicles and trucks that he and fellow soldiers see daily at the motor pool—an essential wing of the 28th Combat Support Hospital (CSH) that I’ve already detailed. The Humvee is a “durable vehicle, but [the enemy is] constantly adapting,” he says....

We extend our sympathies to the family and fans of infomercial superstar Billy Mays, who passed away in his sleep. He was only 50 years old. To celebrate his life’s work as a pitchman, here are five of our favorite As Seen on TV products, brought full-throated to the world by this unforgettable talent. 1. Hercules Hook Billy called the Hercules Hook “super strong,” and it truly was a stellar hollow-wall anchor by any comparison....

You never forget the first time your ship strikes a slab of ice 6 ft. thick: The jolt rips me out of a dead sleep at 1 am and sends me scrambling from my bunk. As the vessel shudders and the ice scrapes and moans along the hull, I grab my clothes with one hand and a glass of water shimmying toward the edge of my desk with the other. I quickly dress and hurry to the bridge of the Canadian coast guard icebreaker Des Groseilliers (“day-GROW-see-ay”)....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat kind of features can you do with DanceJam that you can’t find on other social networking sites? Obviously, people can share videos and other things, but the concept is that YouTube has videos of everything under the sun, but this is specifically for people who are looking for dance?Yeah, the difference isand I’m a big fan of YouTubebut in particular with dance, there’s no community around dance....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn the hunt for the best of what’s new at this year’s SAE World Congress in Detroit, it’s easy to pass by a few hunks of gray foam. But the parts displayed by SCM Metal Products out of North Carolina are not ordinary foam—they’re made from aluminum. Metallic foams have been around since the 1950s, but production has always been difficult as high-temperature foaming agents had to be added to molten metals....

Warning, would be Martian travelers: we may have cut back on acid rain on Earth, but on Mars, there’s a thin acid fog that roams the atmosphere, eating away at rocks by coating them in a thin varnish. The effect has taken place over a long period of time, and is most pronounced in areas where water doesn’t evaporate as readily. Shoshanna Cole of Cornell analyzed data from the Spirit rover to make the determination....

Media Platforms Design TeamTwo maps are side by side. Both depict Africa, Europe, and Asia in a time lapse: As centuries pass in seconds, red splotches emerge like blood stains spreading across continents, signifying the growth of empires. One map is the progression of actual history. The other, a computer’s best guess at how and where on Earth empires should emerge, based on a few key assumptions. To the surprise of Sergey Gavrilets, both simulations are incredibly close....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe field of plumbing just doesn’t entice an ambitious, forward-thinking young man like it did back in August of 1916. In those days, our magazine brimmed with plumbing, electrical and bricklaying trade school applications, mail-order technical manuals for telephone men, railroad men, motormen and traffic men. There was an invitation to come to Akron, Ohio, to learn the tire-repair business. There were innumerable ways to earn, become, learn and train....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere’s a lot of focus on products for 2006 at CES, but if you look closely, you can also get a glimpse of technology that’s a little farther out. Here are two of our favorite ideas for the years to come.First, Toshiba was showing off this Tablet PC laptop with a detachable screen. When in tablet mode, the screen communicates with the keyboard base using a standard WiFi protocol, but the whole setup also conforms to the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard—hypothetically, of course, it’s just a concept—which means that when the screen is detached from the base, it gets its own IP address, making it appear as a separate networked device....

Egil EllisWillow, AlaskaAge: 40Years on Job: 16 The world’s most famous dog sled race is the Iditarod, an 1100-mile trek across Alaska. But Egil Ellis prefers brutal 20- to 30-mile short-distance races. The Swede is very good at sprints: He and his dogs–a cross between German shorthaired pointers and Alaskan huskies–have won the three-day GCI Open North American Championship in Fairbanks a record-breaking nine times. Racing season runs December through April; the rest of the year Ellis operates a kennel....

Axis Flight School in Phoenix is famed for its advanced training for skydivers who want to experience more than just jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. For example, instructor Brianne Thompson recently demonstrated and advanced technique that answers the question that nobody asked: What happens when a parachute meets an ignited signal flare?The resulting ball of flame is damned impressive. Most modern skydiving canopies are made primarily of nylon, which is generally flame-retardant and tends to melt before burning....