Spiderbot, Spiderbot...Does Whatever a Spider Can [Robots]

There were spiderbots in the past, but they certainly didn't shoot out suction cups and scale walls like my second favorite superhero. Skip about half-way through the clip to see this erroneously four-legged creeper play Spidey.
This spiderbot is a concept being used to study motion in robotics and still requires a few extra cables as support, but hopefully someone will smarten up, teach it to climb properly, and add a black and red paint job. [YouTube via HacknMod]

The latest Stargate Universe trailer clearly shows someone watched BSG

Oh man, Stargate Universe launches on October 2nd. I can’t wait even though the latest trailer shows that the show has clearly taken a more edgy stance, which in my mind at least, isn’t what a Stargate show be. But that’s not new info. The creators have stated that SGU will be different for a while, but this trailer confirms it. The show is going to be darker, full of mystery, and shot to look like Battlestar Galactica. But the simple Star Wars reference at the end of the trailer shows some hope that the show might actually maintain some of its Stargate identity. Hopefully.

German-Engineered Die Nachteule Is the World's Most Powerful Reading Light [Lighting]

Designed and engineered in Germany, the Die Nachteule reading light slaps an LED on your glasses that's as bright as a 60-watt bulb. So whether you are exploring the Harry Potter series or a cave, this clip has you covered.

The Die Nachteule also features 40 hours of battery life and a weight of only 8 grams (as you know, the Germans always make good stuff). No word on when or if this reading light will ever make its way to the States, but I'm not in any rush. The last thing we need over here is a guy wearing a Bluetooth headset, glasses and one of these things simultaneously. [Meineeule]

Rumor: Tegra-based devices running Chrome OS this month?

Here’s a nice, juicy rumor to start the day off on the right (or wrong) foot. After those recent supposed screenshots of Google’s upcoming Chrome OS, Taiwan’s Shanzai.com is now reporting the following:

“According to our reliable sources on the Mainland, both Lenovo and Acer are planing to launch Tegra-based devices running Google’s Chrome OS, and the word on the streets is that it could even happen sometime later this month.”

If true, that would be pretty wild. It’d also serve to steal a bit of thunder from a certain company based in Cupertino, California that’ll be announcing new products on September 9th. I’ve no doubt that Tegra+Chrome OS smartbooks (or MIDs or netbooks or whatever) will eventually make it to market, but to see one or more of them this month would be a bit surprising considering we’ve been hearing mid-2010 for just about everything else.
As always, take this news with a grain of salt until it can be officially substantiated.
Exclusive: Lenovo and Acer to launch Tegra devices with Google’s Chrome OS [Shanzai]

Electronic Contact Lenses Promise Future of Advanced Augmented Vision

Babak A. Parviz, an associate professor at the University of Washington whose research was seen on our pages before, wrote an article for IEEE Spectrum discussing the work of his team to develop electronic contact lenses to provide continuous monitoring of glucose, augmented vision, and potential other implications of the technology. Parviz also gives a rundown of the challenges involved in creating functional in-lens displays that users can focus on at such a short distance.

From the article:

The glucose detectors we’re evaluating now are a mere glimmer of what will be possible in the next 5 to 10 years. Contact lenses are worn daily by more than a hundred million people, and they are one of the only disposable, mass-market products that remain in contact, through fluids, with the interior of the body for an extended period of time. When you get a blood test, your doctor is probably measuring many of the same biomarkers that are found in the live cells on the surface of your eye—and in concentrations that correlate closely with the levels in your bloodstream. An appropriately configured contact lens could monitor cholesterol, sodium, and potassium levels, to name a few potential targets. Coupled with a wireless data transmitter, the lens could relay information to medics or nurses instantly, without needles or laboratory chemistry, and with a much lower chance of mix-ups.
Three fundamental challenges stand in the way of building a multipurpose contact lens. First, the processes for making many of the lens’s parts and subsystems are incompatible with one another and with the fragile polymer of the lens. To get around this problem, my colleagues and I make all our devices from scratch. To fabricate the components for silicon circuits and LEDs, we use high temperatures and corrosive chemicals, which means we can’t manufacture them directly onto a lens. That leads to the second challenge, which is that all the key components of the lens need to be miniaturized and integrated onto about 1.5 square centimeters of a flexible, transparent polymer. We haven’t fully solved that problem yet, but we have so far developed our own specialized assembly process, which enables us to integrate several different kinds of components onto a lens. Last but not least, the whole contraption needs to be completely safe for the eye. Take an LED, for example. Most red LEDs are made of aluminum gallium arsenide, which is toxic. So before an LED can go into the eye, it must be enveloped in a biocompatible substance.

Link @ IEEE Spectrum: Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens...

Opera 10 Final Available for Download [Downloads]

Windows/Mac/Linux: Opera 10, which we've had in beta and release candidate forms already, officially hit the net today, bringing its Turbo compression, new interface, and visual tab bar to the browser feature battle.
There's also a host of bug fixes and minor menu tweaks, of course, along with changes to Speed Dial, the much-acclaimed Mail client, and your freedom to place the new resizable tab bar with thumbnail previews anywhere you want on the screen—top, bottom, left or right.
Opera 10 is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems only. Tell us how you think Opera 10 stacks up against the competition in the comments.

Opera 10

Prime Note Cresion NA, DosPara latest ION Based Netbook with BD Drive

Here you are the Prime Note Cresion NA from DosPara, a 12.1” Netbook with a 1366x768 resolution, and a Blu-Ray Drive (Read only). Our Prime Note Cresion NA is powered by an Atom 330 and use Nvidia ION Platform, as well as featuring 2GB of RAM, 320GB of HDD (5400rpm), HDMI out, WiFI BGN, Bluetooth V2.1 +EDR and weight 1.92kg…

 This Prime Note Cresion NA will be sold in Japan at around 70 000 JPY (525€)