Common Paradox Tech Blog

This year a research expedition sent a remotely operated vehicle 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean and within ten feet of an exploding volcano. Today the first video footage from that expedition was released. Ka-boom.

Ok, maybe there’s no ka-boom because there’s no sound, but just looking at this video makes me imagine all that water wooshing by as everything begins to shake. Simply stunning. [Physorg]

Watching this video of glowing people playing tennis in the dark has me dizzy. I can’t imagine watching the game live. Well, I guess I can imagine it, but I would probably vomit just by doing that. [Thanks Buster Cox]

Here’s the idea: your child scribbles an animal on Shidonni’s website, they hand-sew a corresponding one-of-a-kind plush toy and mail it to you. Neat, right?

From the looks of this video, sweatshop laborers aren’t stitching their fingers to your child’s Christmas gift. Shidonni is just a small operation with a really good idea, actualizing a child’s design into something they can hold.

I believe the cost is $85, and if you were interested in the gift for Christmas, you’d need to order by tomorrow, December 15th. No word on whether or not Shidonni will sew you one of the deadly tanks firing exploding ice cream cones that I drew as a kid. [Shiddoni]

Combining art and maths, much like the Mobius Strip bagel, these mirrored Invisible Shoes reflect the ground, causing small animals to headbutt your ankles. Imagine kicking Lady Gaga in them. [CNET Asia]

Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, YES. Shopping Ikea with an Apple tablet! I could be so there. Unfortunately, it’s fake. A clever fake over a blue screen—as you can notice on the hands’ edges and shadows—but fake nonetheless.

I like everything about this video. That’s how I imagine the interaction would be: Smooth and light. I hope the styling of the final tablet ends being more than an overgrown iPhone, however. Something with no framing, with the screen fully flushed to the edges, would work mighty fine, thank you very much. [No Where Else]

As the Internet matures, slowly but surely everything we do in the real world is going social. But there’s a limit to how much information we can explicitly share on all the various services. A new service, Blippy, launching today in private beta, has an interesting way to take something you do everyday, buy things with your credit card, and automatically push those transactions online for others to see and interact with.

Yes, I know this is a controversial idea — that’s part of what makes it potentially a great one. Imagine being able to see everything your friends buy with a credit card as they do it. This not only tells you what kind of things they’re actually into (rather than someone just saying they like something), but also other information like how cheap they are, as well as where they actually are at a given time. There is actually a lot of data tied into the transactions we make, and Blippy takes that and makes it social.

Kids imagine that their Christmas presents come from a huge, crowded workshop full of elves at the North Pole. In reality, they come from huge, crowded warehouses full of workers in the ‘burbs.

These insane shots come from Amazon UK’s distribution center, but you can be sure that there are a bunch more just like this in the States. And that a decent percentage of what you’ll be opening later this month will have passed through one of them. [Daily Mail via Consumerist]

You would think that Web sites that simply aggregate tweets from lists of users would become somewhat irrelevant with the introduction of Twitter Lists.

But apparently, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons doesn’t think so, as his Web site GlobalGrind has just acquired CelebrityTweet, a site that aggregates the tweets of famous people, both on the Web and via mobile applications.

Here’s why Simmons says they’re doing the deal:

“Twitter is the most dynamic way for celebrities to connect to their fans in real-time day & night. CelebrityTweet is the most authoritative destination in the space and we view it as having a natural synergy with Global Grind’s strength in providing exclusive content directly from celebrities.”

CelebrityTweet will continue to operate as its own site, syndicating its content back to GlobalGrind. Terms aren’t being disclosed, but considering the site has rather modest traffic, you have to imagine this deal is more about “buy versus build” than a major financial acquisition.

Nonetheless, it marks yet another deal in the Twitter app space, which has recently seen the likes of MSNBC get involved (through a deal with @BreakingNews).

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: russell simmons, twitter

In elementary school, I was that kid who always had to sit up front when I forgot my glasses. Think of all the time I could have spent goofing off! If only I had those notes delivered to my Kindle…

Luidia’s eBeam whiteboard has been around for a while, the one that takes a snapshot of the notes on the board and saves them as an image. Now those images can be transmitted directly to a Kindle.

At first I thought this was a pairing of two cool but inessential technologies resulting in something that’s, well, cool but inessential. But now I think it’s kind of neat. In the future, instead of actually watching someone give a presentation, the audience will be staring at their Kindles and tablets the whole time.

Imagine the consequences. Teachers, bosses, parole officers, no one would never be able to tell if you were paying attention to the notes or goofing off on the internet. Not by reading Gizmodo, of course. We would never condone such behavior. [Press Release via Ubergizmo]

If you guys get motion sickness (or drink heavily), you might want to skip this crazy art exhibit. Imagine a huge iPod (a 4th gen, I’m pretty sure) except all squiggly, like you’re looking at it in a funhouse mirror.

This nausea-inducing iPod can be seen at Art Basel Miami Beach, which runs December 3rd to December 6th and shows a selection from more than 250 worldwide galleries. I’m not sure who’s responsible for this great riff on the iPod, but I’ll be sure to thank them when the room stops spinning. [Thanks, Buster!]