Technology Blog

Boss: “Jensen, I wouldn’t wipe my ass with your TPS reports, such is my disdain for your work.” Jensen: “That’s too bad, sir, because you just did in the restroom!” You see, readers, this scene unfolded thusly because of this:

It’s a machine that recycles paper into toilet paper! And surprise, this quirky bit of tech is from…Japan!

Called White Goat, possibly because someone in the inventor’s office saw one eating some paper one day and then do what animals do naturally after eating such things, the machine creates a roll of TP in about 30 minutes using 40 sheets of office paper:

The $100,000 machine goes on sale in Japan this summer, and is expected to save about 60 trees annually. Your job, on the other hand, may still be beyond saving. [Ubergizmo via Born Rich]

The Unclaimed Baggage Center, a real, live place where—wait for it—unclaimed airline baggage goes to market, is a smorgasbord of eclectic lost gadgets, guidance systems and diamonds, oh my:

For those gadget lovers amongst us, there’s a $250,000 Navy guidance system. Maybe all the military transports were full that day? Also, there’s a camera designed specifically for the space shuttle. Perhaps someone at NASA was delivering it to a buyer (if that’s the case, we doubt the engines will be “mailed” in quite the same way). Just add some unclaimed weaponry and the Unclaimed Baggage Center might be comparable to the armies in some third world countries.

For movie buffs, the original Hoggle puppet from Labyrinth was also lost and found by the Center, as was a real, live snake on a plane (rattlesnake).

Indiana Jones might have been flying the day a suitcase full of Egyptian artifacts was lost and never claimed. There were also a number of unclaimed diamonds and jewels, with some of the former having been found hanging out inside a loose sock. [Mental Floss via Consumerist]

The comparisons to another recently revealed tablet are unavoidable, but believe you me the similarities end with the aesthetics. Inside there’s Windows 7, flash support and multitouch. In fact, the more apt comparison is probably “netbook,” as you can see:

There’s the Atom N270 processor, running at 1.6Ghz, for example. And then there’s the 2GB of memory and solid state 32GB drive. Lastly, the replaceable battery on this 8.9-in. multitouch tablet is clocked at a mere four hours, which doesn’t seem that great (saving grace being that is replaceable).

Pricing is set at $599 when it launches in March. Impatient types can buy a non-multitouch prototype for $780 right now. [ExoPC via Engadget]

Here’s a neat Instructable for significantly increasing the geek factor in your car’s rear windshield, showing how to modify a Wi-Fi-detecting t-shirt into a Wi-Fi-detecting bumper sticker. At some point in some traffic jam, you’ll make a fellow nerd’s day.

Starting with a novelty t-shirt that displays the strength of Wi-Fi signals in the area, an Instructable user lived up to his matching username and license plate of “MacGeek” by hacking together this Wi-Fi detecting bumper sticker.

While it may not be entirely useful for finding access points, except maybe to a laptop-wielding driver behind you in a serious bumper to bumper, it will definitely be useful for announcing your geek pride to your fellow drivers. [Instructables]

Firefox Mobile crawled into its first pockets last night, going live on Maemo5. The mobile version retains the full awesomeness of the Awesome Bar and includes WeaveSync for keeping tabs, passwords, and bookmarks straight across desktop and mobile versions.

The Nokia N900 sports a lot of impressive unofficial achievements on its resume, like dual-booting (sort of) and playing Starcraft and Duke Nukem 3D. Now it gets the benefit of Firefox’s first o-fficial mobile version.

As mentioned above it comes with the Awesome Bar and synchronization capabilities as well as tabs, location-aware browsing and some add-ons. Flash support is experimental but can be turned on in the settings.

Firefox Mobile 1.0 is currently available for download. You can find out more at Mozilla’s Firefox Mobile page. [Mozilla via ZDNet]