[altJunk.com]

The fact that Monster Cables are a rip off shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s payed upwards of 100 bucks for one, but the consumerist got a price sheet from a Radio Shack employee that shows the wholesale and markup price on all the cables they carry — some of the markups are as high as 80%.

And the markeups are just part of the rip-off.

The worst part isn’t really the markup. Stereo equipment routinely has markups of 80 to 100 to 200% by the time it hits the shelves. It’s the initial inflated price, and how gadget stores try to push the cables so hard, telling people that Monster cables offer superior picture and sound then what you would get with another cable. But that simply isn’t the case. Our sister site Gizmodo ran a battery of tests and found Monster cables are for the most part, completely unnecessary.

The generic cables found at monoprice.com, mertline.com, and newegg will get you exactly the same signal quality for a fraction of the price. Don’t fall for the name brand… unless name brands are important to you, of course.

You can read all the results of Gizmodo’s cable tests here: part 1, part 2, part 3

Here’s a video demonstration of a new device that can create usable electrical energy as a person walks.

Researchers have built a device resembling a knee brace that can generate usable amounts of electrical energy as a person walks. The brace, described in an article in the journal Science, harvests the energy lost when a human brakes the knee after swinging the leg forward to take a step.

Read and hear more about it on Science Friday.

Or should I say: the world’s first automated drug dealer?

Most of your essentials are already distributed by vending machines: condoms, electronics, luscious 1-calorie Tab… But now, you can finally get what you really need: medical marijuana, from Anytime Vending Machines.

Read more about this amazing gadget at the thrillist.

Read the article and see a couple more pics over at the Los Angeles Times.

These pieces are a bit pricey at around $400 to $650, but the idea is inspiring. Nicely done, Insect Lab. They have a few different species, but the beetles are the coolest by far.

“Insect Lab is an artist studio that customizes real insects with antique watch parts and electronic components. Offering specimens that come in many shapes, sizes and colors; each insect is individually adorned, each is one of a kind and unique.”

From the Giant White Glove website: “This is an experiment for the White Glove Tracking project, made with Java and processing.”

Check out the video at the Australian Center for Visual Tech’s website. Pretty impressive.

VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model. Each of the sketching operations in VideoTrace provides an intuitive and powerful means of modelling shape from video, and executes quickly enough to be used interactively. Immediate feedback allows the user to model rapidly those parts of the scene which are of interest and to the level of detail required. The combination of automated and manual reconstruction allows VideoTrace to model parts of the scene not visible, and to succeed in cases where purely automated approaches would fail.

Head over to gizmodo to see more images and their impressions of the car.

Warner Bros. Entertainment to Release Its High-Definition DVD Titles Exclusively in the Blu-ray Disc Format Beginning Later This Year

“Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” said Meyer. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”

Read the whole article at business wire.

Sadly I couldn’t figure out how to post the video here, but you can find it and more info over at the Anti-Social College Kids Build Autonomous Foosball Table article at gizmodo.com and at the Autonomous Foosball Table’s project site where they even describe how they built it.

“Solid State Raid 0 Performance Explored using the Mtron Pro 16GB SSD”

via next level hardware.com

via pcgameshardware.de

What if you could see all the 2.4 GHz Wifi traffic flying through the air?

Wifi camera

Check out the movies where the signals cross fade in and out.