Gadgets Blog

The winner of last week’s coolest gadget competition is the Pop-up Garage Stows Your Car Safely Underground.

The Cardok garage is an interesting parking solution that is starting to be seen around more affluent London locales. The owner’s car is raised and lowered by means of a hydraulic lift. At present there are eight in action around London, four under construction and another ten that have been ordered

Congrats again to We Interrupt.

In second place we have the Remote Security Sentry.

When you’re away, fire-up this remote security robot to ‘roam’ the house beaming back a live image of your home to an Internet enabled device. The bot automatically finds its charging base for a power up, so you can leave this running longer - such as when away on holiday.

Finally in third place comes the Optoma Pico Transforms iPhone Into Projector.

The Optoma Pico can turn your iPod or iPhone into a projector. The 4.1″ PK-101 can work as close as 8″ or up to 8′ away and still display sharp images. Shine it on a wall, a piece of furniture, a car seat or your cat (if he/she is dozing) and the image will still be true. The Pico only weighs 4 oz. and has a rechargeable battery life of 1.5 hours. Included in the $399.00 price are two batteries. Time liked it so well they made it one of their top ten gadgets of 2008.

Thank you to everybody who voted, submitted, commented or told a friend. The randomly drawn winner of the $50 Amazon vouchers is:

Feint (steamis1337@…), congratulations.

Thanks again everybody and good luck with the next CGOTW contest on Friday.

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If you write for a gadget themed blog and wish to be included in next week’s contest check out the CGOTW instructions page.

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on creating a laser which can compress and heat a single fuel capsule to more than 180 million degrees in order to trigger a thermonuclear reaction. In short, they’re building a Death Star Laser. But for good, not evil. The idea is to create a kind of miniature sun on earth that would supply “limitless, safe, and carbon free energy.”

Normally, fusion â€" which is the bonding together of heavy atoms to create energy â€" takes place in hot environments like stars, but with 192 giant lasers, the NIF is attempting to create the same kind of reaction here on earth. The reaction will be accomplished by superheating the outside of a fuel capsule contining about one millionth of a pound of deuterium and tritium. This will cause the interior of the capsule to compress while the exterior explodes much like a star does. The biggest challenge? Containing the reaction as 180 million degrees will melt just about any known substance here on earth. But the reaction itself may be the key to containing it as, according to the NIF, the reaction consumes the cooler outer region faster than the capsule can release the hotter elements, thereby containing it.

Serious ignition testing is scheduled for next year. Then its’ bound to be a horse race to see if it can beat the Hadron collider in destroying the planet.

Hat Tip â€" Live Science