scream

Sonic Wallets scream, moo, hurl insults when opened

Wallets usually aren't the most exciting accessories. They hold your money and cards in place and pretty much stay quietly out of sight. If you have a Sonic Wallet, however, your wallet will be making a racket every time you open it.

Sonic Wallets come in eight flavors: American flag, baseball, Buddha, drum machine, Jesus, moolah, The Scream, and Shakespearean insults. A small sound device in the Tyvek wallet is triggered on opening. The American flag wallet plays "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "The Star Spangled Banner." The Jesus wallet gives you the sounds of harps and angelic choruses.… Read more

Can anyone in space hear you scream? Scientists try to find out

Some screams come from the gut.

Yes, just like that horrible monster thing in "Alien."

Now scientists with only extreme discovery in their locker of ambition have decided to learn, once and for all, whether a scream in outer space can awaken alien ears.

The Cambridge University Spaceflight team behind this experiment are truly committed explorers.

They have created a video featuring Albert Einstein -- or at least a posh-speaking version of him.

The idea is very simple. They want you to go to YouTube and record your best and most frightening, piercing scream. Indeed, the scientists want you to scream "in a creative way." … Read more

Vance & Hines offers up drag-racing secrets

INDIANAPOLIS--At first glance, the Vance & Hines facility outside Indianapolis wouldn't seem to offer much of interest to anyone. And that would be precisely the case, unless you're interested in motorcycles, speed, drag racing, burning rubber, loud engines, championship trophies, world records, and elite precision engineering.

Two expansive, blandly adorned warehouses hide off a side road beside several acres of corn stalks. But the engineers and mechanics working inside Vance & Hines produce some of the fastest two-wheeled vehicles in the world.

Competing in National Hot Rod Association motorcycle competitions, the 2.6-liter, 385-horsepower Vance and Hines/Screamin' Eagle team motorcycles were the first racers to break the seven-second mark on the quarter mile, with a 6.99.

According to Vance & Hines racer Eddie Krawiec, the next Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson racing goal is to break the 200 mph mark: "I'd love to be the guy who does it, but every racer on the circuit wants the same thing." … Read more

The $140,000 loudspeakers

Yes, we know. Life as a media technophile can be so tiring sometimes.

It took forever for you to find the right home theater projector, but persistence paid off because you snagged a $10,000 model for only $99,995. And then there's the $150,000 turntable you stumbled across at a neighborhood garage sale.

But what, praytell, will you do about speakers? Apple industrial designer Ross Lovegrove has just the answer for you with his "Muon" masterpiece, which goes for a mere $140,000 a pair. These auditory wonders employ a technology that "doubles the … Read more

Gadget keeps kids out of hot water

If you don't have small kids, skip this item because it'll probably seem like a waste of money. But if you do, you'll totally understand why it's a good idea. How many times have you or your rug rats ended up with scalded fingers after checking the bath faucet? Same here.

The "Digital Bath Spout Cover" is designed to keep you and your family out of the burn ward by automatically monitoring the water temperature as it rises. Even better, its digital display uses a simple color code ("red means too hot") … Read more

A backpack that everyone can hear

Enough already. Why is it that some people insist on "sharing" their music with the rest of world--whether we like it or not--when today's headphones offer a far superior listening experience? We've seen everything from messenger bags to bowling bags with built-in speakers, and now we have a new backpack that will surely contribute its share of noise pollution.

Scullcandy's "Link" backpack has speakers embedded in its straps for music or--worse, as OhGizmo notes correctly--a cell phone conversation. We've got to get started building that bunker.