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(Credit: Amazon.de)

Take this for what you will, but a mysterious listing for a "Playstation 3 Konsole slim" has turned up on Amazon Germany. There's basically no info to go along with the listing except for an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN). The picture that was added was from a user, who also added the 499 Euro price tag, so it's hard to tell whether this is a leak or something else.

The folks over at Joystiq and Engadget, which posted the original story, aren't exactly sure what to make it of it either, but so far the listing hasn't been pulled, which seems odd.

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Pew! Pew! Pew! Snap.

(Credit: Franziska Dierschke)

Franziska Dierschkeare is the designer behind this concept camera, a unique take on the kitschy toy camera popularized by the Lomography Diana, Holga, and the Supersampler...all of which can be found at your local Urban Outfitters, if you dare.

This pinhole camera is slightly different in that there's no viewfinder to look through. Instead, users are encouraged to simply aim the photogun as accurately as possible and blindly pull the trigger. Dierschke claims that this method of shooting puts less emphasis on picture and more on the "playful" act of taking pictures.

Sounds like fun, but I think I'll stick with my old standby camera for those surprise candid shots--not everyone appreciates a gun in their face, even if it is neon green. Check out the slideshow below for flicks of the gun in action, as well as some sample shots.

(Source: LikeCool via Noquedanblogs)

Pinhole camera takes the shape of a gun

Imagine being able to control street lights with your mobile phone. This isn't a prank, but an eco-friendly solution now in place in parts of Germany.

The (I must add) responsible denizens there have put in place a system called Dial4Light that lets cell phone users turn on the street lamps only when someone actually needs illumination. We won't suggest this for streets like Harlem or the dodgier parts of Asia since it's so easily subject to abuse.

Much like your very own on/off switch at home, this one requires you to dial up the lights, with a 15-minute grace period before it gets pitch black again. And the best bit, a reported cost savings of 25 percent in power bills for the the towns, not to mention everyone doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprint. Just don't leave home without your phone.

Watch the video at BBC News.

(Via Crave Asia)

(Credit: Golden Store)

Excessively blinged USB thumb drives are so common that they've become passe, but this may be the first one we've seen from a German manufacturer. The defiantly named "Adamant" comes from a company called Golden Store, a limited-edition gold USB key accented with 3 diamonds and lapis lazuli deposits. There's even a solitary diamond in its lacquered box, according to BornRich. Sure, $5,650 is a lot to pay for a flash drive, but what other accessory would be appropriate to use with a $760,000 gold and diamond PC?

Updated at 12:00pm to clarify the French law on unlocked cell phones, and at 1:43pm with comment from Apple.

The iPhone on Friday will make its debut in the United Kingdom and Germany, the first countries outside of the United States to get their hands on Apple's first mobile phone.

Apple's Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone to the British in September.

(Credit: Crave UK)

For months, many (including this guy) had expected Apple to wade into the European mobile-phone market with a 3G iPhone, but virtually the same model that's available in the States will be presented to British and German users of O2 and T-Mobile's networks, respectively. The 8GB iPhone is going to cost 269 pounds in the U.K.($563.87 as of this writing) and 399 euros ($583.84), including VAT in both countries.

It will be very interesting to see how the iPhone is received in Europe. Sophisticated smartphones and fast 3G networks are the norm in many places, not a novelty. Still, the combination of the touch-screen interface and the iPod capabilities should tempt some European consumers; at the Intel Developer Forum in September, I noticed more than one member of the British press sneaking over to the San Francisco Apple store to acquire an iPhone, presumably with plans to unlock it for the carrier of their choice.

According to reports, there will be at least one significant change arriving with the European iPhones: OS X 1.1.2. UPDATED: Apple confirmed Thursday afternoon that OS X 1.1.2 will ship tomorrow "to support the international launch of the iPhone."

The software update, which will presumably be delivered to all iPhone owners, is said to fix the TIFF image flaw that allowed the iPhone to be rehacked after the 1.1.1 update disabled third-party applications. It will also probably escalate the hacking wars by making the iPhone more impervious to both third-party applications and unlocking, the real source of consternation for Apple.

Later this month, France will be the third European destination for the iPhone, and Apple and Orange, the wireless carrier selected for France, might have to make a concession to the forces of unlocking. Apparently, it's against French law to sell mobile phones locked to a specific network, though Apple has not confirmed whether its French iPhone will be locked.

UPDATED: At the suggestion of a reader, I looked into this a little more, and it's not explicitly against the law to sell locked phones. However, the law requires that French carriers unlock phones if the customer requests it, and they have to let customers do that for free after six months.

If you are thinking of installing solar panels, don't wait.

Lyndon Rive, CEO of solar installer Solar City, says that prices for residential solar systems are climbing. Over time, they will decline. In five to seven years, he predicts solar energy will be on par with regular grid power. (Dick Swanson of SunPower has made the same prediction.)

Unfortunately, buyers right now are caught in a bind. The lingering shortage of silicon continues to keep panel prices high. Meanwhile, the subsidies are going down. Last year, California offered a rebate of $2.80 per watt, he said. This year, it's $2.20. It will go down to $1.90 next year.

Residents typically put a 3-kilowatt panel on their home.

Solar City's twist on solar installation lay in group buying. The company canvasses residential neighborhoods. When it gets 50 or so committed customers, it purchases the panels and then sends out teams of five or so installers to erect them. Volume discounts and concentrated installation leads to a reduction of about 20 percent in the overall cost, according to Rive.

Solar City recently raised $21 million. The company will use the money to build out its warehouse and hire and train people. The 12-month-old company has gone from two to over 100 employees. It concentrates on California but will expand to Colorado soon.

National chains of energy experts is a trend we wrote about. Read the dreamy article here.

Like a lot of people in the green energy business, Rive is a refugee from IT technology. He used to work at a software company called Everdream.

Image of proposed Great Pyramid of Germany

(Credit: Friends of the Great Pyramid)

Germany's pyramid would be 10 times larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

(Credit: Friends of the Great Pyramid)

A group in Dessau, Germany, has received funds and famed architect Rem Koolhaas as an adviser in its quest to build the world's largest structure.

Dubbed a "monument for all of us" the new "Great Pyramid," which is estimated would take about 30 years to complete, would be about 1,900 feet tall and 10 times larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt, according to the Great Pyramid's Web site.

Instead of being a monument to only a few individuals, Germany's Great Pyramid would be a communal tomb open to anyone regardless of nationality or denomination. It would offer burial space in the form of a "tomb container with ashes of the deceased" and engraved "memorial stones" with time capsules to store personal memorabilia.

A burial spot will cost about $960 (700 euros), Jens Thiel, an economist and one of the Friends of the Great Pyramid leaders, told U.K. construction magazine Building .

On Sunday, the group presented a stone prototype of the Great Pyramid at a Great Pyramid Festival in Streetz, a small village north of Dessau.

Pritzker-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is set to lead the jury for choosing a final design for the project, according to several reports. Students under Heiko Holzberger at Weimar Bauhaus University in Germany conducted a technology feasibility study that concluded the project is viable, according to the Great Pyramid Web site.

The project has been given starter funding by the "Future of Labor" program of the government-backed German Federal Cultural Foundation.

As part of the group's business plan, the structure would be built up and out incrementally so that stones are added only as people buy placement in the pyramid.

(Credit: Ugens)

We've been concerned about misplacing some media players because of their petite frames, but never video cameras. And certainly not high-definition ones. But at a barely more than 1.5 by 3 inches and "smaller than a bar of soap," the "MicroHDTV" from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute could easily slip out of our pocket and into the lost-and-found category.

Engadget says the camcorder is purportedly small enough to fit in "a racing-car cockpit, helmet or any other tiny space you'd like to broadcast HDTV from." That's a euro in the photo for scale comparison (about the size of an American quarter).

The camera can also be controlled through the Web for live action, shooting at up to 1920x1080-pixel resolution. So if you've been bellyaching about the lack of HD content available to watch on your spanking-new 70-inch plasma, maybe you'll soon be able to do something about it yourself.