Crave

(Credit: Exclusive Motor Cars)

I have no delusions of being a superspy like James Bond. Sure, I have the swagger and the charm, and I look dashing in a tuxedo, but right now I don't have a car, let alone a car with machine guns and grill-mounted missiles to destroy my own personal villains.

But that's not to say I couldn't get one. And I don't need any snotty Q character to hand me the keys, so long as I can come up with $125,900. Sure, the weapons are fake, but that's OK; I don't have Bond's training, so I'd likely end up exploding the back out of my garage. Or shooting myself in the arm while changing the oil.

It looks like an Aston Martin, similar to the one Bond drove in "Die Another Day," but it's in fact based on a Ford Mustang. It sports a V8 on an extra wide wheelbase. This is good news: after spending more on a car than I would on a condo, I'd want to be able to fix it with cheap off-the-shelf parts.

The supercar is made by Exclusive Motor Cars out of England under partnership with Mark Stuzka, a businessman who clearly has ideas for underserved, macho markets. Only 200 will be produced, and the first 40 have already been spoken for. I have to wonder, though, what the insurance on this thing would run me. After all, the queen isn't picking up my tab.

There's been a lot of tension between Buzz Out Loud and The 404 for the last couple of months, but today, it's all on! We're sick and tired of the "Bore Out Loud" stealing our women (*ahem* Natali Del Conte) and our joke show titles. We've never been as crass as to have "urine" in one of our show titles. We got pretty bad, though, with having "tickling the Bonch." But we really did tickle CNET editor Bonnie Cha that day.

Don't make Wilson open a can of whoop-@$$ on you, Merritt. Tong is the only one stopping us at this point.

(Credit: Jeff Bakalar and Justin Yu/CNET)

It's official! We. Are. The. Four. Oh. Four: High-tech, low-brow. That's right. That's the winner to our tagline contest. Also, here are the winners to our Justin Yu photo caption contest (in order) for a copy of Wheelman for the Xbox 360:

1. What, the Hubble Telescope is down?! Don't worry, just tell me what you wanna look at.
2. The 404's Justin Yu was taken into custody shortly after molesting a lumberjack, a 90-year-old woman, and robbing a Radioshack in Chinatown last evening. Luckily, there was no evidence of d*cktopping at any of these crime scenes.
3. All the single printers, all the single printers!

In today's episode, we've got proof that gamers who play action-oriented video games have better vision than non-gamers. A man dies after trying to get healthier with the Wii Fit. Chinese people are spying on your pr0n collection and the NSA. Let's hope the Conflicker doesn't end the Interweb before they find too much dirt. The Pirate Bay joins Facebook. And finally, Encarta dies a slow, painful death after being stabbed by Wikipedia.

(Credit: Photojojo)

With large lens barrels, dSLR optics look professional and intimidating. This is why it can be difficult to take candid street shots with them. But Photojojo has a solution--the Super-Secret Spy Lens.

This attachment fits onto most lenses via adapters, and the opening along the side shows a precision mirror that reflects light into the optics. The swivel barrel lets shutterbugs take discreet shots in any direction without having to point the lens at the subject.

Photojojo's Web site lists the price for the Super-Secret Spy Lens from $50 to $85, depending on which combination of adapters you require.

(Via Crave Asia)

This may be the back of the new Mac mini.

(Credit: Apple Insider)

In the department of who-knows-if-this-is-real-or-not, we bring you some alleged "spy" shots of the back of the next-generation Mac Mini that are making their way around the blog circuit.

Everybody seems impressed that the thing has a whopping five USB ports. There are also connections for Ethernet, FireWire 800, and what appears to be two display ports--one Mini DisplayPort and one older mini DVI Mac display port. Why there's no HDMI connection is beyond us, but then again, this may--or may not--be the real deal, so we won't get too worked up.

Of course, there's no word when the next-gen Mac Mini will appear and how much it will cost. Rumor has it that it will include the new Nvidia 9400 graphics chipset found in the newer MacBook and MacBook Pros. We'll wait and see.

Anybody excited by these shots? Feel free to comment.

Via Gizmodo via Apple Insider.

Update on 2/20/09: There's brewing evidence that the photo is a doctored image. The folks over at 9to5mac.com have a story up that explains in detail why we're probably not looking at a real next-gen Mac Mini here.

(Credit: Fred Flare)

Inside all of us, there lives an inner creep just itching to get out and secretly take photos of unsuspecting members of the opposite sex. The secret book camera, offered here by Keith Carollo and Chris Bick of Fred Flare, definitely confirms that theory. The camera uses inexpensive 110 film and is the perfect size to stick in your backpack or Miley Cyrus-approved clutch purse.

You know what this camera reminds me of? That one scene in Troop Beverly Hills where shevillain Velda Plendor hides a camera inside the Girl Scouts book so Herman can spy on the tragically affluent Girl Scouts of Beverly Hills. Wait, what? You're not as self-deprecating as I am? OK, well I loved TBH and now I can finally live out my cinematic fantasies. Never mind that it's seafoam green and made to look like an antique toy for children--I just so happen to have $55 burning a hole in my apron. Patches?! We don't need no stinkin' patches!

Check out more pictures of the camera after the jump.

Beware of flashing your keys in public.

Computer scientists at the University of California at San Diego have developed software that can make a duplicate of a key from just a distant photo of it using technology available to almost anyone.

Referred to as Sneakey, the system is capable of "teleduplication--extracting a key's complete and precise bitting code at a distance via optical decoding and then cutting precise duplicates," according to Sneakey's Web site.

Part of the project's mission is to make people realize that traditional keys are not really as safe as they might think. Relatively modest technology is now capable of the imaging and computer vision algorithms necessary to duplicate an image precisely, according to the group.

To illustrate the point, they photographed a set of keys they casually placed on the table at a cafe from about 195 feet away using a telephoto lens. From that image (shown), they were able to extract enough data to duplicate the keys on the ring perfectly.

The group was able to duplicate keys from a set photographed at about 195 feet away.

(Credit: University of California at San Diego)

It gets worse. The group's software was also capable of extracting enough visual data to make a duplicate key from an image taken by a cell phone camera.

Not only that, but the keys photographed do not even have to be in profile. Sneakey's software can determine a key's bitting code--its series of unique cuts--from nearly any angle.

Stefan Savage, the computer science professor at UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering who led the project, presented his group's work Thursday at the ACM Conference on Communications and Computer Security in Alexandria, Va.

"There are experts who have been able to copy keys by hand from high-resolution photographs for some time. However, we argue that the threat has turned a corner--cheap image sensors have made digital cameras pervasive and basic computer vision techniques can automatically extract a key's information without requiring any expertise," Savage said in a statement.

While the group is not planning to publicly release the code, it inferred in the project statement that anyone with a basic competence in MatLab, a technical computing language and environment from MathWorks, would be able to duplicate its efforts.

We all know that Apple is gathering the chattering classes together Tuesday in Cupertino, Calif., to unveil the latest MacBooks. But unlike many previous Apple product debuts, the Interwebs have been awash recently with reasonably believable-looking leaked spy shots of the laptops, or their component parts.

The latest comes from Chinese site MacX.cn, which purports to show the new aluminum chassis of the 13-inch MacBook. Interesting to note that the side view (pics are after the break) seems to omit the FireWire port currently found on the standard MacBook.

This time via a Chinese Web site (which is now timing out, perhaps due to heavy traffic), and reposted on MacRumors.com, Engadget, and others. Just what this photo purports to show seems a little unclear to us, but it may very well be the left side and keyboard tray (minus the actual keys) of a new MacBook Pro.

This does seem to fit in with recent rumors that the new MacBooks will be made from, if not one, then a very small number of aluminum sheets, bent into shape using a process referred to as the "brick." (Although whether that refers to the manufacturing process, the initial block of aluminum, or something else entirely, is not clear.)

As always, take all so-called spy shots with a large grain of salt.

(Credit: Chinavasion)

Spy cameras these days come in different shapes and sizes. For the Bond wannabe, there's the really petite Minox spy camera, a pen camera, and the sunglasses shooter. These gadgets probably won't look good on an accountant (or nerd), and this is where the calculator camera comes in.

(Credit: Crave Asia)

Chinavasion is touting the gizmo as the "ultimate wireless office surveillance" tool. A small camera is built into the side of the calculator, so you can pretend to be punching in figures while you're actually recording a clip of your office nemesis picking his nose, to blackmail him with later.

A wireless receiver is included in the package. From there you can receive real-time streams of what the lens on the calculator is seeing. Sound and visual data are recorded in your receiver, which has an SD card expansion slot.

Priced at $192.50, this shooter isn't cheap. But if it will save you the cost of a private detective, then drop by its retail site for a look.

(Via Crave Asia)