The Ultimate Water Training – Pool Sprint Concept

We’ve all unfortunately seen that big group of old people, “working out” in the pool, and tried with all desperation not to vomit all over the place. Seriously, who has ever heard the term Water Training and not had to immediately picture Jessica Rabbit bending down to pick up a penny in order to get the image of old saggy skin and turkey necks out of their heads?

Well now, Finnish designer Pyry Tamminen is working on changing the image of water training all together. He’s created a concept called Pool Sprint that is basically submersible rubber track which allows a runner some traction when wearing special water shoes. It looks like fun

I really hope this concept takes off. Working out in water could be pretty fun once you get rid of those neon colored foam tubes. Why should Astronauts and Science Fair winners be the only ones to work out under water? Imagine, one day we may get to go the gym and work out like this

Pyry Tamminen has made a few working concept models but is looking for investors. You can contact him here.

(via DesignBoom)

The Power of the Internet! Support Net Neutrality

ONE: Hit play and learn a bit about Net Neutrality from Will Wheaton, Mythbuster’s Adam Savage and a bunch of other people making more money via the internet than me.

TWO: Go to SaveTheInternet and do your civic duty.

(via Phampants)

Toy Story – The Wire Mashup

If you haven’t watched HBO’s The Wire, you’re really missing out. Ryan Hoffman and Dan Angelucci have created a nice little mash up of Toy Story footage and The Wire dialogue. The lips don’t match up, but it’s entertaining none the less. Watch as Woody becomes the Chief Asshole of the series and Buzz teaches the little green men to conglomerate.

(via: I Watch Stuff)

Apple suspends Pre-Orders for iPhone 4

Earlier this month, Steve Jobs announced the release date of the iPhone 4 as June 24th of this year and the internet went into a frenzy. Two days ago, AT&T began the rollout of pre-orders for the devise and ended up with packed stores, long lines, exposure of credit card information and a lot of unsatisfied customers. Well after that fiasco, AT&T has pulled the plug on pre-orders for the iPhone 4 and the 8 GB iPhone3GS according to a memo obtained by Boy Genius Report:

Pre-orders for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS 8GB are Temporarily Suspended

Effective close of business on June 15, 2010, the ability to place pre-orders (new activations, upgrades and exchanges) has been temporarily suspended.  There is a special team that will be manually working all pre-orders from June 15th that were held in a pending status.  Under no circumstances should new pre-orders be attempted in the system.

This suspension impacts Phoenix, Premier, OPUS (COR), and System X (DMDR).

Please stay tuned to future bulletin communications for any updates.

So for all you fan-boys and girls who want to be the first to have the newest iPhone in your circle of friends but didn’t make it to the store on the 15th, it will not be happening. It’s smarter to wait for the first gen bugs to pop up and be fixed before purchasing a $300+ device anyway.

Who Wants a Free Trial to Microsoft Office 2010?

Now we here at Idylum tend to support open source software, but in this crazed Corporate run world we live in, OpenOffice doesn’t always cut it. A few days ago, Microsoft released their newest version of their Office package. You can pick up their Home & Student version for $150.00 here. For those of you (in the U.S.) who aren’t going to drop 150 bones on what is essentially Microsoft’s version of EA’s Madden Franchise, you can get a 60 day, free trial key from Microsoft here. After the 60 day trial is up, Microsoft will nag at you to pay for a purchased registration key and shut down the software. That is unless you use a nifty little bit of software that can extend your trial by 30 days.

Try it out, let us know what you think of the update in the comments.

McDonalds is Poisoning Your Kids

Last night the Associated Press reported that McDonalds is being forced to recall 12 million commemorative glasses the chain sold to promote the most recent Shrek flem, Shrek 4: Forever After.

AP:

“The fast food chain said early Friday that it wants customers to stop using the 16-ounce glasses, which have been sold for about $2 each and were available in four designs depicting the main characters from the animated movie.

Cadmium is a known carcinogen that research shows also can cause bone softening and severe kidney problems.

In the case of the Shrek glasses, the concern would be long-term exposure to low levels of cadmium, which could leach from the paint onto a child’s hand, then enter the body if the child puts that unwashed hand to his or her mouth.”

Lets be honest here, Dreamworks should have stopped at two. At this point they’re just attempting to force sludge down your throats. Oh, wait, that was McDonalds, using children’s unquenchable desire for promotional trash to force feed cancerous sludge down their throats. Ah well, sorry MickyDees, looks like you’ll have to poison children the classic way, with your food.

Well Shucks, AT&T Apoligizes for C&D Threat

I don’t think AT&T likes bad press. The story reported earlier concerning Girogio Galante’s being threatened with a Cease & Desist letter has concluded with an AT&T senior VP contacting Galante and providing a sincere apology.
Here’s what AT&T has officially released:

We are apologizing to our customer. We’re working with him today to address his questions and concerns. This is not the way we want to treat customers. From Facebook to significant customer service channels, AT&T strives to provide our customers with easy ways to have their questions addressed. Because of this incident, we are reviewing our entire process to ensure a situation like this does not happen again.

Giorgio says he’s still leaving AT&T and switching to the Evo 4G on Sprint’s network. Hopefully for him they aren’t the first to jump on the pay-per-byte bandwagon.

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me: James Cameron asked to Help With Oil Leak Ideas

The people in charge are so inept that they’ve turned to movies to solve their problems with the BP Oil Leak.

From AP:

“The “Avatar” and “Titanic” director was among a group of scientists and other experts who met Tuesday with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies for a brainstorming session on stopping the massive oil leak.

The Canadian-born Cameron is considered an expert on underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies. “Avatar” and “Titanic” are the two highest-grossing films of all time.”

They’re saying that because he was able to direct the camera men how to shoot movies underwater he has some mystical knowledge that the scientists don’t? That must be great for the guys who have spent decades studying in their specific fields- “Oh don’t worry Professors, the guy who directed that long boring movie about some old chick throwing a blue rock off a boat is on his way. He’ll know what to do! He can Imagine Good!”.

I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they’re getting a director of Fictional Movies to assist with ideas on how to fix the leak, or the fact that this looks a whole lot like that movie poster up there.

(via CBS news)

update:

I’ve figured out whats worse – That if this is in fact life imitating art, the American public will likely believe it.

update 2:

Reuters:

Film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron said on Wednesday that BP Plc turned down his offer to help combat the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Over the last few weeks I’ve watched, as we all have, with growing horror and heartache, watching what’s happening in the Gulf and thinking those morons don’t know what they’re doing,” Cameron said at the All Things Digital technology conference.

Well that was quick. Cameron has said that his ideas for handling the spill were “graciously” turned down by BP. Surprise surprise, he got turned down. I wonder if it’s because his ideas sounded something like – Hey, just make a robot to walk down to the bottom and send off a signal to the aliens down there to fix it.

I’m kidding, really.

It probably had more to do with him knowing people who work in extreme depths on a regular basis and not listening to the B.S. about why they can’t fix it. That and/or his proposal had to do with adding cameras and monitoring equipment, enabling the world to get a better view of the catastrophe. They aren’t even letting people take pictures of the beaches the oil has washed up on, what was he thinking?

(via yahoo)

Warner Bros. Being Sued for Piracy – Hello Mr. Pot

After years of chasing down people who’ve illegally downloaded their films, Warner Brothers is being sued for software piracy. Medien Patent Verwaltung, a company based out of Germany, claims they created the method of marking film reels that Warner Bros. uses to discern which theater had played a pirated film originally.

“We disclosed our anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. in 2003 at their request, under strict confidentiality, expecting to be treated fairly,” MPV says in a statement. “Instead, they started using our technology extensively without our permission and without any accounting to us. However, we had taken care to obtain patents to protect MPV’s technology, and we are now in a position where we must assert our rights.”

In Warner Bros. defense, they are all the way in Germany. Hell, most small businesses I know of pirate the hell out of Microsoft Word and Microsoft is right here. I know this will get settled out of court, but I at least it gets some main stream press too.

(via TowerGaming)

Do You Recognize This Guy?

No? Well you should. His name is Ghyslain Raza and he’s a bad-ass Canadian. Raza is the president of the Patrimoine Trois-Rivieres and holds a law degree from McGill University in Montreal. That isn’t the reason you should know who he is though. Raza’s earliest claim to fame was a low-rez, less than two minute film of him posted to the internet by his so called friends.

Recognize him now?

That’s right kids, Ghyslain Raza was the ‘Star Wars Kid’. Don’t make fun of him though, after the release of that video, Raza, sued the parents of the kids who released the video. Why? Well Ghyslian understandably became depressed – dropped out of school – and entered a psychiatric hospital. It would have been a sad story if he hadn’t gotten his confidence back and returned to school. Good job kid, good job.

You can see the classic YouTube video here.

(via Cinematical)