hammer

I have lived my life blissfully unscathed by boy band phenomenon One Direction. Until now. Arm & Hammer has released two new Tooth Tunes musical toothbrushes featuring two-minute clips of the chart-topping songs "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing."

The $9.99 toothbrush runs on AAA batteries. The "Music in Your Mouth" technology is described as working by streaming sound vibrations through the brush's bristles into the teeth, making it one of the more bizarre applications of bone-conduction music delivery.… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Fiery meteor explodes over Russia's Ural Mountains; 1,100 injured as shock wave breaks windows.

- Watch asteroid 2012 DA14 fade out via streaming video.

- Iceland wants to ban Internet porn.

- Chubby Checker in a twist over an old app.

- One Direction's new toothbrush streams sound vibrations through your teeth.… Read more

Beloved astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is no stranger to the world of comic book superheroes, having already found the location for Superman's home planet. He has now turned his keen scientific mind to the Marvel world and the issue of just how much Thor's mighty hammer weighs.

Thor's hammer Mjölnir is said to be made of neutron-star matter. Tyson did the calculations and determined the hammer must therefore weigh as much as 300 billion elephants. That's not a common form of weight measurement, so we have to do some further calculations to translate elephants into pounds.… Read more

During yesterday's Web protest against antipiracy legislation, Firefox blacked out its start page and redirected users to Mozilla's anti-SOPA and PIPA action page. It also posted 9 million messages about the two pending bills on Facebook, Twitter, and in its Firefox + You newsletter.

As a result, more than 40 million people were reached, announced Mozilla News today.

"All these steps were aimed at informing and mobilizing millions of people on the poorly drafted anti-piracy legislation--SOPA and PIPA--pending in Congress," Alex Fowler wrote in The Mozilla Blog.

According to Fowler, around 30 million people in the U.… Read more

With almost 550,000 active apps in the iTunes App Store, you get plenty of variation, and one developer continues to release games that are downright silly.

Many iPhone gamers will probably remember Justin Smith's Enviro-Bear 2010 (99 cents) from Captain Games. When the game came out in 2009, our Mac and iOS freelance reviewer, Paul Hughes, started the review by saying, "Enviro-Bear 2010 is part game, part joke, part art piece, and part game-design experiment." In Enviro-Bear 2010, the premise is that you are a bear getting ready to hibernate and you must drive a car … Read more

Believe it or not, we still have our jobs after welcoming Jim Lanzone, CBS Interactive president, on yesterday's show. Go back an episode and listen for a rare opportunity to hear someone make fun of Jeff. Cheers, Jim!

Today we're going over some of the stories that we didn't get to talk about yesterday, including Google's latest OpenGL project. The platform that Google tested using Google Earth is once again put to use on the Google Infinite Digital Bookcase, a helix of virtual books you can browse in a 3D model.… Read more

It has long been my personal dream to see Google's Larry Page wearing brightly patterned trousers and dancing uncontrollably.

I may have to make do with a man who will happily wear brightly patterned trousers and dance launching a search engine.

This is precisely what occurred today at the Web 2.0 Summit when the legend that is MC Hammer presented WIREDoo, a little engine that could go far. For its motto appears to be "deep search." (Or, perhaps, "relationship search.")

How did Hammer define deep search? Put succinctly, better search. This doesn't necessarily … Read more

We've heard that the recession is waning. But our gut tells us something different. Today we examine gadgets that appeal to our recession-warped minds.

Downturn doll sleeps in a car - but costs $95

Dell banks its brand on artists, baseball and nail polish

Netbooks rise, notebooks fall

Sony’s new Vaio X: thinnest laptop ever, $1,300 and up

SanDisk on Sansa: Value is our top priority

Gilt on the Go iPhone app… Read more

Simple, powerful, easy to use--these assets go in the credit column for this app. This home-accounting package will help you realize your desire to reign in your spending practices to make sure outgo doesn't outweigh income.

Millionaire 2020 launches a simple tabbed interface--plain but functional--with a row of buttons. A robust Help feature provides details on how to get the most from the app, but a first-time user can determine how to use this software just by looking at the interface. This app performed very well during our tests. We liked the simplicity it provided for entering recurring items, … Read more