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What’s up you guys, I’m going to show you how to change your trackball with a replacement trackball for your BOLD 9000. If you have any questions, comment on the video and I’ll try my best to answer them! The phone is for sale on my ebay page so dont forget to check it out! I’m going to post the link for the phone and for a T-5 screwdriver below! Enjoy and thanks for watching! ebay Link: cgi.ebay.com T-5 Screwdriver Link: www.wirelessground.com

Video Tour of the ebay purchased blackberry Bold 9000. Detail Review at crackberry.com/blackberry9000

So here it is, the now-famous (that was fast) Bloom “Box” Energy Servers — all five of ‘em — working their magic at eBay’s north campus. Not much to look at, but we’re happy to say it retains a low temperature — the only heat we really found was due to direct exposure to the light — and remains quiet while running. There are vents just underneath the sides where cool air was being pumped out. Of course, its raison d’etre is its ability to more efficiently deliver power, which is not something we can really test ourselves. Bloom Energy showcased a number of customers today –
FedEx, Walmart, Staples, Google, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Cox, and of course, eBay — and if the numbers meet their mark, you can color us mighty impressed. You know the drill: gallery below, quick video after the break!

Continue reading Bloom ‘Box’ Energy Server hands-on (literally) with video!

Bloom ‘Box’ Energy Server hands-on (literally) with video! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ed. note: Senior Editor of MAKE magazine Phil Torrone joins us to celebrate a few modern-day MacGyvers as we continue DIY week at Lifehacker. Today’s maker(s): Evil Mad Scientists Laboratories, the dynamic duo Lenore M. Edman and Windell H. Oskay.

Pictured above: A bar bot drink-mixing unit, made with an open source hardware gaming kit and hacked breast pumps bought off eBay. It doesn’t get better than this folks…

Hi Lifehackers! MAKE is best known for sharing all the goodness of making things for yourself, learning new skills and many times, voiding warranties. Marcus Chan of the San Francisco Chronicle said we’re the “The kind of magazine that would impress MacGyver”, and that’s what this week is about. It’s a little known fact, but MAKE even has the creator of MacGyver writing at MAKE: Lee D. Zlotoff is a writer/producer/director among whose numerous credits is creator of MacGyver (you can see his articles here).

Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk science, evil.mad.science—the best kind of science. There isn’t a more creative force on the internet than two of my favorite makers: Lenore M. Edman and Windell H. Oskay. They’re the duo behind “Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories”. Their motto? “Making the world a better place one evil mad scientist at a time”. They’re prolific, bringing us such fascinating projects as how to turn a toothbrush in to a robot!

Before I show you my favorite EMSL MacGyver-like projects you can do yourself (and some, well—good luck!), let’s see what these two say about themselves.

Lenore M. Edman, a veteran bike commuter, used to live in Portland, Oregon, where her son Chris got to ride in her bike’s sidecar. Abandoning wet for warm, she moved to Austin, Texas, where she designed and sewed her own wedding dress. Later, as a regular of the Boulder, Colorado weekly cruiser bike ride, she overhauled a mid-century Hawthorne ladies bicycle (named Stella) which she has only crashed once—and it wasn’t her fault. Since moving to Sunnyvale, California, she has helped to popularize edible origami and has learned to make some wicked curries. Her college studies in classical Greek prepared her well for her career working with professors, librarians, engineers and scientists.

Windell H. Oskay owns only one slide rule, but plans to acquire more. A published playwright, award-winning cartoonist, and obscenely creative amateur chef, he has been variously employed as a quantum mechanic, photographer, and (atomic) clock maker. Several people have described food that he has prepared in terms more positive than “edible.” He is notorious for disrupting a Shawn Colvin concert (on a first date, even) and for putting (and using) an “Ooga” horn on a bicycle. Some of the other things that he somehow ended up designing and building include an interactive dining table, a carbon-fiber electric guitar, hard-drive wind chimes, radio-controlled hovercrafts, nixie tube clocks, and magnetohydrodynamic-powered boats.

Now for a quick tour of some of their handy work—evil handy work—some of which could save your life, save the day or drive you mad. You’ve seen the “Bar bot” above, but that’s a little advanced, so try these on first.

Five Minute Project: Hot Dog Bun Grilling Jig

A quick DIY Hot Dog Bun Grilling Jig, which holds your bun open at the perfect angle while it warms on the grill, forming a sturdy toasted structure with potentially good hinge integrity. Bonus: by grabbing the jig, you can use tongs to set down and pick up your bun without fear of a squished bun. You’ll just need wire cutters and stainless steel welded wire cloth, McMaster-Carr part number 9322T631, described as “EASY-TO-FORM” Stainless Steel (type 304) welded wire cloth 2×2 mesh (2 lines per inch, i.e., 1/2″ squares), with wire .047″ in diameter, and overall size 12″ square. ($9.92 for one square foot).

Quick and Dirty Electric Motor

You have one drywall screw, one 1.5 V alkaline cell, six inches of plain copper wire, one small neodymium disk magnet, and no other tools or supplies. You have 30 seconds to make an electric motor running in excess of ten thousand RPM. Can you do it? Surprisingly enough, you can.

The $1 C-to-D Battery Adapter

How about this one—boom, a quick hack: The $1 C-to-D adapter (which Lifehacker has featured in the past):

Here’s a common problem: You want to power your gizmo that runs on D cells, but all that you have handy are C cells. In many (but not all) circumstances, you can solve this problem by using the C cell and making up the battery length difference with a few quarters— typically three or four. There is a 12 mm length difference between a C cell and a D cell, and quarters are about 2 mm thick, so if your gizmo has a really weak spring it could take up to six quarters to do the job.

Yes, commercial battery size adapters are available. They typically cost between 1.5 and three dollars and can only be used for the one purpose— adapting battery sizes. (Well, that, and as a set of matryoshki.) Using quarters can also potentially end up costing as much as $1.50, but it can go straight back into your wallet when you’re finished! Much more importantly, when you really need it, you can probably find a few quarters no further away than your pocket.

LED Garden Lights

Quick, easy, temporary, and beautiful LED garden lights—they can’t stop themselves. “For a late night summer party, we wanted to deploy an array of maybe 20 or so little LED garden lights along the periphery of our back yard. And since it was for a one-time event, there wasn’t much sense in buying (or building) a set of nice looking permanent solar lights. So here is an alternative: make your own ultra-low cost temporary garden lights using LEDs, lithium coin cells, and mason jars.”

Ok, these are just a few great projects from the halls of Evil Mad Scientists Laboratories. They have over 304 projects on their site. If these quickies wet your palette, you might want to check out some of the more advanced project—including a personal favorite—the CandyFab 4000. Solid freeform fabrication: DIY, on the cheap, and made of pure sugar.

Phil Torrone is Senior Editor of MAKE magazine, contributing editor to Popular Science, and creative director of Adafruit Industries, where they make educational electronics and kits like the TV-B-Gone and some “other” hacky projects that sometimes make the rounds in these parts of the web. You may have seen MAKE in bookstores, public television, online, or been to one of their Maker Faires (there will be 3 this year, they are expecting over 100k attendees!). His personal site is http://www.braincraft.com.

If you’re wondering if it’s worth buying something on eBay because it might be readily available and cheap on Amazon or vice versa, Q-Compare can help you comparison shop between the two services.

Click on the image above for a closer look.

At Q-Compare you select the country you’re in and the category you want to search in—you don’t have to specify the category but it really helps narrow the eBay searches—and Q-Compare displays potential matches, seen in the screen shot above. In the sample search seen here, we were searching for the boardgame Mr. Jack.

Once you select from the initial selection Q-Compare shows the item on Amazon.com and a selection of thumbnails of the item for sale on eBay. One big perk that comes with using Q-Compare as oppose to the Google Shopping is that the results provided by Q-Compare for eBay are for current auctions only, you won’t find any stale auctions in the mix to throw off your price comparison.

Have a favorite tool for comparison shopping? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

Bloom Energy finally emerged from stealth mode, unveiling its “Bloom Box” fuel cell during a 60 Minutes segment with Lesley Stahl yesterday (click here for bonus videos). Capable of powering more than 100 homes while producing close to zero emissions, just one of these boxes could radically alter how people get their energy. But is it the godsend that some are saying it is?

Wireless and neatly compartmentalized, the Bloom Box could one day be a fixture in your backyard or basement, transmitting clean energy to your home as needed, Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar says. Right now, it’s available on a large scale, with each box costing as much as $800,000. In the next five to 10 years, Bloom says it will release smaller boxes for individual households costing less than $3,000. If this happens, there is a chance that Bloom Boxes could supplant utilities and long-distance transmission lines — not to mention capital intensive wind farms and solar arrays.

Bloom investor John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who played a big role in last night’s 60 Minutes debut, says it is definitely Bloom Energy’s goal to disrupt, and even replace the country’s electrical grid. This is a bold assertion, considering how much time, effort and money is being sunk into the creation of the so-called Smart Grid. Incidentally, Bloom Energy was Kleiner Perkins’ first investment in the green sector, which has now become a huge area of focus for the firm. Since then, former Secretary of State Colin Powell has also joined the board of directors.

If this doesn’t inspire confidence in Bloom’s lofty claims, its roster of current customers probably will. Google was actually the first to install Bloom Boxes on its campus 18 months ago, followed soon after by eBay, FedEx, Wal-Mart and 16 other big names. EBay CEO John Donahoe gave the Box a strong endorsement last night, reporting that the several fuel cells it installed nine months ago have already saved the company $100,000 in energy costs — and are putting out five times more energy than its extensive rooftop solar system.

Last night also marked the first glimpse anyone has gotten at Bloom’s actual technology. Each Bloom Box is filled with stacks of razor-thin discs made out of baked beach sand and coated with green and black proprietary inks (this component remains secretive). When the Box is infused with a source of fuel, whether it be natural gas, biomass-produced gas or even solar energy, each of these discs puts out enough electricity to power a light bulb. Together, they can light up whole city blocks. The design was adapted from a similar product that Sridhar worked on at NASA.

As Greentech Media editor-in-chief Michael Kanellos pointed out during last night’s segment, previous attempts at similar fuel cells have been prohibitively expensive — especially when it comes to scaling the technology. But Bloom’s Sridhar says it has dramatically reduced the costs associated with building fuel cells. Not only does it use a cheaper metal alloy between each of its discs instead of the typical platinum, but it has replaced the expensive, pure hydrogen gas that used to be required, with more plentiful gas-based fuels. The bigger problem might be that the company only has the capacity to build about one box per day after raising upwards of $400 million.

After letting Sridhar sing his Box’s praises at the beginning of the segment, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl turned to potential problems and challenges. Notably, if the Bloom Box becomes available (and affordable) for average consumers, won’t threatened utilities start to push back? Sridhar and Doerr have foreseen this problem and reasonably argue that utilities could become major Bloom Box buyers themselves, selling the power the Boxes produce to their residential and commercial customers. After all, utilities already buy wind farms and nuclear reactors to do the same.

Stahl also called attention to some of the technical difficulties existing Bloom customers have encountered. For instance, early on, one of Google’s Bloom Boxes used to power a data center abruptly shut down. Sridhar admits that not every Box has performed perfectly and acknowledges that several Boxes have had problems with air filter clogs. But he maintains that the technology is still being refined, and that the early adopters are playing an important role in providing feedback and making the product more commercially viable.

Kanellos provided perhaps the most salient counterpoint: Companies like General Electric and Siemens have been working on their own fuel cell models for decades. If Bloom Energy succeeds as widely as Sridhar and Doerr say it will, what’s stopping these bigger players from investing their immense capital in developing their own branded solutions? Kanellos articulately framed this issue, agreeing that fuel cells may indeed become a staple in household basements in the next decade, but that they’ll bear the GE logo, not Bloom’s.

Even after shedding some mystery, Bloom still seems to hold an amazing amount of potential. It will be interesting to see which companies sign up to be in its second flock of big-name customers. At what point will it begin to approach major utilities as potential buyers? And what will happen to fledgling competitors like home fuel-cell maker ClearEdge Power? Will Bloom’s technology be adapted for automotive applications as well? Could it revolutionize the developing work with off-the-grid electricity? There are many more questions yet to be answered, but for now, it looks like Bloom deserves all the buzz.

So that you can decide for yourself, here, in full, is the 13-minute segment that aired on last night’s episode of 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Companies: Bloom Energy, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

People: john doerr

Filed under: Retail, Cult of Mac

So here’s one for the hardcore Apple fan: you can own a supposed piece of the staircase from the Fifth Avenue Apple retail store in New York. eBay seller heylookitskibbe is auctioning the stair for a starting bid of $700 with a Buy It Now price of $2500. Though he doesn’t identify himself as an Apple employee, he said he picked up the stair “before it could be thrown out over a year ago” after it had to be replaced when a customer dropped a Snapple bottle on it and cracked it.

The seller says the stair is a “collectible” and could be used as a coffee table if you get some cinder blocks. He also states that “I know for a fact that only three of them exist outside of the retail stores’ circulation, and this is one of them.” According to the seller the stair originally cost $10,000 from a German manufacturer. That manufacturer would be Seele GmbH & Co. For a complete history of the Apple retail staircases, check out this ifoAppleStore article.

Want it? Well, you’re going to have to pick it up in Brooklyn, New York and the seller recommends you bring a car and a friend or two — the step weighs 250 pounds (114 kg).

Thanks to Mark for the tip!

TUAWGlass stair from Apple Fifth Ave spiral staircase on eBay originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tech-savvy chefs pull off amazing dishes with sous vide, or cooking vacuum-sealed food in temperature-controlled water tanks. If you’ve got an instant-read thermometer and a vacuum sealer, you can produce similarly paradigm-shifting steaks with a DIY sous vide setup.

The Savvy Housekeeping blog suggests that all you really need are those two main components—and there’s a good chance you could just borrow your parents’ or neighbors’ vacuum sealer for a set of steaks, if you can’t find one on Craigslist or eBay—to pull off a sous vide technique that doesn’t require a $400-plus piece of equiment. There’s a few other items required to keep the steaks in the water, but it’s stuff you probably have. Savvy Housekeeping also gave their stakes a post-bath pan searing with just salt, pepper, and olive oil, but you can feel free to get nuts with your uncle’s secret seasoning or whatnot.

It’s not a set-and-forget method, though—you’ll need to really watch your sealed-off steaks in their immersion bath:

We wanted to keep the meat between 134-135 degrees. To do this, we set the stovetop on the lowest temperature and the alarm on the thermometer at 136 degrees. When the temperature got that high, the alarm went off and we added 1 cup cold water to the pot. This brought the temperature down to 134 degrees. It took the water 10 minutes to raise the two degrees again, the alarm went off at 136 degrees, and we added another cup of cold water. We did this every ten minutes and it kept the steaks right around 135 degrees.

After your steak gets to that perfect temperature, you give them a little sear on the pan, and, well, the photograph results speak for themselves. You’ve cooked a steak to a healthy temperature at a slow pace, without oxidizing your meat, and without succumbing to your oven’s inconsistency.

Update: Commenter thinkerer posts two helpful notes and links on sous vide cooking in the comments. Douglas Baldwin at the University of Colorado at Boulder has A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking that provides far more depth on the techniques, science, and safety considerations involved. He also points out the Wikipedia entry for sous vide, which suggests that, when cooking sous vide, you should ensure you hit the right temperatures and use meat that’s had minimal exposure to bacteria and other contaminants, as you trade open-air exposure concerns for botulism-related contaminants. Then again, the author herself comments that those fears seem lessened for meat you’re searing and eating immediately.

Pulled off your own submersion cooking stunts before? Do tell, and link or post pictures, in the comments!

Bloom Energy is finally ready to debut its Bloom Box, a fuel-cell capable of running up to 100 homes — carrying the potential to fundamentally change how utilities and companies alike generate and distribute energy. The Sunnyvale, Calif. company plans to unveil the massive device this upcoming Sunday on 60 Minutes.

According to a preview of the episode on CBS News’ web site, Bloom has already recruited a prestigious roster of 20 early customers, including Google, Wal-Mart, eBay, and none other than the CIA. Some of them already have the fuel cells, which retail for between $700,000 and $800,000, installed. More information is sure to be revealed on the show, and again during a company-hosted press conference next week.

Bloom has done an impressive job of keeping its technology under wraps until now — even through several fund raises, a public estimation of its valuation at $1.45 billion, and the launch of indirect competitor ClearEdge Power (a company that may find itself in hot water if Bloom dazzles viewers as expected on Sunday).

ClearEdge is a bit different, focusing on $50,000 fuel-cell generators suited to powering individual households and depending solely on natural gas. But it may only have a few years head start in this arena. Bloom has already expressed its intention to develop a box for the home market that could cost as little as $3,000 in the next five to ten years, as Earth2Tech also points out.

The company fully expects to become a multi-billion business in the next five years. It expects the bulk of its revenue to come from sales and lease agreements, but hasn’t ruled out the possibility of launching a subsidiary to broker power-purchase agreements with utilities and other clients.

Here’s what we know about its actual technology: the Bloom Box is based largely on a solid-oxide fuel cell (that can run on biomass or natural gas) developed by scientists at NASA, and is made out of cheaper materials than those built by its competitors (at least according to company PR). The device is also said to withstand a wider range of temperatures, making it suitable for a wide array of applications (even the space shuttle).

Analysts believe the box could reduce carbon footprints by 50 to 100 percent (depending on the feedstock used — whether its switchgrass, corn husks or natural gas). The preview of the 60 minutes episode also quotes eBay CEO John Donahoe that five Bloom Boxes have already saved the auction site $100,000 in energy costs.

When it comes to other bits and pieces of Bloom news, Greentech Media seems to have the inside track, so instead of listing what they’ve found — check out a comprehensive roundup of findings on their site here.

The company last raised funding in March 2009, bringing in $17 million of what it hoped at that time would be a $200 million private equity offering. It has the distinction of being Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ first green investment. Tune in on Sunday at 7 p.m. to see if all the hype is deserved.

Here’s the video preview via CBS News:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Facebook is tapping eBay-owned PayPal to power payment options for advertising and virtual goods on parts of the site.

Users and marketers can choose PayPal as an option for purchasing ads and Facebook Credits, a system being tested in a small number of games and applications for buying virtual goods on the site.

It looks like, at this time, Facebook is content to outsource payments services to its partners to help accelerate growth in virtual goods and self-serve advertising on the site, although it could develop its own payments system much later. At the same time, PayPal is trying to broaden its reach this year by cultivating a developer community that can come up with unique applications. A deeper relationship with Facebook could open the door to all sorts of interesting social payment applications.

It certainly helped that Dan Levy, who heads payment operations at Facebook, spent seven years at PayPal in a variety of roles from product manager to European head of risk management and that Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor and board member, was a co-founder of PayPal.

“We also want to continue embedding ourselves deeply in other platforms,” Osama Bedier, PayPal’s vice president of platform and emerging technology, told us last week. “We want payments startups to leverage what we’ve built.”