While Arnie's one-handed reloads on his Winchester 1887 may make that shotgun the most iconic weapon of Terminator 2, his laser-sighted .45 Longslide was definitely king in the first. Laser sights are something you can buy in any gun shop today, but back in 1984 they were extremely rare -- and expensive. The one for the movie was custom made by SureFire, a company that specializes in tactical flashlights. Lasers at the time were helium neon, requiring a whopping 10,000 volts to power on and a constant 1,000 volts to stay bright. To manage this on a shoestring budget in the '80s the weapon had a wire running up Arnie's sleeve to a battery inside his jacket and a switch he had to activate with his other hand. (A non-functional prop was used for close-ups.) Crude, but effective, and, most importantly, cheap -- SureFire representatives received only a T-shirt and some other assorted movie swag. Now, what kind of weapon could we get for a box of Engadget shirts...

Continue reading How the Terminator's .45 Longslide with laser sighting came to be (video)

How the Terminator's .45 Longslide with laser sighting came to be (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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All users of Humax's Freesat Foxsat-HD and Foxsat-HDR set top boxes will now be able to use the BBC iPlayer through the red button.

Humax has successfully completed a beta trial of a red button catch-up service and has now rolled out the functionality to all users.

"After successful BETA testing, the highly anticipated BBC iPlayer service, which enables viewers to search and view a range of programmes, is now freely available to all owners of a Humax Foxsat-HD or Foxsat-HDR box, so they can play their favourite shows from the past seven days direct to their televisions," confirmed Humax.

It 'beta' work

Users will need to make sure that their Humax Freesat box is connected to both the internet and satellite dish, press the red button when on a BBC channel and then either navigate to the somewhat confusing BBC iPlayer Beta option in the list or type in 7001 on the remote control.

Graham North, Commercial Director, Humax UK comments: "We are excited about being the first to offer this fantastic new service via the set-top box.

"Our customers enjoy being in control of their TV viewing and BBC iPlayer on Freesat gives them even more freedom to watch what they want, whenever they want to."

Nimbuzz is a free IM app that features quite a few clients such as AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Skype as well as Facebook. They let us know that the app has been updated, with the connection issue for OS 5.0 resolved. Features include:

• Runs in background.
• Connects all your friends: Put all your friends in one place, check their status updates, and chat right from the buddy list.
• Home screen notifications: You wont miss anything, a red dot will show up on the letf corner of your screen everytime you get a new message.
• Auto-reconnects: for switching between 3G, 2G and Wifi networks.
• “Clickable” URL’s: Share links and websites with your friends! No need to retype web addresses.
• Sound profiles – your notifications can be customized, so you can make them personal.
• Save money on text messages with free Nimbuzz to Nimbuzz messaging.
• Free!

Try Nimbuzz in App World.

© Matt Cameron aka W4LNUT for BlackBerry Cool, 2010

Even if your favorite gadget isn't flaunting them, rare earth metals are vital to all sorts of high-tech gizmos, from your flat-panel TV and computer hard drive to the hefty batteries that power the Toyota Prius. But over 95% of the world's rare earth comes from China; and late last year, China told the world that they'd like to keep the lion's share all to themselves. What will we Westerners do? Well, we could let China continue producing mountains of e-waste on our behalf. But we could also find plenty of rare earth just by digging in our own backyard. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States has over 13 million metric tons of rare earth with concentrated deposits in Mountain Pass, California and Diamond Creek, Idaho. But since the private firms that control those deposits aren't willing to spend the requisite eight years and minimum $500 million to construct a chemical separation plant, Idaho-based U.S. Rare Earths is just sitting on their ore for now, while California's Molycorp Minerals is forced to send their material all the way to China (once again) for processing.

"No one wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant," former USGS rare earth specialist Jim Hedrick told LiveScience. Should China's export dwindle and the U.S. feel the pinch, that may change, but for now it's good to know that when the global game of StarCraft tells us "not enough minerals," we'll know exactly where to look.

US mineral companies to tech industry: drill, baby, drill originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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