ICYMI: Action sports drone, the future of shoes and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: AirDog took us on an adventure in the desert to showcase its nearly $1600 drone that can follow action sports junkies autonomously. While other action drones that follow users exist, AirDog claims this one is superio...

First True-Scale Solar System Model Shows How Tiny We Are

A pair of space geeks recently set about creating what they claim is the first true-to-scale physical model of our solar system. The duo of Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh headed out to a dry lake bed in Nevada to create their project with the goal of showing us just how vast our own solar system is.

solar_scalezoom in

The guys started by placing an inflatable ball at the center point to represent the Sun, then placed a marble-sized Earth one scale astronomical unit from the it – in this case, about 577 feet. They then placed scale spheres of the other planets in the Solar System, based on the same unit of measurement.

Once the solar system was mapped out, they set up a time-lapse camera and then drove in concentric circles with a light marker at the planets’ locations to show the orbits visually. The result is a 7-minute video that is guaranteed to impress and make you feel miniscule at the same time.

[via Wired]

ICYMI: Worm mind control, a creepy new Barbie and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: A new $75 Barbie with speech recognition software can talk to your kids and give them career advice, as well as store previous conversations to refer back during girlfriend chats. Holy hell, yes? Meanwhile, some scie...

Contour+ vs. GoPro HD Hero 2: through the desert and into the skies

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Engadget Show segments come about in any number of ways. Sometimes it's a no brainer, with some awesome new gadget just aching for some air time. Other times it's a matter of our wanting to do something cool, like, say, flying a plane. The GoPro / Contour segment from the last Engadget Show was a little bit of both. The ultra-rugged camcorders were a perfect fit for our desire to take on some extreme activities in the Nevada desert.

We started out by taking Polaris RZR for a spin on some sand dunes around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And while we didn't really anticipate that it would be windy enough that day to ground planes at nearby McCarren Airport, the 50MPH sandstorms certainly did their part in testing the mettle of the devices -- and our camera crew, for that matter. We strapped both to the roll bar of the all-terrain vehicle and took off into the desert.

Things were thankfully a bit calmer when we took to the sky the following day with help from the folks at Sky Combat Ace. The camcorders joined us in our respective cockpits, proving that they could take the punishment of a several G ride -- even if we didn't hold up so well. So, which of the two camcorders fared better? Tim and Brian hash it out after the break.

Continue reading Contour+ vs. GoPro HD Hero 2: through the desert and into the skies

Contour+ vs. GoPro HD Hero 2: through the desert and into the skies originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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