Colosimo Watch Safe Double Wing Edition / Döttling

Colosimo Watch Safe Double Wing Edition / Döttling

Custom German safe-maker Döttling are currently led by master locksmith and namesake Markus Döttling (it was his great grandfather who founded the company in 1919) & Managing Partner Andreas K Schlittenhardt. The safes Döttling makes are nothing short of spectacular — the kind of stuff you will only see in the homes of the most elite and deep-pocketed watch collectors in the world — via Perpetuelle

White Rhino / Tel Aviv Zoological Centre

After a year and a half of pregnancy, Tanda, the Tel Aviv Zoological Centre‘s White Rhino gave birth to a beautiful, healthy male calf on 15 June. Keepers were waiting for the birth to happen, as they had observed Tanda pushing a way her 4.5 year old son Tibor. When Tanda secluded herself from the rest of the rhinos on Friday morning they knew the moment they were waiting for was about to arrive — via ZooBorns

Gicleur / Deus

Here’s the latest machine from the Australian headquarters of Deus. Called Gicleur, it’s one of the most stylish Kawasaki W650 customs we’ve ever seen. Gicleur is French for jet, and it’s a critical part of an espresso machine: the nozzle that governs the water that flows through the coffee — via Bie EXIF

Cheetah Cub / Monarto Zoo

On 2 June Monarto Zoo welcomed its first Cheetah cub in several years. Keepers were surprised by the birth because recent pregnancy tests on mother Nakula came up negative. Anna Bennet, Team Leader of Carnivores, said the cub stayed with Mum until keepers decided it was best to hand raise her — via ZooBorns

Norton Commando Mk III / Bill Becker

It’s hard to improve on the Norton Commando. But Bill Becker, creator of the lovely Aermacchi Sprintwe featured a little while ago, has taken the iconic British motorcycle to a new level.

Bill bought the Commando on eBay as a project bike with a rebuilt motor and powder coated frame. Everything else was in a state of disassembly and arrived in three boxes — via Bike EXIF

Bright Idea: New ‘Tractor Beam’ Proposal Relies on Negative Radiation Pressure

Tractor beams, a staple of science fiction, may be moving closer to science fact. In a paper published earlier this spring, physicists have proposed a structure that may enable light to pull objects.

Normally, light pushes on objects, albeit weakly. In the field of optical manipulation optical tweezers employ this pushing force to move microscopic objects from atoms to bacteria. The ability to pull as well would increase the precision and scope of optical manipulation. For spaceflight, engineers have proposed sails to capture the force exerted by light.

Rather than towing space vessels, the newly proposed tractor beam might be more useful in biology or medicine. If you want to pull something towards you, you just reduce the pressure, says Mordechai Segev, a physicist at Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, who describes his team’s idea in an April Optics Express paper. You make a little bit of vacuum, he adds. The problem is that in sensitive medical applications, such as lung surgery, it is important not to change the pressure or introduce any new gases. Here, the light will be the suction device, he says, so the pressure would not change at all. It is just the light — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Keating warns on break-up of EU

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating took a swipe at German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday and warned Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy were likely to leave the EU common currency in the years ahead.

Speaking at the inaugural Eureka Congress in Melbourne, Mr Keating said the four countries which have been struggling with higher bond yields in recent weeks would leave the union rather than ceding control to EU headquarters in Brussells.

Mr Keating targeted the German Chancellor for particular criticism suggesting: A lack of political will to change is the biggest problem. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is intellectually limited and she is taking the whole world down.

In a vintage performance, Mr Keating aimed a line of invective at the leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, dubbing him an pre-copernican obscurantist.

If the public takes him they will get a large kick in the bum and they will deserve it, Mr Keating said.

However, the famously sharp-tongued politician was almost as hard on the current minority Labor government suggesting: They just don’t have a convincing and persuasive narrative— via redwolf.newsvine.com

EFF Will Represent The Oatmeal Creator in Fight Against Bizarre Lawsuit Targeting Critical Online Speech

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is joining with attorney Venkat Balasubramani of the law firm Focal PLLC to represent The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman in a bizarre lawsuit targeting the online comic strip’s fundraising campaign in support of the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation.

I have a right to express my opinion, whether Mr Carreon likes it or not, said Inman. While the lawsuit may be silly, the harm it can do is very real — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Drobo embraces Thunderbolt, releases Drobo Mini

Drobo today announced a new form factor for its backup storage array and for the first time you can carry this one around. It also announced the Drobo 5D array, with up to 20TB capacity and six times the performance of its predecessor.

Along with two new data backup devices, the company announced support on its products for the Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 external device interconnect specifications.

Drobo’s first portable array, the Drobo Mini, holds up to four 2-in. to 5-in. drives and weighs only about 2.5 pounds. It can store up to 3TB of data. The Mini will retail for about $599 without drives and support both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Google ‘to save endangered languages’

Google has launched a new website in a bid to save endangered languages from disappearing forever.

Called The Endangered Languages Project’, the search giants hopes by using technology to encourage collaboration between people familiar with the languages at risk and providing a comprehensive database, it will help preserve these historical words.

Today we’re introducing something we hope will help [preserve languages on the brink of disappearing]: the Endangered Languages Project, a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about endangered languages, wrote Clara Rivera Rodriguez and Jason Rissman, project managers of Google’s Endangers Languages Project, on the company blog — via The Telegraph