A spy camera hidden in a black back beside a notorious UK “fly-tipping” (or illegal waste dumping in the King’s English) hot spot was recently thrown out by local workers with the other garbage. Apparently, this operation was so top secret that the workers in question didn’t need to know the details before being sent off to pick up the trash. To make matters worse, the camera has been valued at somewhere between $14 and $20,000. Basically, its just a hilarious waste of taxpayer money illustrated using equally hilarious British terminology. [Telegraph via Digg]

Via [gizmodo]

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Reader Designs: MacBook Cooler and Docking Station [Reader Designs]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Reader Olivier came up with this pretty interesting design for a form-fitting MacBook cooler that attaches to the bottom of your laptop and provides card readers, more USB ports and a gigantic fan to cool it. It might not look as slick as the Zefyr, but it’s pretty damn functional despite being called the “iCool”. On the other hand, Olivier’s just some dude with Photoshop, so don’t expect this to be coming out anytime soon. [Thanks Olivier!]

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PlayStation 3 Firmware 2.4 in Photographs [Sony]

We’ve already seen two videos of Sony’s latest 2.4 firmware for the PS3 (that hits July 2nd, incidentally), but sometimes the story is easily told in good old fashioned photography. So here are some direct feed shots of the new firmware, including plenty of material on the new achievements trophies. There’s nothing jaw-dropping going on here, but the integration looks easy and clean. And that’s certainly worth something. [GameLife and PS3Fanboy via Kotaku]

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Ricoh has updated its freaky little GX100 with the new GX200. The new model still comes without a regular viewfinder, but there is an optional clip-on electronic finder which sits atop the body. The main differences are the larger 12…

Ricoh has updated its freaky tiny GX100 with the new GX200. The new model still comes without a regular viewfinder, but there’s an optional clip-on electronic finder which sits atop the body. The main differences are the more massive 12 megapixels sensor and the somewhat clunkily named “Smooth Imaging Engine III”, Ricoh’s in-camera processor.

The LCD is bigger, at 2.7″, and the 24-72mm lens is the same as that on the GX100. Ricoh also states that the camera’s buffer is larger, and can handle bursts of up to five RAW frames. And if you are shooting RAW, you get another seemingly pointless option: A 1:1 aspect ratio. That’s, the GX200 will let you shoot square pictures. Why on Earth you wouldn’t just crop later is a mystery. The camera will be £350 ($690), or £400 ($786) with the optional viewfinder. US pricing and launch date unknown.

Ricoh GX200 [Photography Blog]

Via [wired.com]

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For all you commenters, this post is intended for you. We at Gizmodo want to go over a few things. Off topic comments, a new comment specific email address, and reasons we ban are on the agenda. So if you’re a frequent commenter or just starting out, let us have a few words with you. Oh and, if you haven’t already checked out Lifehacker’s astonishing commenting user’s guide, you definitely should.

Comment Email Address - For All Your Commenting Needs
We’re not sure why we never had it before, but Gizmodo now has a specific email address just for comment related concerns. Emails about account approval, account problems, banning questions, thread problems and even requests for banning will all be handled through this email. So here it is, COMMENTS@GIZMODO.COM , shouldn’t be too hard to remember.

Off Topic Comments
Over the past few weeks, we at Giz have been becoming unhappy with the direction some comment threads are turning. Even some commenters have let us know that they are concerned with what’s going on. Long story short, some of the comment threads are getting way too off topic. Gizmodo isn’t high school social shit site, and we expect the commenters to be mature enough to contribute ON TOPIC conversation. Sure, we all enjoy reading some light off topic banter, but we’ve noticed complete mongo-tard discussions that have NO PLACE on a gadget site. So next time you’re thinking of writing a comment with the word PENIS or HORNY in it, please spare us..

Why We Ban
If you didn’t already know, we’ve an all-mighty banhammer that we can use to silence commenters. Why would we use such a weapon? Well, some commenters feel the need to talk with obscene, racists, troller, mean, spammer, stupid, or totally off topic words. These types of commenters are NOT WELCOMED, and must be banned. So if you see your account has been banned, please check your stupid ass comments before you send an email to COMMENTS@GIZMODO.COM asking why you can’t comment. I’m sure you’ll see why.

Other Bannable Offenses
From here on out, asking “Will It Blend?” welcoming any kind of overlord, or any other horribly tacky and cliche comment, unless used exceptionally, hilariously ironically, makes you a total banhammer target.

So I hope our little talk wasn’t too harsh. We value all you commenters and enjoy the additional insight you add to Gizmodo. If you guys have any ideas or features you would like to see happen in the Giz comment world, please feel free to let us know. And don’t forget COMMENTS@GIZMODO.COM is where your gonna send all that comment related junk.

Via [gizmodo]

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Age Detecting Vending Machines Hacked With Pics of Old People
When we covered Japanese age-detecting cigarette vending machines back in might, one Gadget Lab reader, named Monjombo, left this comment: So if I hold up a picture of Sean Connery, I won’t be able to hack this? Well, Monjombo. It…

When we covered Japanese age-detecting cigarette vending machines back in might, one Gadget Lab reader, named Monjombo, left this comment:

So if I hold up a picture of Sean Connery, I won’t be able to hack this?

Well, Monjombo. It turns out that, yes, you could. A reporter for Sankei Sports tried fooling the machines with photographs. One was a 6″ wide “photo of a man who looked to be in his 50s” — probably not Sean Connery, but it worked. So did a 3″ picture of a woman in her 30s.

Fujitaka, the company behind the detection software, admits that photos can sometimes fool its machines, and is working on a fix. According to Pink Tentacle, it will be “a more advanced system that will make sure each face belongs to a real human”.

How it will achieve this is left unsaid, but to halt a flat photo fooling it each time, we’d guess that some sort of movement detector could be used, or perhaps a small needle should shoot out, scooping out a section of the customer’s face and testing it to determine their humanity. As a bonus, it could also test for mouth cancer. Surely any real smoker would happily put up with such humiliation in order to get their fix.

Magazine pics fool age-verification cameras [Pink Tentacle]

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While it’s not unusual to get a glimpse into the intricate inner-workings of fine watches, it’s rare that we get the same opportunity to see what’s under the hood of classic cameras. Here’s a bilateral slice of a Leitz lens that was part of a 1930s Leica camera—sitting over a plain red backdrop, its stoic mechanics border on high art. Taken from the Deutshes Technikmuseum Berlin, Wired has a whole gallery of gorgeous photography photography. Hit the link and enjoy. [Wired and DTMB]

Via [gizmodo]

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Motorola’s new flagship phone, the ROKR E8, has finally arrived in the wild courtesy of T-Mobile. Both Danny Dumas and I’ve played around with it before, and Danny liked it a little more than I did (although that may…

Motorola’s new flagship phone, the ROKR E8, has finally arrived in the wild courtesy of T-Mobile. Both Danny Dumas and I have played around with it before, and Danny liked it a little more than I did (although that might have had something to do with the giant, anti-photography security guard harassing me at the time).

The surprising thing is how poor the specs look in the post iPhone world. This is a flagship product? A 2MP camera, a pathetic 2GB of built in RAM (plus a bundled 1GB microSD card), haptic feedback and a music player.

But most telling is the list of what it doesn’t have. No touch screen (although the ’soft’ keys are touch sensitive and context-aware), no 3G (EDGE only!) and no accelerometers. Fine, you state, it’s cheaper than the iPhone, right? Wrong. T-Mobile is pushing the E8 for the exact same $200 that AT&T is charging for the 8GB iPhone. Not to get all pro-Apple here, but unless you really hate AT&T, why wolf you purchase this instead of the iPhone?

Product page [T-Mobile via Computer Mag]

Via [wired.com]

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