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The Houdini and Houdini Pro are two emergency car tools that improve your chances of not dying when faced with a crashed or sinking car. It's much like the seatbelt cutters and window shatterers that have been on the market for a while, but also comes with a safety whistle and LED light. The Pro upgrades the seat belt cutter to the big boy status that can get you out of automotive messes that leave you upside down. They're $25 and $40 respectively. Until the days when your kung fu training enables you to punch out a window with your fist and clip your seatbelt with "scissor fingers", we'd go with these. [Houdini Tool via Gear Diary]

Steampunk may be tired, but this mechanical elephant doesn't need any labels to leave us speechless with its design and detail. It's just simply stunning, from tail to trunk. Built over the course of three and a half month by photographer/designer/cool-guy-at-large Andrew Chase, the 85-pound elephant automaton is made out of "transmission parts, electrical conduits, plumbing pipes and 20-gauge cold rolled steel." The robot is part of a book he is writing, called the Robot Trionic Morphatractable Engineer. As you will see in the gallery, the designs he's creating for that are even more spectacular than the elephant.

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The whole thing has a Dalí feeling mixed with a crisp, industrial punk feeling that is completely irresistible. At least for me, anyway. [Baekdal and Andrew Chase via Book of Joe]

In recent years, that vast majority of thumbdrive "innovations" have been...well...non-technical. However, Kanguru has actually done something useful by integrating an eSATA plug with a standard USB 2.0 drive. For folks with eSATA capability, that means performance speeds that are several times faster than USB. The drive even comes packaged with an eSATA + Power bracket and an eSATA + Power cable for easy hookup. The drives are shipping now in 16GB ($85) and 32GB ($120) varieties with a 64GB version slated for January of 2009. [Marketwatch]

Asus has placed two all-in-one PC designs on its Web site, probably in preparation for an imminent launch. The Eee PC ET1602 and Eee PC ET1603 are both based around touchscreens, similar to the Dell ONE, the HP TouchSmart all-in-one, and other designs.

Assuming Asus sticks with its low-cost approach to the Eee PC brand, however, the two new models will probably be priced at a much lower price. What that price is, however, is unknown.

Both PCs are essentially identical, designed around a 15.6-inch touchscreen panel, an Intel Atom N270 microprocessor, a gigabyte of RAM, wired Ethernet and an 802.11n connection, and 160 Gbytes of storage. The two models differ in the graphics used -- the ET1602 uses integrated graphics, while the 1603 incorporates a ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450 graphics card. The ET1603 also includes an integrated battery; does this mean that the 1603 will double as some form of tablet? Since the unit weighs 4.4 kilograms (9.7 pounds) that seems doubtful. We'll have to wait until Asus launches this to find out.

These Gadget Deals of the Day round-ups remind me more and more of Tom Waits' genius Step Right Up*. Everyone's a winner, bargains galore! $500 off! $500 off this 1080p fancy 42-inch Philips LCD TV. You need videogames? We got Xbox 360 videogames for $10! And Olympus waterproof cameras at almost half the price! Shipping included! Step right up! How 'bout an engagement ring? Something for the little lady, something for the little lady, like a cartoon DeeVeeDee! Three for free. And a Texas Instruments calculator. And a xmas music collection too. Yes, tis the season to spend zero.

Gaming:
• Boom Blox on the Wii for $27 (originally $39.99 - in Blockbuster stores only).
• Viva Pinata on Xbox 360 for $9.99 plus free shipping (originally $19.99).
• Prey on Xbox 360 for $9.99 plus free shipping (originally $29.99).

Home entertainment:
• Panasonic Blu-ray Player for $224.99 plus free shipping (originally $399.99 - use coupon code "EMCBBBJAG").
• Philips 42'' 1080p LCD HDTV for $899.99 (originally $1,399.99).

Cameras:
• Olympus Stylus 10.1 MP waterproof/shockproof digital camera for $172.49 shipped (originally $299.99 - use coupon code "STYLUS105025A").

Memory:
• Fantom 1TB G-Force External Hard Drive for $99.99 plus free shipping (originally $149.95).
• 16GB SDHC Memory Card for $25.99 plus free shipping (originally $89.99).
• Kingston 8GB DataTraveler USB2.0 Flash Drive (pack of 2) for $27.49 plus free shipping (originally $126).

Hobomodo:
• Texas Instruments Calculator for $0.
• Holiday MP3 sampler for $0 (originally $5).
• Planet Heroes in "The Ace that Jumped Over the Moon!" DVD for $0 (originally $9.99).

* Tom Waits' Step Right Up, as promised.

While you are busy letting us know your Black Friday plans for this year over in our Question of the Day, do feel free to cheat off the paper of the 1,000 or so folks Consumer Reports called up and grilled on their own personal plans for post-holiday mayhem. How will Giz readers stack up?

CR found that, unsurprisingly, the number of folks hitting the stores is higher this year despite the economy's current position in the proverbial shitter—26% versus 21% in 2007. And of that 26%, electronics remain the main target, although much more so this year than last, with 85% heading to the gadget aisles over 70% previously. What's hot with CR's poll respondents? Gaming systems (those Xbox 360 price cuts seem like they're working out pretty well), which 46% of BF shoppers have their eye on first (compared to a much-lower 29% last year. iPods and other MP3 players come in a close second at 44% of folks planning on buying, up from 33%. galleryPost('crblackfriday', 3, '');

Still, I must throw in my two cents here: if you're able to wake up at the crack of dawn to stand in the cold waiting for some electronics deals with hundreds of other bleary-eyed souls, you're simply not doing Thanksgiving with the gluttony and excess it deserves. So save the shopping for later in the day at the computer, in your underpants, with a nice hot mug of the previous night's mulled wine helping you start the day (er, afternoon). That, friends, is a post-Thanksgiving Friday well-spent. [Consumer Reports]

Every so often a gadget comes around that manages to transcend the cheap plastic frame in which it's encased. The first Buddha Machine was one such device. Created by a little -known Chinese company called FM3, the ambient-musical-loop-playing gadget proved a bit of a surprise hit, garnering a writeup in the New York Times and a compilation record of remixes, and eventually went on to sell an impressive 50,000 units.

Last week, Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, the duo behind FM3, announced the release of the second-gen Buddha Machine. Save for the three new color selections (burgundy, gray, and brown), the second incarnation of the box looks nearly identical to its predecessor--something along the lines of a cheap transistor radio you might pick up in Chinatown.

Generally, when you think of a hot laser being pointed at your body, you'd expect it to create a hole rather than seal one up. And most of the time, you'd be right. But Abraham Katzir, a physicist at Tel Aviv University, has just begun human trials of healing lasers that promise less scarring, faster healing and less risk of infection when compared to traditional stiches.

As you can see from the photos to the left, the laser-healed cut on the bottom healed much better than the suture-sewn cut on top. So how do they keep the laser safe and prevent it from doing more damage than good?

To overcome this problem, Katzir and his colleagues developed a laser-based system with a feedback loop that prevents overheating. First, they had to determine the optimal temperature at which flesh melts but can still heal (about 65 degrees Celsius). Then the group created a pen-sized tool that incorporates optic fibers: one that channels a carbon dioxide-powered infrared laser to the wound with pinpoint precision, and another that leads from the pen to an infrared sensor, which measures the temperature and ensures that the heat remains within the ideal range, between 60 and 70 degrees. All a surgeon has to do is move the pen's tip along the cut, strengthening and sealing the weld with a solder of water-soluble protein.

Sounds awesome and scary. Bring on the laser sutures! [Technology Review]

To combat the economic crisis, many tech-retailers will have added incentive this year to offer deep discounts on their Black Friday merchandise. And, since most of us will probably be sticking to a strict budget, we have added incentive to fight the long lines to try and score a deal. Still, the thought of getting anywhere near a store on November 28th is daunting. So, my question is: are you one of the brave souls that plans to gadget shop on Black Friday?

Do You Plan to Gadget Shop on Black Friday?
( polls)

Results from "Do You Prefer Interacting With People or Machines?"

People 21%
Machines 40%
Machines, but I prefer talking to people on the phone. 36%
Other 3%

For office drones at big companies such as AT&T, United Health Group and Cigna, booting up their computers at the start of the day and waiting for them to shut down takes some decent time. Like 20 minutes at the start and end of the day. And they sure don't like the fact that their weasely employers have decided to not pay them for that time. So, of course, they're suing.

All three of the above companies have been hit with lawsuits dealing with the issue, and lawyers who tackle it are making a decent buck off of it. One the one hand, the companies claim that people aren't working while their computers boot, instead chatting with coworkers or having a coffee. On the other hand, if you have to be in a cubicle, you're working, and it's not the employees fault that their crap computers take so long to get revved up.

But hey, this is America, so we'll leave it for the courts to decide. [TaxProf Blog via The Inquirer]