I have yet to try this myself, but I have every intention to do so on my XP desktop at the office, where having this kind of head-up-display would be remarkably useful. If you’ve seen my thoughts on Windows Phone 7 you’ll know that I really like the layout and the display, and I think that the changes that Microsoft is planning for the mobile OS look really impressive (even if it won’t have multi-tasking or copy/paste.) But to that end, it’s pretty interesting to be able to make my Windows desktop look and feel like Windows Phone 7, complete with the “tiles” that the new design highlight.

To do this, you’ll need an app called Omnimo UI, a mod for Rainmeter – a popular app used to tweak and customize the UI of your Windows desktop. Lifehacker has a step-by-step how-to on setting it up, from installing Omnimo UI to customizing it and setting up the tiles that will live and update on your desktop.

[ Lifehacker :: Turn Your Windows Desktop into a Windows Phone 7 Style Display ]

When I stumbled on SolarBeat, I thought it would be cute and quaint and simple, and it’s all of those things, but at the same time it’s a remarkably mesmerizing little web app that puts the motion of the planets to simple notes so you can hear the music the solar system makes as planets orbit the sun. You’ll hear tons for Mercury in rapid succession, but you’ll have to wait a long long time to hear the dull tone of Neptune or Pluto (no longer a planet!) making a full orbit.

As you listen to the music, you can watch the counter at the bottom of the page to see the number of “years’ on each of those planets pass by. It’s pretty remarkable to note see that the time required for Pluto to get around the sun once is too long on Earth for any human being to live long enough to see one full Plutonian year. The longest-lived human may see a year on Uranus, but they’d have to live long to do so. It’s remarkable.

[ SolarBeat ]

Over at Geekologie, this brilliant display of Tesla coil action raised my eyebrows. It’s one thing to break out a Tesla coil for some fun, it’s another thing to don rubber gloves and protective gear and turn it into a performance for cheering fans. And that other thing is awesome.

[ Geekologie :: Electricity!: Awesome Tesla Coil Performance ]

(photo courtesy of Steve Lacey, via Lifehacker)

This piece may be a little old, but it’s a must-have tip that I’ve been using for a while now. If you’ve ever wanted to know how to make full-screen flash video stay full screen on a second monitor while you switch apps or go back to work on your primary display, this is the how-to for you.

Let’s all admit it, when you’re watching a YouTube video or just about any other Flash video on the Web, the littlest click or change in focus can change a video from brilliant full-screen to a tiny embedded box. Thankfully, this tip lets you full-screen videos until they end or until you hit escape, and you’re free to work in other windows, open new apps, and do whatever you choose while the video plays.

[ Lifehacker :: Keep Flash Videos in Full Screen on Dual Monitors ]

If you’re the type to get involved in debates and discussions about the nature of nutritional supplements and whether they’re actually effective in any possible way, Snake Oil is a site that’s right up your alley. Part of the Information is Beautiful project, Snake Oil is a site that uses publicly available data on the effectiveness of various types of nutritional supplements on the things that people have claimed or studied that they work for.

One thing to remember when you’re browsing the site: each bubble for a supplement only addresses a particular issue or illness. Hover over the bubble to see which ailment that may be. This means you’ll see multiple bubbles for the same supplement, as it’s likely been studied for more than one thing. For example, green tea has really strong scientific evidence to be effective for lowering your cholesterol, but not so effective for helping you lose weight or stave off breast or prostate cancer.

Snake Oil isn’t designed to be the last word on anything – the site links to the studies it sources, and here’s hoping the service is just a jumping off point for helping people understand what the scientific community says and is studying about various nutritional supplements, as opposed to taking the word of someone who knows someone who heard something from an infomercial.

[ Snake Oil? Scientific Evidence for Popular Health Supplements ]

Addicted to Facebook but also want to get your fix of Gears and Widgets every week? Now you can become a fan of Gears and Widgets at Facebook! Become a fan and interact with me and other fans of the site and help us grow a community of geeks who love and want a different voice in tech news and commentary as well as the big names!

[ Gears and Widgets: Facebook Fan Page ]

The fine folks at PC Mag caught this demo of Spotify running on an Android phone at SXSW, given by Spotify’s Daniel Ek. His phone is based in the UK, where (along with the rest of Europe) Spotify is amazingly popular for its ability to give you music-to-taste and on-demand whenever you want it, based both on your own local music collection and a massive database of music to stream online – Spotify isn’t available in the United States yet because of the licensing and royalty fees the service would have to pay the RIAA in order to license music to stream.

In all honesty, I don’t see any huge benefit to Spotify over a similar service I know and love called GrooveShark, which I’ve written about a couple of times. Still, competition is good, and Spotify is incredibly popular in Europe for a reason. The app already works on Android – could it be a hop, skip, and a jump away from landing on Android phones in the United States?

[ Gearlog :: Spotify Demo on Android Phone ]

Two interesting stories came to light today – first that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series OS won’t support multi-tasking and that Microsoft plans to eliminate it altogether, and second that Windows Phone 7 Series won’t support copy/paste.

That’s right, you heard both of those statements correctly. Both of them have been published widely and confirmed by Microsoft. On the one hand, Android and Blackberry fans rejoice, you’ve got the only smartphone OSes that do both, but the irony stings hard and deep on this one. iPhone detractors and Apple haters have been crowing about how horrible the iPhone is because it doesn’t support multitasking, and prior to a last year, the iPhone and iPod Touch didn’t support copy/paste either. It was a highlight point for people looking to beat up on Apple in general and the iPhone in specific.

The interesting question for me now is whether or not those same haters will turn on Microsoft now that their highly regarded and anticipated mobile OS will come out “crippled” in the same way, to use their word, not mine. The lack of these features made Apple a target not just for people who didn’t like the company and loved Microsoft, but for people who didn’t like the company and didn’t care for Microsoft either.

In any event, I see why Microsoft is doing this – it’s the same reason Apple does: they want to control every possible aspect of the user experience. They want to get rid of multitasking because the iPhone has been a success without it (in this regard, people would be right to blame Apple – they have managed to make their product a success without the features that a vocal minority have been crowing and whining about) and they want to be able to similarly control the user experience. As for copy/paste, this is proof that all of the people who have said “it’s not as easy as you guys think it is” are absolutely correct. Even the implementation in Android is cludgey.

Even so, Windows Phone 7 Series looks impressive, and I still think Microsoft is headed in the right direction. The irony, however, is deafening. I can happily say though that while those features will be missed, I have no intention of bashing Microsoft or dismissing the potential of Windows Phone 7 as a result of them being missing.

[ PC Mag :: Win Phone 7 Ditches Multitasking, Memory Cards ]
[ Engadget :: Windows Phone 7 Series Won't Have Copy and Paste ]

A friend passed this along to me earlier today – the Martin Jetpack is a real device; works (as the video shows) fairly well, and gives the controller incredible control over their flight. The jetpack is made by the Martin Aircraft Company, a company with a history of experience in flight, so this isn’t your usual crazy-guy’s-garage style of jetpack you’re probably used to seeing videos of. Apparently, the jetpack is even self-righting, so if something happened and you let go of the controls, you wouldn’t crash – it would just right itself and hover in-place.

You could have one, if you want one bad enough! You just have to sit on a 12-month waiting list before you have the opportunity to spend $90,000 to get one!

[ Gearlog :: You, Too, Could Own a Working Jetpack for $90,000 ]

The image above is from a post on the Bits Blog from the New York Times; a lovely infographic detailing who’s suing who in the mobile space right now.

A lot has been made of Apple’s lawsuit against HTC over gestures, but when Nokia sued Apple for something similarly inane, at best I heard silence and at worse I heard cheering to Nokia for taking Apple on. Looking at the infographic, the real answer is that everyone is piling on each other and suing one another for ridiculous reasons, but in the center there, suing everyone likely out of fear of its position in the market is Nokia, the behemoth itself.

So where’s the outrage at Nokia, or any of the other companies throwing its patent weight around?

If anything, this is proof that our patent and intellectual property system badly needs reform.

Many thanks to Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker editor) for posting this on Twitter.

[ NY Times - Bits :: An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits ]