Matias’ new Bluetooth-equipped Laptop Pro brings mechanical keyswitch keyboarding to laptop users and other Mac users looking to get wires off their desk.

Dave Caolo shares a childhood memory that echoes forward to his own life today.

The Verge:

For those who’ve never helped run a booth at a trade show, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the temporary city — an endless sea of lights, sounds, and humans pressing past one another in search of the next great gadget — takes weeks to assemble before the first attendee even hits the floor.

The Verge has an all too brief picture story about the set up and construction of CES at the Las Vegas Hilton. It’s an amazing logistical effort to put on the largest consumer electronics show in the world.

Looks like the NHL lockout will be over soon. Yay?

With all the silly talk in the US of a “Trillion Dollar Coin”, you might not know that the Canadian Mint actually produced the world’s first million dollar coin in 2007.

It is 99.999% pure gold bullion, weighs 220lbs and, even though the face value is one million dollars, it’s actually worth over $5.3 million dollars now.

The coin have been certified by the Guinness World Records to be “the world’s largest gold coin” and the Canadian Mint has sold five of them.

Gizmodo:

Here’s a rare sight: four out of the ten Nimitz-class aircraft carriers—the largest warships ever built—plus an Enterprise-class carrier docked together. They are resting at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, which coincidentally is the largest naval base in the world. Look at all that engineering and firepower. And it’s only half of the Nimitz fleet!

Wow…if you’ve never seen one of these carriers up close, this picture might not mean much but trust me – this is truly an awesome display of military might!

Wired:

With all the technology hailed from the show floor at CES, it is inevitable that some of it will never materialize. CES always generates some vaporware, and 2012 was an especially good year. Here, then, is a look at the stuff we were promised at CES 2012 and continue waiting for.

Keep this in mind as Wired, CNET, The Verge, et al announce their “Best of CES Awards” next week – the majority will be for products that will likely never see the light of day.

I am a complete sucker for these time lapse videos and this one is incredibly well done. It helps the subject matter is one of the world’s great cities – Paris.

Gizmodo:

The US has a love affair with imperial units: height in inches, milk in quarts, weight in pounds. You name it, and it’s measured in imperial. The only problem? Imperial is dumb. So let’s cast of those shackles and join the rest of the world by embracing units that make sense. Let’s go metric, once and for all.

Why make the move? A (metric) ton of reasons.

What do you think? Should the USA “go metric”? I’ve been “bi-measuring” since I was a kid and am (mostly) comfortable with both but there’s no doubt metric, with its factors of ten, is much easier to deal with.

Toyota and Audi plan to demonstrate autonomous vehicles at CES.

Car rental service Avis has acquired car sharing service Zipcar in a $500 million deal.

The age of the netbook is over. Or is it?

Americans suffer with slower, more expensive Internet access than other first-world nations like South Korea. Why?

Gizmodo: It seems like only yesterday we were planning for the Mayan apocalypse, but like so many other products, the 14th b’ak’tun (next era) has been delayed due to bugs and lack of pre-orders. No doubt, in 2013, several long-rumored … Continued

Ars Technica: Let us take a moment to remember a few of the companies, brands, and products that went to the great electronic recycling center in the sky in 2012. Some you may still have traces of in your sock … Continued

The New Yorker magazine has posted what they call “The Hundred Best Lists of All Time”. Leaving aside the impossibility of this actually being true, it’s an interesting “list of lists” nonetheless. It includes everything from the obvious (The Ten … Continued

Gerry Anderson, creator of “Supermarionation” TV shows like the Thunderbirds and live action SF entertainment like Space: 1999, has passed away.

Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook’s founder, doesn’t understand how Facebook privacy settings work either.