The Wheelie Bin Urinal concept, which I shouldn’t have to tell you came from England, came from England, the only country where public micturation is subject to stylistic regulation. It looks like a normal trash can you’d see on any street in the UK, except for a curious, and curiously labeled, little portal. This is for your junk.

As you can see in the video below, given that they were probably planning on peeing in public anyway, people don’t seem to reluctant to mount the Wheelie Bin Urinal. But it isn’t magic: at da end of da day, you’re still stuck with a trash can full of piss. Or, if this is any better, piss and straw. [DesignBoom]

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The Airbot doesn’t use any magic, just a computer-controlled gimbaled air jet, “powered by a 620kPa using a direct current motor-controlled valve.” Which to me sounds like magic, but whatever.

It has been developed at the University of Illinois by Aaron Becker and Robert Sandheinrich, helped by professor Timothy Bretl. The air-stream can lift any spherical and non-spherical object up to 188 grams and 97mm in radius. That includes a ping-pong ball, a bottle of water, an apple, an orange, or an onion—which will get peeled too.

It seems like an April’s Fool, but the “Automated Manipulation of Spherical Objects in Three Dimensions Using a Gimbaled Air Jet” was officially presented at IROS 2009, The 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent RObots and Systems. According to their research paper, it could be used to sort small parts or handle delicate objects in production lines. [University of Illinois via IEEE via BotJunkie]

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In the middle of a relentlessly gray winter, can you imagine anything more wonderful? I cannot.

For those of you who prefer the temptations of caffeine, the $99 Bialetti Hot Chocolate Maker also makes teas and cappuccino, puddings and “cold milk beverages.” But today isn’t a cold milk day, is it? [Williams Sonoma via Unplggd]

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The xPhone is the future of humanity.

And I know what you’re thinking—you’re thinking this is nuts. This is a joke. This can′t be real! No one makes touchscreen tech like Apple or RIM, and we haven′t even seen the OS. So toast or not, this sucker is too good to be true!

Maybe it is. But after watching this clip, I know one thing. If I don′t get my xPhone, I’m definitely learning German. [electrobeans via technabob]

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iPhone 3GS: It’s been a long time coming, but Apple’s finally approved a (notable) live video streaming app for the iPhone 3GS. Ustream is one of the first out of the gate, and it seems to deliver on its promise.

Ustream already has an app in the Store that lets you record video and upload it to Ustream, YouTube, or other locations—but not live, and that’s kind of the whole point of Ustream.tv. After another phone-to-phone live video app was approved last week, Ustream’s potential has been fully unlocked, allowing for live record-and-stream on 3G or Wi-Fi connections.

Lifehacker East lacks a 3GS to try the app out with at the moment, so if you’ve given it a shot, tell us how it’s working in the comments.

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The government’s controversial broadband tax has been given the green light by chancellor Alistair Darling in his pre-Budget report.

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Ustream has had an official iPhone app available for a while now, but due to Apple’s strict policies users could only upload video online after filming was finished—ie, not live at all. Enabling live streaming video from your iPhone to the internet, it works over a 3G connection and can update Twitter/Facebook etc of your live-streaming status.

You’ve probably seen updates from friends before, using Ustream or Qik on other devices (or jailbroken iPhones), but this week’s app launch is big news for anyone who’s been following the live-streaming video debacle.

If you′re tossing up whether to spunk your money on Live Knocking Video or Ustream, we’d suggest going for the latter as it has one major advantage over Knocking—the ability to stream video to the internet, rather than purely to another iPhone. Of course, you can′t ignore Knocking’s developer’s gall, emailing Steve Jobs himself to get his app approved. [Ustream via TechCrunch]

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Google Docs already has an option to export every document you check off, but checking them all off is a time-wasting pain. Now it’s much more simple to grab everything, 2 GB at a time, in zipped-up files.

The Digital Inspiration blog points out the new addition to Google Docs’ export options. Simply select any file by checking the box to its left, then hit the More Actions menu and select Export. In the box that pops up, there’s a check box at the bottom to “Export all your files (up to 2 GB),” which, for most users, covers just about everything. Those with more will be prompted with a list of the files that couldn’t be exported, so you can grab them next. You can also choose what format your files are downloaded in, which is mighty helpful as well.

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As a whole, the US consumed 3.6 zettabytes of information last year, or one billion trillion bytes. Can someone work out the bill for that? [University of California report via NY Times Bits]

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