Also, for those of you in San Francisco you might want to check out Friday Night at Harputs Market. This week, in exchange for the somewhat steep cover charge of $75 you'll be treated to an evening of wine, art and entertainment including music from The Nice Device. There will also be raffles for some sweet designer clothing and accessories.

Perfect for spring riding, DWR is now offering the new line of Biomega AMS bicycles. Each is beautifully designed, and features a cardanic shaft drive which eliminates greasy chains and greasy trousers.

For all our friends in the EU, Modular Records is throwing down this weekend with a triumvirate of party goodness. Check the cities below for details.

Friday, LONDON - Modular Weekly @ Ditch Bar, 145 Shoreditch High Street with Sinden, Tramp! (Manchester), Nightmoves (Nottingham), FACT Magazine DJs, Baseball Furies and Modular DJs. ONLY £5 from 9pm - 4am. 2 for 1 beer before midnight.

Friday, PARIS - Modular Paris Party @ Showcase - Good Shoes (live), New Young Pony Club DJs, Herve, Fred Falke, Modular DJs and special guests. Free before 11, 10 euros after and from 10pm to 6am.

Saturday, BERLIN - Modular Berlin Party @ Rio- New Young Pony Club DJs, Sinden, Kavinsky, Modular DJs, VICE DJs, Rio Allstars. 10pm to 8am at RIO CLUB.

If you're stuck stateside, just roll west to San Francisco where Modular will be kicking down the beats with the Radio Soulwax Tour:

Friday, April 27
Radio Soulwax Tour featuring:
Soulwax Nite Versions Live
2 Many DJs
Muscles Live
DJs JDH and Dave P (Fixed NYC)
DJs Jefrodisiac and Richie Panic (SF)

Mezzanine
444 Jessie Street @ Mint 9pm
Advance tix $20

But the San Francisco fun doesn't stop there...might as well pitch a tent and create your own version of San Franciscoachella Sunday and Monday with shows by Digitalism, Joakim and LCD Soundsystem. Yeah! It's all at Mezzanine

...and finally, mark your calendars for this, also at Mezzanine:

Joseph Kosinski's new commercial for the Saab Blackbird (Aero X). View a high resolution QuickTime version here.

A grim vision of the future painted by Britan's Ministry of Defense includes: Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.

Art imitates commerce; some NYC street artists take the idea behind the groove tube to the public realm with their pixelator project. Check their website for videos and instructions on how to construct your own.

Awesomeness. The New Dance Show (Circa early 90s) featuring Daniel Bell

Nikon's Universcale is like Powers of Ten for the Internet age; it puts 40 magnitudes of measurement at your fingertips.

Supertouch offers us a preview of WK's show in Paris at the Adict Galerie which opens tonight.

Re: Friday Night Videos. Should deux (Agglomerat, France, 1983) be feeling ripped off by Anton Corbijn and DM (Mute, England, 1987)? This wouldn't be the first time.

News from the City of Angels, our favorite purveyor of high-design, All Purpose has joined with Cyberoptix TieLab to illustrate the concept of James Dean's 1955 car crash "Whiplash" intricate prints of auto part schematic illustrations repeated and mirrored into complex, twisted patterns. I'm sure Ms. Bethany or Mr. Doyle will be posting more on this soon.

Until then, enjoy our Friday Night Video tribute to all things French (Videos de Vendredi Nuit?)

Rare cold-wave par excellence
Another French rarity (from 2003)
Even the fake french are fabulous
But we still love North America

Meanwhile, Think Geek introduces a new reason to be gunned down on the streets of L.A.

According to Gothamist, my favorite supplier of all things simple and good, MUJI will be opening a flagship store in The Times building in NYC. This will augment their small subset of goods already offered at MoMA, SF MoMA and MoCA (at triple the JP prices). I'm especially eager to finally have access to some of their larger products that are either too bulky to schlep back from Japan, and that are not stocked at the museums, like this sleek CD clock radio.

5 new Katamari Damacy shirts from our friends at Panic Software up in Portland.

Pitchfork Media has a fantastic interview with the Icelandic songstress Bjork, about her new album Volta, due out May 7. And once again, she's working from the beats outward, just as she did on Homogenic and Vespertine (unlike her vocal-only album Medulla).

In the article, she discusses her influences to the "marching" sounds in Volta. One of the best parts of the interview is when Bjork describes how this album is somewhat a reaction to the world today, particularly all the religious divides;

"I mean, the human race, we are a tribe, lets face it and stop all this religious bullshit. I think everybody, or at least a lot of my friends are just so exhausted with this whole self-importance of religious people. Just drop it. We're all fucking animals, so lets just make some universal tribal beat. We're pagan. Lets just march."

First there was the iPhone, then the Prada Phone. Now Softbank Japan introduces the Pantone Phone. It's a mobile being offered in 20 of your favorite PMS colors. Personally, I'm waiting for someone to release the hexidecimal phone in #6e6b6b.

I have absolutely no use at the moment for a high-end digital multitrack recorder, but if I did, I'd certainly check out the Cantar-X. Aside from it's rugged, blade-runneresque good looks, it appears to be loaded with impressive features like twin batteries and a remote control software so the Cantar-X can be operated from your PDA. The company calls it 'the Stradivarius of new generation, and at first blush I'd have to agree. [via Core77]

Frustrated with the relentless barrage of advertisements in subways, bus stops and other public spaces? Now you can express your frustration with Printable Cold Sores. Excellent!

This week Friday Saturday Night Videos' theme is "Voyage". Enjoy!

Learn your Geography

Take the Train

Head to the Ocean

Bring back some Souvenirs

Tyler Brûlé would Approve

Bon Voyage

Our favorite knob twiddlers and tweakers in San Francisco's Lower Haight (a.k.a. Robotspeak) have just launched an online magazine to compliment their excellent real-world store. The new Robotspeak Digital Magazine will present in-depth Video interviews with artists, A/V demonstrations of Robotspeak gear, quick and dirty software tutorials, streaming live performances and more. Check it out!

Halo inspired suit on eBay

This isn't a joke. Weighing just 18 kilograms, it'll stop a 12-guage-shotgun blast and is purported to be technologically superior to anything issued by the US Army.

Contributing to Mr. Doyle's resurrection of Friday Night Videos, here are a few of my own flick picks to get your weekend started:



No, but that's what makes you interesting

One of the secrets of the universe

Those ah, ah, ah, ah eyes!

Robots resurected from red light recklessness

Saturn dreams. Lazer beams. 21st century sex machines

Continuing with our SAAB celebration, here's a fantastic commercial from the glory days of the classic SAAB 900 Turbo. Enjoy!

Enjoy the sweet, mellow, throaty warble of the 900 SPG.

Longtime readers will undoubtedly recall my fondness for SAAB automobiles (I've owned five different SAABs over the years, a 99GL, 900 Turbo, 900 SPG, 96 and 9-3 Viggen) especially models produced prior to being assimilated and adultrated by the halfwits at GM (were you even thinking when you created the 92x and 97x !?!).

Hopefully innovative concepts, such as the Saab Aero X will lead SAAB back into the unique leadership position they once held with the original 900 series. Until then, you can enjoy this compilation of fun facts put together by Auto Spectator to celebrate SAAB's 60th anniversary [via Core77].

Happy Birthday Robots!

86 years ago today Czechoslovakian Karel Capek, marks the first use of the word "robot" to describe an artificial person for his play R.U.R, (which stands for Rossum's Universal Robots). Capek invented the term, basing it on the Czech word for "forced labor." ("Robot" entered the English language in 1923.)
The robots in Capek's play are not mechanical men made of metal; instead they are molded out of a chemical batter and they look exactly like humans. Each robot costs the equivalent of $150 and "can do the work of two-and-a-half human laborers," so that humans might be free to have "no other task, no other work, no other cares" than perfecting themselves. However, the robots come to realize that even though they have "no passion, no history, no soul," they are stronger and smarter than humans. They kill every human but one.

The play explores themes that would later become staples of robot science fiction, including freedom, love and destruction. Although many of Capek's other works were more famous during his lifetime, today he is best known for RUR. (Source: The Center for the Study of Technology and Society)

This is some scary shit: Doomsday Clock Ticking Toward Midnight.

How is it that a Macworld keynote webcast can move a grown man to tears? The ever talented Momus dissects his emotions in wired's article, Why Apple Makes Me Cry. His musings on why so many of us gravitate toward Mac products certainly resonate with me...

I'm a very modern person. I don't have any affiliations to traditional religion, and I don't really feel any national loyalties. I was born in the U.K., but I've lived in cities like London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin. It's become clear that if I do have a religion, it's a humanist one--a profound reverence for human creativity, for example. And if I do have something like a consistent homeland, it might as well be the Mac OS. Because wherever I am physically, that's where I spend most of my time.

If this doesn't put a smile on your face, nothing will. Sharivari on "The Scene", circa 1982.



And to complete your trip in the wayback machine, you'll need this Lasonic Ghetto Blaster, announced at the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas.