These are not the biggerest of Lego spaceships nor an impossible balancing act. It's just Lego Star Wars perfectly photographed using a very clever, and deceitfully simple technique. This is how the expert Finnish photographer Avanaut did it:

In his own words:

There's been some questions about how I do the snowshots. I've given some verbal information about the technique, but I guess, a photograph about my setup is needed. So, I made the photos above and below (in the gallery) just for the occasion.

The setup is simple really: All I use is an old transparent CD storage box, some water and my trusty old A4 lightbox for lighting. For the bottom of the box I have a piece of gray Lego baseplate cut in form and hotglued on a piece of acrylic sheet to give it some weight. Legos float because of all the air trapped inside individual pieces.

Anything I want to shoot is then easily mounted on the baseplate and inserted inside the CD box.

Photographing "snow" in this scale is difficult, and to amp up the challenge I wanted it to fly around. The answer was not to use faster shutterspeed but to slow the snow down.

I had a wacky idea to submerge everything in water, it slows down everything that moves. The water also causes light to reflect from solid surfaces in a way that sometimes helps hiding the miniature scale. This is an old concept I've been toying with for ages. For the snow I use ground plaster of Paris—reacted, not unused gypsum powder! It is a passive material that doesn't stick to anything.

Lighting is done with the lightbox freehand as you can see from the photo below.

I shoot a lot of frames because the "snow" is impossible to control exactly. And then some Photoshopping is in order, but not always, sometimes none is needed.

Simply amazing. Check the rest of his awesome work in his Flickr page. [Avanaut in Flickr and Lego on Hoth]

Microsoft's search engine Bing, despite its similarities to Arby's, is pretty great—and now it's come to the App Store to invade iPhones and iPods Touch.

The app features some of the hallmarks of Bing, like the endless image search, image of the day and voice control. Some key features:

* Daily image from Bing.com
* Easy to access voice search
* Tips and tricks on the home page
* "Locate Me" functionality
* Ability to add pushpins and save locations
* Show multiple locations on a single map

This app joins similar apps already available for WinMo, BlackBerry and Sidekick (though not Android: Wonder why!) and is available now, for free, here (link opens iTunes). [Bing]

Borders is teaming up with a company called Kobo and making some grand plans. They apparently intend on developing a new ebook reader, a new ebook service, and having all the content be "device neutral." Pretty big task there, fallas.

The Kobo service is already live and will apparently allow downloading of "content to the most popular smartphones, including the Apple iPhone, Research in Motion BlackBerry, Palm Pre and Google Android devices."

Everything sounds quite lovely, right down to the point of Borders and Kobo wanting to make everything an open platform, but I'm just curious to see what sort of device the partnership will produce and when we'll actually see it on the market. [NY Times]

When it was time to design new offices for a steel pipe factory, a clever guy decided to use the factory's product as a major part of the new additions. Puns about pipe dream designs aside, it looks pretty good.

Designed by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects for T. Bailey, these offices will integrate giant steel pipes, the type used for wind turbines. The pipes aren't just for looks though, because they'll also serve to control how air flows through the building, reducing cooling costs in the process.

I rather like this design and its post-Apocalyptic-looking mock ups, because it'll fit perfectly with the industrial surroundings of the factory. Let's just hope it really gets built. [Deezeen]

This absolutely gorgeous shot is the most detailed ever taken of what HubbleSite describes as the "largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood." Get ready to pick your jaw up off your lap.

In the words of experts who understand more about this stuff than "OMG so pretty!":

The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years.

This shot (full, massive size can be found here) were taken between October 20th and 27th of this year by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. The blue lights are from the hottest, biggest stars, while the green is oxygen and the red is hydrogen. Whoa, you guys. Whoa. Check out this thread on Reddit for some desktop-wallpaper-scaled versions of the shot. [HubbleSite]

It's hard to tell exactly what this guy is about to do, but he appears to be squatting (more or less) with his pants around his ankles on a DC street.

View 519 H St NE in a larger map

Maybe he is about to take a dump, maybe his lady's husband arrived home early and he escaped out a window. Who knows—but the whole thing strikes me as kind of sad. Either way, the other pedestrians don't seem to notice what's going on. Not Google though—you can bet they are all over it. [DCist Thanks Avi!]

So this is a pretty short and inexpertly framed video, but it is the very first one we've seen of the Nexus One in action. If you want to see that flashy Android 2.1 boot sequence, read on.

You can also see the packaging here, but it could just be the packaging meant for developers—Google's done that in the past—and not the final design. Apparently the guys that took this video are going to take more, so we'll update when they do. [The Nexus One via Engadget]

I feared that the Apple vs Psystar battle would just fizzle out, but it's ending with a strong punch as Apple Insider reports that Apple has been granted a permanent injunction against Psystar, marking the end of shady Mac clones.

Apparently Psystar has until the final second of this year, midnight on December 31, to cease all of these activities:

• Copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple.
• Intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting or encouraging any other person or entity to infringe Apple's copyrighted Mac OS X software.
• Circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers.
• Playing any part in a product intended to circumvent Apple's methods for controlling Mac OS X, such as the methods used to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers.
• Doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X.

It's noted that those rules laid down by judge William Alsup may not apply to "Psystar's Rebel EFI software, a $50 application that allows certain Intel-powered PCs to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard," so this may not be the last we hear of the company. For now though, we can enjoy a few moments of quiet after this legal knockout. [Apple Insider]

We've told you about Operation Chokehold, the attack on AT&T's network scheduled for Friday, but now AT&T has something to say about as well. They're not exactly happy and throw around words like "irresponsible," "pointless," and "nothing amusing." Ouch!

This is what an AT&T spokesperson contacted by Cult of Mac said about the plot:

We understand that fakesteve.net is primarily a satirical forum, but there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers. We know that the vast majority of customers will see this action for what it is: an irresponsible and pointless scheme to draw attention to a blog.

I sincerely doubt that this statement will affect Operation Chokehold's attempt to make the AT&T network pee its panties as it runs crying to mama, but I suppose we'll see what happens this Friday. What are your guesses though? Will iPhone data start crawling at an even slower pace than usual? [Cult of Mac]

Many men might watch helplessly as their wives are about to give birth, but not Leroy Smith. As soon as Smith realized that the midwife wouldn't arrive on time, he calmly did a Google search on his BlackBerry.

I don't know what Smith's Google query of choice was, but in the end it led him to a WikiHow guide on child delivery. And it must've either been one rather good guide or the Smiths were simply very fortunate, because their baby daughter was born without a hitch. The midwife arrived just as it was time to clamp and cut the umbilical cord, but otherwise Smith managed to get his wife through the delivery by himself.

I'm glad that this tale ended with everyone happy, healthy, and Smith's wife announcing that she'll never complain about his BlackBerry addiction again, but it makes me wonder about what happened to the days when people managed to deliver babies without cellphones and Google. [Sun via Slashdot]

Katherine Hayles, author of "How We Became Posthuman" goes bio, reminding us that machines aren't the ones in charge. The catch? Neither are we. [WaPo]

In this guide we suggest gifts for a variety of bad bosses, from the ones who try too hard to the ones who make you work too hard. Not that I, as a Gizmodo intern, would know anything about that. But for those of you who do hate your bosses, here are the best gifts to give them.

Also, if you hate the gallery format as much as you hate your boss, smash on your mouse or trackpad here.

For the Annoying Culture Vulture Boss:
The Office - The Complete Collection BBC Edition: OK, you get your boss the American version of The Office and he gets the joke. He's a dolt, just like Michael Scott! Ha ha ha. But by giving your boss the British version of the seminal workplace sitcom and likening him to David Brent, you're sending a much more cutting message: while he may achieve some measure of success in his work and might occasionally amuse his employees, he is, deep down, a sad, contemptible man. $19 [Amazon]

For The Cutting Edge Technologist Boss:
Invitation to Google Wave: For the boss who demands that his employees stay on the web's cutting edge, nothing could be more frustrating than getting an invite to Google Wave. He'll love being privy to Google's exclusive, featured-packed new service, until he finds out after hours of frustrated clicking that he has no idea how to use it. Little does he know, no one does. $0 [Google]

For The Boss Who Thinks It's Your Job To Make His Coffee:
Nescafe Dolce Gusto: If your boss thinks personal coffee assistant is part of your job description, there's no better gift to give her than a Nescafe single-serving Dolce Gusto coffee machine. They will openly appreciate the thoughtful gesture, as well as the machine's undeniably appealing design, and you will quietly appreciate the fact that you have condemned them to drinking miserable Nescafe coffee for the next calendar year. $149 [Nescafe]

For The Materialistic Boss:
Contribute to Charity in His or Her Name: No one can outwardly express dissatisfaction with a donation to charity. So while your boss thanks you for the thoughtful donation in his name, you can take pleasure in knowing that under the surface he is seething with anger that he got a child in a developing country his or her first pair of shoes instead of receiving a new tie for his collection. Any amount [Charity Watch]

For The Boss Who Is Obsessed With Twitter:
Tweet Peek: DO NOT BUY. As much as you might despise your boss, and as fun as it might be to saddle him with a gadget that has the sole purpose of sending Tweets, we really can't justify suggesting spending your money on this ridiculous thing. [TwitterPeak]

For the Boss Who Can't Stand Being Late:
Fossil Palindrome Too Watch: On the surface, you're giving your boss the generous gift of a stylish new designer watch from well-known watchmaker Fossil. In reality, you're ensuring his infinite frustration as he is late yet again for his meeting with head office because he couldn't figure out whether he was supposed to be reading from the "tick" or the "x" on the left or the right dial. $150 [Fossil]

For the Boozehound Boss Who Can't Just Have One:
Pernod Absinthe Kit: One surefire way to get that slave driving boss off your back is to get a few drinks in him, and for that there is no better gift than a Pernod absinthe kit. By inviting the Green Fairy to the office you are sure to minimize productivity while maximizing potential boss embarrassment. $65 [Pernod]

For the Hipster Boss Who Loves Music and Fashion Equally:
Sonic Fabric Necktie: In a way, by giving your boss the Sonic Fabric Necktie, a playable tie recycled from old cassettes, you're giving them two gifts: that of music and that of fashion. But in another way you're giving them no gifts: playback is only possible via a modified tape player and the tie itself is bound to unravel after the first Windsor. $120 [Supermarket]

Ever slight a boss with a gift? Ever get slighted? Share your story in the comments

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

The quasi-mythical Google Phone is many things. To optimists, it's Google's bid to shake up the wireless industry. To cynics, it's just an overhyped Android phone. And to some Googlers, it's apparently this year's Christmas bonus. They're less than thrilled.

Earlier today we got a tip from reader whose buddy was one of the selected recipients of Google's Nexus One Android phone. Google has admitted to "dogfooding" a phone—that is, testing it on its employees—so we expected reports like this. What we didn't expect, though, was his friend's response:

Two problems, however: first, the phone is GSM only, so he's not happy about that. Second, this phone is HIS BONUS for this year. His usual bonus is $1K in cash, taxes paid by Google.

SO according to him the phone is just going to sit, unused, in a drawer in his apartment. Hoo...ray?

Complaining about getting a free phone might seem sour at this proud time in our nation's economic history, but if you're accustomed to getting cash—you know, money, that you can spend on things you might need—instead of a niche smartphone that you probably can't even use properly on your carrier, I can understand the bitterness. And what kind of Googler doesn't already have a smartphone? Didn't they all get Android handsets back in 2008, when Google pulled a nearly identical bonus stunt with the HTC Dream? People loved that! —Thanks, AndPreciousLittleofThat!

Today at the COP 15 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, M.I.T. students introduced the technologically advanced Copenhagen Wheel. In addition to including various sensors and Bluetooth capability, the tire stores kinetic energy from braking for a later burst of speed.

The makers of the Copenhagen Wheel from M.I.T.'s SENSEable City Laboratory claim that the new features mark the advent of "Biking 2.0," a new era based on smarter bikes and easier rides. The wheel is certainly a step in that direction; it includes sensors for detecting distance, speed, direction, all of which are beamed via Bluetooth to the rider's iPhone. The wheel also includes a built-in lock that sends the rider a text if tampered with.

But the most notable feature of the Copenhagen Wheel is its KERS or Kinetic Energy Recovery System, a mechanism by which energy from braking is stored up for later use, giving the rider a boost when going up a hill or speeding through traffic. Some bicycle purists have already dismissed the wheel as a novelty while others suggest that M.I.T. has succeeded in reinventing the wheel. [MIT via Inhabitat]