If there's anything technology has been driving towards, it's the innovation that allows corpses to wink. Finally! But don't worry, there's a use for this for people other than flirty necrophiliacs.

You see, these electroactive polymer artificial muscles use soft acrylic or silicon layered with carbon grease to contract like muscle tissue when it gets a little jolt. It's being tested on cadavers, but the hope is that it'll eventually allow paralyzed folks to blink as well. They're hoping to get it to patients within five years. [UC Davis via Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery via Engadget]

Before being sentenced to life in prison for first-degree homicide, Kevin Singer was an avid fan of tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons. His appeal to unban the game in prison failed though, so he won't be rolling anymore d10s.

Apparently officials at Wisconsin Waupun prison feel that D&D "promoted gang-related activity and was a threat to security." They originally banned the game back in 2004—after another inmate expressed "concern about Singer and three other inmates forming a "gang" focused around playing the game."

Singer has since then attempted to appeal that decision on the grounds that it "violated his free speech and due process rights." He lost his lawsuit in federal court and all of his D&D-related materials—including a 96-page scenario manuscript—were confiscated. [Oakland Tribune via Boing Boing]

Picture by Thomas Roche

Bill Gates is about the most mild-mannered and genuinely nice, um, unbelievably rich head of a multinational monolithic corporation that you could imagine. So why is Jon Stewart antagonizing him with anti-Zune and pro-iPhone barbs? Oh, right. Because it's funny.

Warning: Clips are from Hulu, which means they're US-only. Sorry, foreigners, but, well: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Last night's The Daily Show featured Bill Gates as a guest; great choice, except for a little awkwardness early on when one of Jon Stewart's bits included a casual reference to iPods. On the plus side, Jon learned that "Zuuuuune" is a fun word to say. The setup: President Obama has been feeling "detached" from everyday Amurricans, but his attempts to ingratiate himself haven't gone that well:

Bill was good-humored about the whole thing though; after all, this is Jon's mistake. Evidently he doesn't read my reviews, that I work so hard on, because if he did he'd know that the Zune HD is great, a far cry from the punchline the Zune line once was. Thanks a lot, Jon. Way to make me feel small. My insecurities aside, Jon later asked Bill if his retirement opened him up to new opportunities, like, say, owning a certain extremely popular smartphone:

When will this Microsoft/Apple war end, Jon? It's like the Israelis and Palestinians, except in every way. [Hulu]

GeoHot, one of the fathers of the iPhone's jailbreak community, has just released the exploit that'll unleash all sorts of promising PS3 hackery, just like he promised. We can't wait for the homebrew and, frankly, piratical features this enables.

From the source:

This is the coveted PS3 exploit, gives full memory access and therefore ring 0 access from OtherOS. Enjoy your hypervisor dumps. This is known to work with version 2.4.2 only, but I imagine it works on all current versions.

You can find it at his page for now—try it out, let us know how it works! [GeoHot via Kotaku—Thanks Richard!]

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Our live coverage of the Apple Tablet launch event starts at 1pm ET/10am PT, Wednesday, January 27, 2010 and both our Twitter and Facebook pages will start updating as soon as news breaks.

Even though well be updating our Facebook and Twitter pages with the most breaking apple noes, the best way to follow our live coverage is still our liveblog. For more info on how to tune in please see our Apple Tablet Event Liveblog announcement or hit live.gizmodo.com tomorrow morning.

This looks so much like Mars I can almost see the Rover in the background. But it's not another planet—it's one of a series of incredible small-scale models by artist Matthew Albanese. Wait until you see the volcano.

Albanese calls the series "Strange Worlds," although the strangest thing about them is the materials they're made from: paprika, nutmeg, cotton— even a stream made from an outdoor patio table.

To achieve such life-like images, he leans heavily on the photographic technique and viewing angle:

Every aspect from the construction to the lighting of the final model is painstakingly pre-planned using methods which force the viewers perspective when photographed from a specific angle. Using a mixture of photographic techniques such as scale, depth of field, white balance and lighting I am able to drastically alter the appearance of my materials.

Amazingly pretty, and pretty amazing. Even more shots can be seen here. [Strange Worlds via The Awesomer]

In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off to become the first men to climb Mount Everest. Among the gear they packed was a Vest Pocket Kodak camera. They disappeared. Today, a search for their camera could rewrite history.

It was nearly thirty years later, in 1954, that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully scaled Everest and won history's distinction as the first mountaineers to do so. But Mallory and Irvine's fate remained a mystery, and the possibility that they reached the summit endured. Mallory's body was found in 1999 but didn't provide any conclusive answers on the fate of his expedition.

Now, Everest historian Tom Holzel believes he has pinpointed the location of Andrew Irvine's body, showing up as an "oblong blob" on high-resolution photographs of the mountain. Recovering Irvine's body might mean recovering his Kodak camera, as well as the film that could fill in the blanks on their historic climb.

Holzel plans to launch an expedition to investigate the blob and, he hopes, recover the camera next month. In the event they do find the 90 year old Vest Pocket Kodak, Holzel has prepared an extensive guide on how to handle the very delicate, very important gadget. [Scientific American via Boing Boing]

Book publishers' last-minute negotiations with Apple revealed by the WSJ: Apple is pushing for bestsellers to cost $12.99 or $14.99—and some books $9.99—with Apple taking a 30 percent cut, like iPhone apps. Publishers set the ultimate price, though.

Despite the higher price to customers, selling books through Apple could actually make less money per book for publishers than through Amazon, who sells a number of bestsellers for $10 by taking a loss (paying the publisher, say, $15). Amazon's latest scheme does look more like Apple's, where publishers want 70 percent of the revenue, but book prices are capped at $10. And it's the $10 pricepoint that's the problem for publishers, both philosophically and practically: They want people to believe books are worth more than $9.99, and they want to set the prices themselves.

On a smaller note, the WSJ says that HarperCollins is trying to wedge its way into the starting up lineup tomorrow (though don't expect to be blown away by what they show). McGraw-Hill, who was pretty gabby about the tablet earlier today, won't be showing anything. And, like we and others, notably Peter Kafka, have said, the WSJ says most publishers are in fact still in the dark about most of the tablet's details, from development to pricing to distribution.

Amazon vs. Apple. Should be a fun show to watch, though if it goes like music, we already know who's going to win. I wonder if the publishing industry should be quite so keen on that. [WSJ]

Without any mention of hardware or software, The Doghouse Diaries pretty much nails a list of what we can expect from the tablet. Or rather, how we're all going to react to it. Look out for 19! [The Doghouse Diaries]