Sometimes the best of intentions can still lead to a remarkably silly idea. Say you wanted to maximise the chance of kids escaping unharmed from the rifle sights of a crazy who was shooting up a school – how would you go about it? Why, by making textbook jackets out of kevlar, of course! To quote the article:

“Crozier says the idea is still in its initial stages and he has no idea how much it would cost to cover the books.”

When he finds that out, I believe the idea will have reached its final stages.

I have a solar tube in my house, and it’s incredibly effective — it’s so bright I often finding myself trying to turn the light switch off when I leave the room. Looks like the Suntracker is an evolutionary leap ahead. No longer content to passively accept the incoming rays, the Suntracker uses a solar-powered motor to follow the sun as it makes its journey across the sky. Make sure you check out the manufacturer’s site for great pictures.

The River Ribble in the United Kingdom is being outfitted with a grid of sensors that communicate via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to sense when the river’s rising, and predict if and how it will flood.

If you’re the type to buy a BMW, you’ll probably be pleased to learn your next one will learn your tastes in audio entertainment and retrieve a customized mix, while you sleep, over built-in Wi-Fi. I’m often dismissive about gewgaws in cars, but I have to admit it would be pretty cool to time shift NPR.

Don’t know about you, but I’m a total sucker for pictures of Mother Terra as seen from space. Lucky for me, then, that the ISS EarthKAM Archive is waiting to feed my jones…