In order to get certified by the FAA, every new plane must undergo wing tests to prove that it can withstand 150% of the load that it could ever be expect to encounter in flight. Engineers usually try to pass the test, and continue to stretch the wings to see just how far they can get, resulting in spectacular wing-snappings. The Boeing 787 cleared the 150% with no trouble at all, but engineers stopped short of snapping the wing. Why? Because the 787 uses revolutionary composite wings, and breakage could result in an explosion of thousands of shards material spreading around the construction hangar. After a little time and some (in all likelihood, hilarious) rationalizing, they've finally done it with a 50ft section of wing — thankfully on video. [Boeing via Reddit]

A Macforums member who bought an "as-is" Macbook Air from Ebay has ended up with some pretty strange fruit: It's actually an early Air prototype, bearing marks indicating it was built in May 2007, six months before the Air was introduced. It's got a few giveaways: the microphone positioning near the webcam is off, there's no keyboard lighting, no "MacBook Air" legend, it runs an interim build of OS X 10.5 and the bottom is black-colored aluminum, versus the usual shiny silver. Lord knows how this baby escaped Cupertino's clutches, but escape it did. Does this make it valuable like a prototype stamp to a philatelist? Only another Ebay sale will tell. [Macrumors]

Mods don't get much simpler and more useful than this: It's an alarm clock that whisks open some window blinds when the alarm goes off, so the sun can tempt you out of bed. There's a microcontroller to handle detecting the alarm signal and to drive a servo wired into the blinds, and some switches to override the alarm and open or close the blinds on command. Check the video of it in action.

Looks great, but frankly you'd need to wire a giant servo to my feet to drag me out of bed rather than use hack like this, but YMMV. [Hackaday]

It was optimistic to expect Prada to understand the difference between a fashion accessory and a phone accessory, because now look what's happened: Prada and LG have announced the Prada Link, a Bluetooth watch that pulls text messages and your call status from the Prada II phone. To be honest though, it doesn't look so bad. The stylish Link has a tiny little OLED screen that displays the content of text messages, call history data, a call rejection option and, of course, the time. The only downsides are the 48-hour battery life, which leaves you latching your watch to the phone for charging every couple days, and the lack of a US release date. It's not yet clear if the watch will come with the phone for free, but considering that similar watches have retailed for around $400, I'd guess not. [Prada via Akihabara]

These noise-cancelling headphones from Hitachi Maxell are unlike many previous similar types since they don't require separate power. Instead they connect to iPods via the dock connector, and can suck on the batteries through there. They do manage about 20dB of noise canceling with an "Active Noise Rejection" system, but the design is curiously crippling: they can only connect to iPods (4th gen or later) and the iPod touches and not the iPhone. And draw power from there means you'll get reduced battery life, which may be as much as 50%. And the iPod's volume control doesn't work, so you have to use the slider on the headphones. Weird, but these HP-NC20.IPs are only about $80 in Japan, so you may still be tempted. [AVWatch]

We're not the only ones obsessed with CNN's over-the-top magic wall, which they use in equal measure to cover elections, entertain babies and just fill time — fake TV news has been milking it for all it's worth. Now The Daily Show is on the case, and they've sent John Oliver to talk to Jeff Han, the man behind CNN's recent multitouch renaissance. What he finds aren't easy answers to his questions, but an unexpected mix of new technology, furtive military operations and terrifying, omnipresent newsreaders. This is bigger than CNN's secret baseball — so much bigger. [The Daily Show — Thanks, Rafael]

Snow Leopard, that eagerly awaited rebuild of the Mac OS X, should be coming in the first quarter of 2009, according to Apple engineering director Jordan Hubbard. The next version of OS X won't come with too many crazy new features, but it does offer dramatically smaller application files and a complete overhaul to deliver serious performance gains. A Q1 release would mean that 10.6 is arriving a lot sooner than most people had expected, and that a demo may possibly be shown off during Macworld San Francisco 2009. [Macrumors]

Snow Leopard, that eagerly awaited rebuild of the Mac OS X, could be coming in the first quarter of 2009, if you are to believe Apple engineering director Jordan Hubbard's "presentation slides" from the LISA '08 conference. The next version of OS X won't come with too many crazy new features, but it does offer dramatically smaller application files and a complete overhaul to deliver serious performance gains. A Q1 release would mean that 10.6 is arriving a lot sooner than most people had expected, and that a demo may possibly be shown off during Macworld San Francisco 2009. [Macrumors]

Maybe it's because I have the hugest crush on David Pogue of the New York Times, but I find his recently released product finder guide, the Pogue-O-matic, absolutely adorable... and useful too! The Pogue-O-Matic is divided into four parts: cameras, camcorders, smartphones and televisions. If you were planning on getting people any of the above for the holidays, stop by and have little e-Pogue explain what details you should look out for. Being a gadget blogger with a finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest, I personally don't need the advice. But I'll be stopping by anyway... for you, Pogue. Just. For. You. [Pogue-o-Matic on the New York Times]

Hey! Want junk you never knew you needed just in time for the holiday season? Well, you're in luck because there's a Woot Off going on right now. Head over to Woot and bid your little recession-proof heart out! I'm sure there's someone in your family who could use that random whatchamacallit you spent your hard earned money on. [Woot]