Here are a few things you don’t have time to do when your car plunges into an icy lake: remove a Leatherman multitool from your glove compartment; unfold it; cut through your seatbelt; refold it; smash through your window.

Thankfully there’s the ExiTool, a clever little gadget that attaches to your seat belt for quick access when your shit goes “glug, glug, glug.” It includes a high-carbon stainless steel slicer, a tungsten carbide smasher, and, just for good measure, an LED light.

Sure, having an open blade attached to your seat belt all the time isn’t ideal, but it’s definitely more ideal than being trapped in your car at the bottom of some murky body of water.

The ExiTool will be available soon for $27, so if you’re the type of person that worries about this thing it’s probably a worthwhile investment. [CRKT via The Awesomer]

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The world-renown MIT Media Lab is a place where every project is an amazing, unbelievable glimpse into humanity’s technological future. Now, thanks to a massive $90 million extension, the architecture can match the wondrous excitement created within.

In case you haven’t had the opportunity to swing by this particular block in Cambridge, Massachusetts, here’s what the old Media Lab looks like. It’s still there. In fact, you can see the extension under construction, and marvel at the stark contrast in design.

Mensa Tetris

The six-level, interconnected extension, the work of the famed, award-winning architectural firm Fumihiko Maki and Associates, is like an immense Tetris puzzle. Every piece represents a functional element that is tightly connected to others, giving anyone inside the feeling of being inside a finished puzzle. Maki, himself the winner of a Pritzker Prize, was on hand over the weekend to officially open the MIT Media Lab. (It’s technically been in operation since December.)

As he described it, each piece of this six-level building connects to the next. Balcony offices overlook open air labs and work spaces. Colorful stairways bisect the central atrium, their red, blue and yellow coloring inspired by Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red.

Color aside, the trait hitting visitors in the face before they even walk through the door is glass. Cambridge building codes prevented a 100% glass exterior, so Maki came up with a loophole: bamboo. Inspired by translucent Japanese bamboo screens, Maki covered the remaining exterior with a mix of glass and aluminum tubes.

The result is at the same time beautiful and energy efficient, but also functional. We’re constantly reminded that this is one incredibly open, collaborative working environment.

From the street, especially at night, passers-by can literally see lab work happening within. Maki called this “filtered views,” inspired by the work of the pointillist artist George Seurat (lots of dots!). MIT played a part too, having provided Maki with an image of the Visible Man to further drive home the point that this lab space be open.

But enough architecture? What kind of world-changing stuff can we expect this multimillion dollar, 163,000-sq. ft. incubator to pump out in the future?

Well, if the past is any indication, plenty. The place that saw the beginnings of Guitar Hero, e-ink displays, OLPC and Lego Mindstorms is still driving much of the stuff that gets the Gizmodo editors, at least, sweating profusely in their blogging sweatpants.

The Media Lab will help “plumb the depths of how technology can have a greater impact on industry, society and business,” said Media Lab director Frank Moss.

To net denizens and geeks like you and me, that boils down to robotics, prosthetic limbs, AI and the obligatory Minority Report UI reference that any article mentioning 3D interfaces must include.

Fluid Media

As part of the opening, I was lucky enough to get a tour or some, but not all of the departments at the Media Lab. Departments like Biomechatronics, Cognitive Machines, Fluid Interfaces, Molecular Machines, Personal Robots, Smart Cities, Synthetic Neurobiology. It reads like Stephen Hawkings’ shopping list.

In any event, Fluid Media was one of the labs I got to tour first.

If you know Arduino, you’d be at home here, alongside the luminescent wallpaper, smart fabrics, “sewable computing” and inexpensive 3D fabricators that had me waxing nostalgic about Cory Doctorow’s Makers.

Above: No, not coasters or doilies. Sewable computers. If you aren’t wearing your mp3 player now, you will be soon.

Kindergarten Kids, Forever

The sense of play felt throughout the Media Lab’s open spaces owes itself to the students, of course, but it’s certainly assisted by the design. Moss called the atmosphere “serious fun,” in a building where bright minds “design by serendipity.” It’s pretty spot on. One lab leads into the other, encouraging social and professional interaction. Artists huddle with biomechanical engineers. Sometimes the union is short-lived, and sometimes it’s Guitar Hero.

But it’s serious fun: There’s a mission here, one that’s produced limbs for soldiers maimed in war; helped children learn robotics with crazy new Lego software; and created a paint brush, simply called I/O, that captures the essence of whatever you point it at—visual, musical or otherwise.

Even so, the fun, relaxed environment is apparent in this lab that director Moss says will change our futures. He and others, like Lifelong Kindergarten Department grad student Karen Brennan, were genuinely having fun while working with these high concepts and brain-bending experiments. The future, wild as it will be, looks pretty fun. Seriously.

Image credits: The Visible Man is a well-known see-through anatomy model from Craft House Corp. Composition in Yellow, Blue and Red from Wikipedia.

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The 4N Watch was designed with a relatively simple goal—display digital time through mechanical, analog function.

Despite the exposed gears and jumble of numbers, the watch operates upon logic that anyone can grasp. Really, three numbered discs rotate to display the proper 3 to 4 digits of time (we’re assuming the hour disc displays the 11 and 12 hours on its own). That’s much more reasonable than a tiny arm sorting through a large pile of numbers with every new minute, which is pretty much what we imagined upon first glance.

Unfortunately, only 16 watches will be produced. So enjoy the picture. [4N via SlashGear]

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You’ve got a broken, old computer, but what you really want is a shiny, new hookah. Well, with a little bit of effort you can turn that old gadget into some peculiar-looking smoking paraphernalia. [Instructables via Nerd Approved]

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There have been allegations that someone’s been supplying online retailer Newegg with fake Intel Core i7 processors and then proceeding to threaten anyone who reports on the issue. Here’s what Newegg has to say:

Newegg is currently conducting a thorough investigation surrounding recent shipments of questionable Intel Core i7-920 CPUs purchased from Newegg.com.

Initial information we received from our supplier, IPEX, stated that they had mistakenly shipped us “demo units.” We have since come to discover the CPUs were counterfeit and are terminating our relationship with this supplier. Contrary to any speculation, D&H Distributing is not the vendor that supplied us with the Intel Core i7-920 CPUs in question.

Newegg’s top priority is to proactively reach out to all customers who may have been affected to ensure their absolute satisfaction. We have already sent out a number of replacement units and are doing everything in our power to resolve the matter promptly and with the least amount of inconvenience to our customers.

We have always taken pride in providing an exceptional experience for each customer, and we apologize for any inconvenience to our valued customers. We take matters like this extremely seriously, and are working in close cooperation with Intel and the appropriate law enforcement authorities to thoroughly investigate this incident.

Kudos to Newegg for handling the entire matter so well and apparently taking good care of the customers affected.

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