Crocodile Dundee once said: “That’s not an Ares I rocket welder. This is an Ares I rocket welder.” He was obviously referring to this toy in NASA’s garage, which fuses aluminum-lithium 2195 alloy via friction. Wired’s Bob Parks, toolman extraordinaire, describes the process far better than I ever could: Stir welding plunges a rapidly rotating pin about the size of a pencil into the joint between two panels with more than 5,000 pounds of force per square inch; the friction makes the alloy pliable, and the rotation forces grains of metal to mingle behind the pin as it crawls up the joint. The resulting welds are strong, defect-free, and actually shave material (and weight) from the craft rather than leaving a bulky seam.

Crocodile Dundee once said: “That’s not an Ares I rocket welder. This is an Ares I rocket welder.” He was obviously referring to this toy in NASA’s garage, which fuses aluminum-lithium 2195 alloy via friction. Wired’s Bob Parks, toolman extraordinaire, describes the process far better than I ever could: Stir welding plunges a rapidly rotating pin about the size of a pencil into the joint between two panels with more than 5,000 pounds of force per square inch; the friction makes the alloy pliable, and the rotation forces grains of metal to mingle behind the pin as it crawls up the joint. The resulting welds are strong, defect-free, and actually shave material (and weight) from the craft rather than leaving a bulky seam. The process is necessary because the ultralight aluminum-lithium 2195 allow becomes to brittle when melted by a traditional blowtorch.

Kevin Rose has some Tesla Model S imagery up on his Flickr account, including the first unshrouded pictures of the car, along with a rather wild interior shot. The all-electric sedan is styled beautifully — if rather predictably — but things start to get weird on the inside. In what looks to be a concept car mockup of the interior, there appears to be a large touchscreen taking the place of the entire center console, wrapped irregularly by dashboard padding. The instruments panel also appears to be a screen, though it could just be a mockup at this stage. Concept cars typically have rather strange and unlikely interiors compared to their tame street-legal counterparts, but even so, if this indeed isn’t some sort of cruel Photoshop trickery, we’d say Tesla really outdid itself here.

Mark your calendars, BlackBerry fans: BusinessWeek says RIM’s going to launch the BlackBerry App World April 1 at CTIA. What’s more, the company is apparently planning on going after Apple by courting developers with higher profit margins and the relative sophistication of the average corporate BlackBerry user, which explains that minimum $2.99 paid app price we saw a few weeks ago. An interesting move to position the new service, but we’ll see if it takes hold with users — anyone ready to blow their budget on ‘berry software? [Via Boy Genius Report ] Filed under: Cellphones BlackBerry App World to launch April 1, says BusinessWeek originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, where we’re likely to see all of Snow Leopard’s spots and maybe a new iPhone to go with iPhone 3.0 OS , will take place from June 8-12. [ Apple - Thanks Justin ! ]

If you are a thrifty consumer, you probably already know that using price comparison sites are a great way to save money on gadgets. But I am tired of shopping around for shopping sites. When it comes right down to it, I want to visit one site with a simple selection of core features that are focused on one thing and one thing only—helping me save money. Vendors: Naturally, every good comparison engine needs to establish relationships with as many reputable vendors as possible. Giants like PriceGrabber , Shopzilla , Shopping.com , and Yahoo Shopping generally meet this requirement.

If you are a thrifty consumer, you probably already know that using price comparison sites are a great way to save money on gadgets. But I am tired of shopping around for shopping sites. When it comes right down to it, I want to visit one site with a simple selection of core features that are focused on one thing and one thing only—helping me save money. Vendors: Naturally, every good comparison engine needs to establish relationships with as many reputable vendors as possible. Giants like PriceGrabber , Shopzilla , Shopping.com , and Yahoo Shopping generally meet this requirement. Coupons: Sites like RetailMeNot and MyCoupons.com are great, but that data should not be singled out in a standalone site.

A tipster GigaOM is calling “very reliable” has revealed that Skype for the iPhone will arrive as early as next week—perhaps at the CTIA Wireless show kicking off on Wednesday. Stay tuned. [ GigaOM ]

BusinessWeek says that RIM chief Mike Lazaridis will launch BlackBerry’s long-awaited App Store competitor from CTIA on April 1. Paid apps will start at $2.99 , but freebies will exist. [ BusinessWeek via BGR ]

Cigarette smokers understand the damage they’re doing to their bodies. That’s why “shocking” anti-smoking ads like these blackened lungs won’t do anything to stop them. At this point, everybody fully understands what cigarettes do to people. Yet smokers don’t care, they just like smoking. Maybe we should just respect that instead of grossing everybody out with a pair of blackened lungs that double as cigarette lighters.