A new residential resort on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica will comprise 240 homes along the edge of the country’s most popular national park, with untouched white sand beaches and 4,000 acres of lush wildlife just steps away. Jade Condo Resort Residences and Beach Club, a Wyndham-branded hotel that broke ground in March, is located on a hillside of the northwestern end of Manuel Antonio National Park. The resort offers one- and two-bedroom residences and four different fully furnished floor plans, each featuring stone floors and large private terraces with views of the Pacific. Prices range from $250,000 to $1.5 million for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom residence. Also under construction: a private oceanfront beach club with a lazy river pool and nearby café and bar, a Latin-fusion restaurant, spa, and fitness center. There are also plans to build an additional 50 two- to three-bedroom private condos next year. Construction is expected to be completed by December 2010. jademanuelantonio

While the idea itself is not revolutionary, sticking to a daily cleaning frenzy is a good way to avoid looking like a tornado hit your home. Browse the post for other suggestions on how to keep your home “clean enough,” then chime in with your own quick cleaning tips in the comments. And if you’re looking for more suggestions on how to clean your place, browse our previous post on attack plans against a cluttered home.

The six-time NBA champion Chicago Bull is actually building a mansion in Jupiter, Florida — a posh beach and golf town in Palm Beach County — that by the sounds of the developer’s plans will be more of a Wal-Mart than a domicile.

The glamorous details: a 37,942-square-foot two-story home, which will feature an elevator, a grand stairway, a giant fireplace and 11 bedrooms. Oh, there’s also a cottage and guard gate (for ex-teammate Charles Oakley perhaps?) in the works.

The glamorous cost: $7,627,669.

Jose Lambiet reports Jordan bought two lots at the Jack Nicklaus-founded Bears Club last year for a total $4.8 million: “He’s got three acres of wooded land adjacent to a golf course. Golf, and the privacy of a gated community, is what caught Jordan’s attention.” Roll out of bed, light a cigar, play 18 holes. What a life.

However, not everyone is excited about Jordan’s mansion being some three times the size of other houses in and around the area. In fact, Joanne Davis, a growth management specialist with 1000 Friends of Florida channeled Bryon Russell before calling The GOAT’s future home “insane” and “a waste.”

“Cities see nothing more than a tax base in these giant homes, but I can’t imagine anyone needing anything like that, except to show off,” Davis tells Lambiet. “This house is going to require an enormous use of natural resources for no good reason.”

To Jordan’s defense, town officials said his plans are well within code.

But if that’s not good enough, he’ll probably just dunk on her.

The makers of Chambord, the French black raspberry liqueur, unveiled the most sumptuous and expensive breakfast to coincide with the start of a West End production, an adaptation the classic novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The $35,000 meal includes a hand-decorated bejeweled croissant, covered in edible gold and diamonds, Bar le Duc hand-seeded redcurrant jam and a cup of Kopi Luwak coffee washed down with a Chambord and champagne cocktail worth more than $32,178. To make it easy for the stomachs to digest the bill, let us remind you that the Chambord is served from a bottle of liqueur encrusted with gold, diamonds and pearls worth $2.4 million and topped up with Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque champagne. So, after a breakfast that luxurious, you won’t really mind giving a tip to the waiter.

Homeland Security loves non-lethal weapons: from sound cannons, to the $1M flashlight that temporarily blinds, disorientates, and screws equilibrium. And now you can build your own for $250! Does it really work? Not that well, but it’s great for raves…

Those wacky Ladyada hardware hackers (Adafruit Industries) and Phil Torrone from MAKE Magazine, trawled the net and found the patent from the outside consulting firm that built the device for the government.

They discovered it flashes green LEDs at about 10Hz to induce its effects, and modified a Sears flashlight to build their own version called the BEDAZZLER. And true to form, they’ve put the schematics, source code, and circuit board layouts online so you can make one yourself. Watch it in action below. Fun! [Ladyada]

TVs might be getting beautifully thinner, but we’re often still forced to use external speaker setups to get decent sound quality. Emo Labs‘ solution: embed a thin and clear “invisible” membrane speaker into the screen itself. Watch it in action:

It’s a completely new type of speaker technology that could also find its way into other thin gadgetry: laptops, LCD monitors, cellphones, photo frames, and hand held consoles.

Emo Labs calls the tech Edge Motion, and it basically involves the clear layer microflexing to generate soundwaves. Enough to produce a room full of stereo sound—without effecting visual screen quality.

They’ve embedded Edge Motion into a 42-inch TV for the demo below, but there’s still no word on which TV manufacturers, if any, they’ve managed to sign up. The vid comes from this week’s DEMOfall 09 tech showcase, where they won best consumer-oriented product. [Emo Labs via DEMO via Mashable]

The Hollandia International Sphere Bed

Red velvet, check. Mechanized base, check. Built-in massage, check. Covered LED canopy lights, check. 32-inch LCD television, check. Vanity mirror, check.

[Hollandia International via Apartment Therapy]

Homebrew soda was a lot more common in the days before there were 212 varieties available at every grocery store. Grab some yeast, sugar, water, and flavoring, however, and you can craft your own bubbly soft drink in your fridge.

How To Make Your Own Soda Video [Howcast.com via Serious Eats]

If carving up your Xbox 360’s cardboard box and snail-mailing a proof of purchase tag doesn’t bug you, you can score an Xbox 360 Elite for $250, net total. How? Microsoft’s offering a $50 rebate to anyone who buys their premium $300 video games console before October 5th. Two weeks less a day, then, for fence-riders susceptible to the allure of a 17% price cut.

Both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s mainline Xbox 360 are currently $300. That said, they’re not even-Steven, depending on what you’re after in features, functions, and software libraries. If you want a partial drill-down, see our comparison chart: “PS3 Slim vs. Xbox 360 Price Fight.”

I can’t help you decide. I own both systems myself, and probably would whether I wrote for a living or just pretended to. I suppose there’s possibly a supplemental argument here for PS3 owners who’d like to reach across the aisle without utterly pillaging their piggy banks. The only quandary if you’re game for the latter? Picking a software version when multi-system versions arrive.

Nothing like a steak with a little Cognac Butter.

Obscura CueLight from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

The Obscura CueLight is an amazing innovation that uses sensors and motion detectors with an overhead projector to create images as you leap on the table for that perfect calling. While balls reveal an image hidden underneath, the system can also be configured to trail flames behind the balls, or even project a pool of water on the table that creates ripples as the balls strike the side rails. The system that costs around $80,000 sans pool table, is projecting on a $125,000 pool table at the Esquire Ultimate Bachelor Pad.

Via: Gizmodo/CrunchGear/TechEBlog

Lamborghini owners take a hint from what’s in the line-up from Lamborghini design studio – a bed? While we hope this bed doesn’t turn out to be a concept like the Lamborghini heels from Tonino Lamborghini, you are free to imagine what hi-tech features Lamborghini will be offering in this bed. Seriously, we have seen some of the finest car-shaped furniture from outsiders and this one actually does not seems to match their standards. Share your thoughts with us on this concept in the comments here.

Via: LA Times

We all love to make our homes look great but then just how much are we willing to spend? We browsed through internet scouting for the most expensive furniture items…

There have been several products designed for a bathtub light show, but the Nirvana tub takes it a step further by embedding 360 LEDs right into the surface.

The tub also features touch controls and a motion-activated hand shower. Unfortunately, it’s only a concept—but the design was good enough to become a Red Dot 2009 award winner. [Red Dot via Born Rich via Unplgged via DVICE]