But try to imagine cutting the grass without a mower. The task would be even more difficult. So whether you like it or not, lawnmowers are made for a reason, and it’s a excellent reason at that.

more than simply a chore machine for teenagers or a home based business, lawnmowers help cut grass on lawns quickly and uniformly. This is as of the rotating blades under its hood.

These blades may be operated using pure manpower ( i.e. Pushing the mower ) or by employing a motor ( electric or an internal combustion engine).

They also come in numerous shapes and sizes. Customarily, smaller and simpler ones are meant for tiny gardens of households. On the other hand, bigger and more powerful ones are employed in bigger areas like lawn tennis courts and even stadiums.

Sure enough, mowers do a good job at making life easier when it comes to cutting grass. But they aren’t used for that purpose.

Some lawn-mower fans have altered their machines to become racing machines. It sounds funny at first and yes, it sounds crazy irrespective of how many times one hears it.

What lawnmower racers do is take a stock ride-on mower ( the type which can sometimes be ridden by a person ), remove the blades for safety and do other alterations to make it go faster. And voila! They can now go racing at little or no cost at all!

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The Lawn Mower Scooter is one of those latest gadgets that you simply MUST have because it turn one of the most hated house chores into a pleasant activity. The included electric motor inside this baby is what makes both the scooter and the blades work. You can basically ride the scooter while it mows the laws for you. The scooter can reach speeds of a maximum 6 km per hours and the cut grass is collected inside a recipient which has a window cover so you can see when the container needs to be emptied. Since there are not many details available for this lawn Mower Scooter yet, we have no clue where the gas goes inside this thing or if it can be charged like one of those electrical cars.

On Thursday, Popular Mechanics magazine will unveil its 2009 Breakthrough awards. Included on the list is a series of innovators, as well as a number of products, including this lawn mower, the Hustler Zeon, which is the world’s first all-electric, zero-turning-radius mower. It can cover an acre of grass on a single charge.

(Credit: Popular Mechanics)

Popular Mechanics magazine on Thursday will unveil its fifth-annual Breakthrough Award winners, an august collection of designers and products that could do much more than their share to change the world for the better.

From famous inventors like Dean Kamen to a flying car for the Third World to bacteria-powered batteries–and much in-between–the awards are meant to highlight technologies that will shape the way people around the world live and how they interact with everyday products.

Each year, the magazine’s editors scour the country for a worthy group of winners, and this year, in the end, Popular Mechanics settled on one leadership award winner, one next-generation honoree, eight Breakthrough innovators and 10 Breakthrough products.

“In all cases, there’s a really practical application that we see coming about,” said Jerry Beilinson, the magazine’s deputy editor, “so these aren’t theoretical scientific applications. (They’re going to) change the world and have a really positive aspect on people’s lives.”

Beilinson said that after five years of identifying technological breakthrough products and innovators, certain themes have emerged in the editors’ preferences. Among the most important, he said, is alternative energy and products and designers that push that category forward.

“If I look back (at the last few years of doing the awards), we looked at aviation and we looked at medicine,” he said. “But over the last few years, I think the things that have been clear themes that we’ve been looking at that have emerged (are) alternative energy and appropriate technologies for the developing world.”

And while the themes can be forward-looking, the individual awards celebrate a “moment in time,” he said.

“We’re sort of picking the moment at which it’s become real, and passed the threshold and seems like its worthy of an award,” Beilinson said. “But most of these kinds of things do take some time to develop.”

For this year’s Breakthrough Leadership award, Popular Mechanics honored Dean Kamen, an inventor with more than 440 patents who may be best known for creating the incredible but commercially disappointing Segway personal transporter.

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Originally posted at Geek Gestalt

This, folks, is the lawn mower of the future according to Husqvarna. The Panthera Leo is made out of recycled materials and is equipped with five electric motors. Yes, electric. This mower doesn’t have a gas engine meaning you could cut your grass at 10:00 pm without bothering the neighbors. We’re starting to like the sound of this.

The mower has three separate cutters and can achieve a cutting width of 33- to 47-inches. Plus, because of the electric motors, the blades do not have to be the heavy steel bars that gas mowers employ, but rather lighter, sharper blades. The batteries can power the mower for up to 2 hours before needing to be recharged and an onboard LCD displays not only the battery life, but also speed, blade height, cutting width, and general info about the grass.

Husqvarna says that it will have something similar on the market within five years. Hopefully it has the same killer paint job and wheels as the concept. *fingers crossed*

CrunchDeals abound today as retailers feverishly drop prices in an attempt to keep people from going outside on a long weekend. Here’s a tidy list for you to peruse at your leisure. Enjoy…

Seagate External Hard Drive 500GB for $49.99 at Office Max [via dealspl.us]

Refurb TomTom ONE 130 GPS for $59.99 after $20 MIR at Amazon [via dealnews]

Guitar Hero Metallica (Xbox 360) for $28.88 at BrandsMart USA [via dealspl.us]

Insignia High-Definition Digital Camcorder for $99.99 at Best Buy [via dealnews]

Garmin Nuvi 205 GPS for $79.99 at Kmart (add to cart to get discount) [via FatWallet]

PlayStation 2 for $88.88 at BrandsMart USA [via dealspl.us]

Dynex 32-inch LCD TV for $299.99 at Best Buy [via dealnews]

Sony BRAVIA 40-inch LCD TV for $799.99 at Best Buy [via FatWallet]

Craftsman Front Propelled Rear Bag Lawn Mower for $249.99 at Sears [via dealnews]

Acer 20″ Widescreen Flat-Panel LCD Monitor for $99.99 at Best Buy [via dealnews]

Lawnmowers, with their spinning, ground level blades, are most dangerous to small animals, young children, and feet. Recently, one Mowing Menace trapped a 4-year-old girl’s foot under its blades of doom, causing enough damage to require amputation. In fact, she was one of 77,000 people who go to the hospital every year, victims of mowing-related violence.

Clearly, in the epic battle of Man vs. Machine, mowers don’t intend to play fair.

A mower in Oregon flipped its rider down an embankment and into a ditch before rolling itself onto some blackberry bushes above the trapped man. The lawn mower’s heat actually set the blackberry bushes on fire, and when they gave way, the mower itself tumbled 15-20 feet to rest on top of its owner, trapping him in the ditch. Though the victim wasn’t severely burned, the crushing weight of his mower caused enough unspecified injuries to necessitate a helicopter airlift to a nearby hospital.

Another one, at a park in Indiana, was being peacefully driven around the perimeter of a lake when it snagged a wire, flipped and slowly dragged its helpless rider into the water like a conniving, hungry alligator. Though the tractor technically did not devour the 59-year-old John McComas, it did pin him in the shallows of the lake, rendering him unable to move. Thankfully, he managed to keep his head above water and shouted for help, and was rescued soon enough to escape with only mild injuries.

A lawnmower in Florida apparently took offense to its owner doing a little repair work on it, and so shot a spark onto the owner’s nearby boat. The spark ignited gas fumes and the boat promptly burst into flames, sending up huge plumes of smoke and the risk of serious fire in the “tinderbox conditions” of that stretch of the Atlantic coastline. The town’s fire commissioner, Fred Link, explained with laughable naivete, “It was accidentally started.” Sure, Fred, that’s what they want you to think.

Lawnmowers don’t just act alone, though. They are capable of teaming up with other terrors to dish out even more devastation. In Texas, the mere sound of a lawn mower was enough to enrage a nearby swarm of killer Africanized bees. That’s right, Africanized bees, the ones the hysterical news media alerted your attention to back in 1999. The killer bees, responding to the mower’s calls, attacked nearby residents, stinging two bystanders and two firemen. None were seriously injured, and another fireman said he “barely managed to avoid being stung,” a quote he probably wishes had not appeared in his local paper. The bees were exterminated, but the mower lived to fight another day.

But just like in Battlestar Galactica, some of these appliances have decided to side with humans—defending them instead of terrorizing them. In Croatia, an innocent man was mowing his lawn when suddenly, his mower detonated a live hand grenade, sacrificing its own self in the process. The man escaped uninjured, but still confused as to what a live grenade was doing in his garden.