archive for May, 2008

Now I’m sympathetic to those who have fallen on hard times, many of us still find people who beg for money to be irritating. So why someone would go through the trouble of building a robot that begs for spare change is anyone’s guess.

Alexander Gurko’s “Bettelbot” (that’s “BeggingBot” in English) has just one mission…

Got an old Macintosh or Mac Plus lying around? There’s got to be something better to do with it than turn it into an aquarium, right? That’s what this enterprising modder did when he managed to cram the guts of a Mac G4 Cube into his trusty old Mac Plus, replacing the old B&W CRT…

These tipsy egg-shaped speakers let you wobble them like a Weeble while you listen to your tunes.

Unlike real eggs (and those colorful Weebles), these only come in black and red, and they don’t crack open to produce omelets. They do, however, twist open to produce enhanced bass output. I wonder if they can only…

Cisco has unveiled and demonstrated their new On-Stage TelePresence Holographic Video Conferencing. In layman’s terms, it means that now you can actually do that thing they do in Star Wars when they talk to a Princess Leia hologram, and I have to say, it looks quite convincing.

The video is pretty boring except for the fact…

If King Tutankhamen could have been buried with his computer, this would have been the one – without a doubt.

Conceived and constructed by Chris Kramer (a.k.a “Jadragon”), his EgyptMod PC is detailed with intricate hieroglyphics and encrusted with jewels. I’m especially mesmerized by Eye of Ra detail crafted from brass and inlaid with polished…

While these brief musical interludes won’t win any prizes for their sweeping cinematography, they do win a place in my heart for being put together using some good old fashioned 8-bit gaming technology.

Created using a combination of retro console art (inspired by, but probably not actually created on an NES) and blips and beeps…

This nifty proof-of-concept demo shows off just one of the many gameplay possibilities for multi-player video games on Apple’s wonderphone.

iPong is a variant of Atari’s classic paddle ball game, with a multi-device, multi-player twist. Using some clever trickery, players can actually bounce their ball off of their iPhone’s screen onto the display of another…

If you’re the kind of person who rolls out his Chewbacca impression at parties, this “Empire Strikes Back”-themed belt might be the piece de resistance to round out your existing collection of Boba Fett bobbleheads and ceramic Stormtrooper figurines.

The belts are made by Refinding, a wee company out of Kansas City that makes accessories out…

I don’t know what it is, but I’m a real sucker for Nixie tube clocks. There’s something about the soothing orange glow tubes that offer a simple, yet elegant way to display any numeric information. I hadn’t seen a design that really caught my eye in a while, when I stumbled onto this wooden beauty.…

If you’ve ever complained that the keys on your computer are too small for your fingers, have I got a keyboard for you. This ginormous keyboard is so big – How big is it, Bob? – It’s so big that in order to type on it, you need to walk almost 20 feet to get from…

Since the average work day affords so few opportunities to assert one’s ninja prowess, you can make up for that with these ninja tacks by Chromoly.

They’re designed to look like you’ve just gone through a fit of rage and thrown ninja stars at your bulletin board from across the room. However, it’s all an…

Ever find the need to use your computer while standing out in the rain? Me neither. While the handful of folks who really need to could drop a few thousand bucks on a military-grade waterproof laptop, here’s a much simpler, brute-force solution for keeping your laptop safe and dry on a rainy day.

Just slip…