The Zen Table has two sizes – a coffee table measuring 56″ x 39″ x 19.5″ and a smaller desktop version measuring 13″ x 9.5″ x 2 1/2″. Both are made of bamboo and equipped with an SD card slot and a USB cable. The SD card slot is for the bundled SD card which will have several programs that instruct the table’s electronics to create patterns, but you can also send commands from a computer to the table via USB.

In addition, the coffee table version can also be equipped with a 3G modem that will allow it to receive new designs, as well as allow the user to control the table from an Android or iOS app that Hallam is currently developing. That means you can have the Zen Table write messages to people at the table or have it draw naughty images when your parents have a visitor. The possibilities are frightening. Here’s a demo of the Zen Table in contemplative action:

Here it creates something more modern:

Fancy eh? Kickstarter supporters thought so as well. Hallam put up a fundraiser on the crowdfunding website and was able to exceed his original target. I’m not sure when and for how much the final products will be sold, but the people who pledged at least $499 (USD) on the project are eligible for a kit containing the parts for the desktop version of the Zen Table, while $749 got them the same model but fully assembled. Two people pledged at least $4,999 to get their own coffee table Zen Table and one rich and lucky person shelled out at least $7,499 to get the 3G version of the coffee table. Meanwhile I’m still waiting for the iZen Garden app to go on sale for less than $5.99.

Head to Hallam’s YouTube channel to check out more videos of the Zen Table in action.

[Kickstarter via The Awesomer]

First released a few years back as the Nabaztag, and now reincarnated as Karotz, the little gadget has integrated microphone and you can speak to the rabbit, and then it will post what you say to Facebook for you. The wascally wabbit also has a camera inside and can take a picture of you to share on Facebook with your friends. In addition, an app is in the works that will also allow your friends on Facebook to take control of the rabbit and communicate with you by sending audio messages or even sending you a poke via the rabbit.

The thing will also read statuses or comments aloud to you from your Facebook profile. Karotz has voice recognition software inside and can play music for you, check e-mails, read weather reports, RSS feeds, and lots more. The device can also be made to notify you via e-mail when someone is in your home such as a child or a roommate – should they enter the room with the appropriate RFID tag on their keychain or backpack. There are also a few other apps, like one which lets you use Karotz as a remote spycam, since it has a webcam built in.

The rabbit sells for $129.99(USD) over at the Karotz website and from other retailers.

Martin Kaltenbrunner is responsible for this backwards technology. He enjoys “hooking up cool old things to cool new things because it’s cool.” I agree. If you want to try your hand at making one, you can find some instructions here. Maybe you can open up your own Twitter telegraph office.

[via Hack a Day via Geekosystem]

Designed by Benjamin Redford and the OllyFactory (get it?). Olly and Molly are USB-connected, Arduino-powered gadgets which notify you when you have a new message by letting you follow your nose or taste buds. Olly is the smelly one of the pair – and can be filled with a scented oil of your choice – and then emit an aroma as a notification. You can even stack up multiple Ollies so you can have different digital events trigger different smells.

Molly isn’t stinky at all. This little bot holds onto some little candies, and drops one into its little bin whenever your tweets gets retweeted a pre-set number of times. Though it doesn’t look like it can hold too many candies – which is good if you get a lot of retweets. You wouldn’t want to start gaining weight from Twitter now? That’s all we need now.

Both Olly and Molly are raising funds now over on Kickstarter – and they still have a ways to go if you’d like one. The fundraising ends on Feb. 10, and still needs to raise another $27,000 of its $35,000 goal. A pledge of $50 or more gets you an Olly, and $55 or more gets you a Molly. Higher pledges will result in various combos of Ollies and Mollies, as well as the ability to customize the look of yours.

With Luminarie De Cagna’s cathedral however, it’s not so much on the culture or intricacies. Instead, it’s all about the light. And not the light streaming in from the stained glass windows as you’d expect from other cathedrals, either. What I mean is the light that’s emanating from the 55,000 LED lights that make up this massively beautiful structure.

Luminarie De Cagna built this structure that was unveiled and put on display in the recent 2012 Light Festival that was held in Ghent, Belgium. The cathedral of lights stood at an impressive 28 meters and was truly a sight to behold.

[via Colossal]

(Image credits: Stijn Coppens, Sacha Vanhecke, Sector271)

That said, these Bang Bang Doorknobs by Nikita Kovalev are really something else. Basically, these doorknobs are based on the look of 9mm Makarov pistols. To open the door, just pull the trigger and open.

I don’t know you’re supposed to lock your doors with these doorknobs though, as I don’t see any slots for keys or anything else. Maybe it has something to do with cocking the gun, or maybe these are strictly for interior doors which don’t lock.

[via Freshome via Nerd Approved]

The problem is that you still can’t strum and hear the notes, so who knows how much this would actually help you play. At $30(USD) it might be worth a look, though you are bound to look odd playing with this in public.

[via Redferret]

Google has announced that it has updated the service to version 6.2, and with that update the photos loose their gaps and irregularities, and get a uniform appearance.

That means now when you view the Earth, instead of seeing a mosaic of square photos plastered next to each other you just get a very smooth and cohesive image.

The tech used to accomplish this evens out the pics so ones taken night aren’t so dark and ones with clouds don’t stand out. Google also added the ability to get better search results, as well as added walking, public transport, and biking directions and the ability to share maps via Google+.

You can grab the latest Google Earth installer here.

[via Google Lat Long Blog]

I certainly don’t blame students for jumping on and trying it out. If I could have used digital books rather than carry a bag stuffed with 60 pounds of textbooks in college I certainly would have.

We do have to take that download count with a grain of salt though. Apple has been offering a free download textbook called E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth, and there is no indication of how many times that free title was downloaded. There is a chance that the free textbook might make up a significant number of those downloads. Still, it shows an interest in the app’s updated interactive and note-taking features.

In the same three-day period, there were 90,000 downloads of the iBooks Author app that lets people make free textbooks themselves, so that’s a good sign for an increased volume of publications hitting the shelves.

[via AllThingsD]

But anyway, do you agree that the size of portraits are a reflection of the (figurative) size of a person’s spirit? If you do, then you might want to say that great minds think alike, because that’s what Dennis Manarchy thought of for his 35-foot long mammoth of a camera called the “Eye of America.”

Here’s some background on the plans for the camera and its design:

While the video shows what the finished camera will look like, it appears that Manarchy has already built a functional version in his studio – it’s not as finished as the images shown above, but it is fully-functional, and captures images of extraordinary detail.

Manarchy built the “Eye of America” camera for his project entitled Vanishing Cultures. Basically, it’s a series that will honor America’s people by capturing their images on huge negatives that measure 6 feet × 4.5 feet and subsequently onto prints that are two stories-high. Here’s more about Manarchy’s project:

FYI, Manarchy is a celebrity of his own right in the world of photography; in fact, he has been voted as the world’s best photographer – twice.

[via PetaPixel via Dvice]

The idea is that the windows would be transparent screens which could display all sorts of content from game apps for kids to navigation details for the driver or passenger. I really like the idea of navigation content being projected onto the windshield. That way you don’t need to take your eyes off the road for directions.

The apps for kids though are the ones that will likely get the most attention. The prototype apps let kids finger paint, and interact with characters who react to the speed of the vehicle. For the big kids, there are apps for navigation as well as streaming music and social networking.

GM notes that it has no current plans to use the window tech in a production vehicle, and there is no indication when this tech will leave concept and come to the real world. Hopefully it’s not that far off.

Waiter has movable arms, on-board cameras and a laser range finder to detect and interact with those human beings who are ignorant of 3G. It can also recognize commands like “hello” and “dance”. No word on how effective it was at educating the public on 3G. I’m guessing not very.

And just like the iPhone, there’s no word on when it will actually get around to supporting 4G LTE.

[via ZDNet (Chinese) via Plasticpals]

For people who are wound up too tight, it’s a great way to release the stress and pent-up energy. And for the interns at  Open University’s computer science department, it’s something that has been programmed to take punches and turn them into different forms of stimulus and feedback.

The characteristics of each punch are detected using impact sensors and an accelerometer. These signals are then processed in an Arduino processor, which provides sounds, lights, images, and other information. In addition to playing music, this particular punching bag can also emit laughter, or even a sigh when hugged.

The interactive punching bag was intended investigate the impact of feedback and stimulus on the users (or the punchers), as well as observe what effects impact interactive design might make on the user (or puncher) experience over time.

Pretty cool, huh?

[via Dvice]

The iOptik lenses work thanks to a set of special polarizing filters, which separate high intensity light from ambient light, and a secondary internal magnifying lens, which focuses the light into a single, narrow beam. The light rays are transferred independently to the retina, allowing users to focus on far away and close visuals, in full field of view. These contacts allow you to easily view images on a tiny close-up display (such as on a pair of sunglasses) while at the same time viewing your surroundings without any focus difficulties. The contacts do away with the need for the bulky optics usually found in today’s head-mounted displays, and when a compatible display is not present, the contacts would provide normal vision.

Innovega is working with DARPA to create prototypes of these types of lenses and beta test them for the military. A consumer model should also be available within the next couple of years, priced similarly to regular contact lenses.

While we’re still a long way off from displays built into contact lenses themselves, this is a major step forward in improving the usability of portable displays.

[via DVice]

Well, the New York Police Department’s plan for mobile weapon scanners sort of remind me of that, but they are, of course, completely different.

The NYPD is developing a small, portable version of the full body scanners – similar to those that you have to go through in the airport, but using infrared sensors. These devices would enable officers to determine if someone is carrying or concealing a weapon under his or her clothes, without having to leave the police car or van. The device would be able to differentiate between the suspect’s body and any metal objects they are carrying.

The initiative was announced this week by NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. So far, Kelly reports they have already been able to produce a prototype scanner in conjunction with the Department of Defense, although it’s still pretty limited: it only has a range of three to four feet. Kelly remains confident though, that they can push this up to eighty feet with continued work on the project.

[via Gothamist via Dvice]

Technically, the bOne isn’t even DIY because it already comes with a metal frame and pre-formed upholstery blocks that come in a bright green color. Instead of hammering out your own chair, all you’ve got to do with the bOne is bend the legs and back into position, squish the upholstery into the holes, and sit.

Sounds easy, but I think stuffing those cylindrical pieces of upholstery in might be a little harder than you think.

The bOne Chair was designed by JDF Raum und Kunst, and according to the firm, the bOne is “a chair with a playful air for people with a sense of humor. Its support structure mimics our bone structure, its upholstery our skin cells, and just like these cells the seat, too, conforms – like the rhytm of inhaling and exhaling – to the individual’s unique ergonomics.”

It’s pretty clever. I certainly never thought of a chair like that. No word on if the bOne chair will ever become a product you can buy, or if it’s just a design concept though.

[via Beautiful Life via Gadgets Matrix]

It’s able to detect up to 32 simultaneous touch points, so multiple users can interact with it, and it offers full 1080p HD resolution. The giant LED backlit LCD screen is fully 3D capable, and is bright enough to work even in well-lit environments, like museums, offices and classrooms.

The MT65 Presenter isn’t just a display – it’s a fully self-contained Windows 7-based system (a Linux version is coming in March.) Under the hood, it’s got a speedy quad-core Intel Core i7 2720QM CPU, along with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SATA SSD hard drive, and a GeForce GTX 460 GPU, so it’s powerful enough to run just about anything you can throw at it. Ports include Ethernet, HDMI (in and out for mirroring), USB 2.0, and 3.5mm audio in and out jacks.

The whole system is loaded into a durable 4″ thick vandal-proof aluminum frame, so it can be used in public places without too much worry. They’ve also attached a small HD webcam and stereo microphone on top of the display, so those can be used as inputs for interactive projects. Also included is GestureWorks 3, which lets you easily create interactive touch-based apps using Adobe Flash, Flex or Air. The package also includes software components for quickly integrating and interacting with photos, videos, and audio files in touch-based projects.

The ideum MT65 Presenter is available now, with prices starting at $17,450 (USD), and can be ordered in custom colors for $1,000 more. Sure, you might not be able to afford one for your living room, but it’s a pretty good deal for professional users, given its size and capabilities.

So if you’re the type who’s always buying new phones and updating your devices, then it’s time you head to the ecoATM nearest you to start recycling your old gadgets.

Not only will you be doing good old Mother Nature a favor here by recycling old stuff that you might no longer need or use, but you’ll also get some quick cash in return.

The ecoATM is an automated gadget recycler with a touchscreen and a metal tray below where you’re supposed to put your smartphone, MP3 player, or other device to be recycled.

The ecoATM then uses its camera to determine what kind of device you’re recycling by comparing it to its database that’s been inputted with over 4,000 different gadgets. It will then ask you to plug your device in so it can check if it still works or not. When it’s done with its analysis, it then displays a quote for your gadget, which you can either accept or reject.

If you accept its offer, the ecoATM then dispenses cash in return for your device. The ecoATM already has some machines up and running in California, while more will be rolled out across the country gradually.

[via Daily Mail]

Tests have yielded a 98% percent recognition success rate. The data gets sent back to a laptop where it is aggregated into a reading of your specific butt. Then it can be used as the “key” to keep others from using your car.

It might also alert you to the fact that you are gaining weight if it one day refuses to turn on the car. That will teach you to eat the entire bag of chips.

[via TechCrunch via Geekosysytem]

The improvements include dual extruders and the interface controller. Each MakerBot Replicator now comes with an LCD and video-game-style control pad. The LCD screen allows you to view build statistics and monitor information as well as full control of the machine without the use of plugging in a computer. There’s an SD card slot and you can load models directly. It’s also larger than the original, allowing you to output bigger models (up to 9″ x 6″ x 6″ – about the size of a loaf of bread).

The whole thing is sold as a complete product, not a kit, allowing people who are less technologically savvy to get going right away. The MakerBot Replicator sells for $1,749 for the single extruder model and $1,999 for the dual extruder (for 2-color printing) over at the MakerBot store. They expect to start shipping in about six weeks.

[via Make:]