What you’re looking at here is a Christmas tree, Katamari Damacy style. At least this is what one looks like after it’s rolled up all the ornaments, lights and tinsel from an ordinary tree. Though I’m surprised there are no little elves or tiny reindeer in there, with their arms and legs flailing about. Maybe once the Prince rolls it around a bit more.

This awesomely geeky creation was posted by flickr contributor szy a couple of years back, but it deserves to be a regular geeky holiday tradition, right alongside the Pac-Man Xmas tree, I think.

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After you take the pics, just download them to a computer and it stitches them together into a panorama. The Panoramic Ball Cam was created by Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel and Marc Alexa. It was programmed using C, C++, QT, and OpenCV, and the pictures that it takes are pretty impressive. No word on if or when this gadget might hit the market, but I’m sure it won’t be cheap.

[via SlashGear via Geeky Gadgets]

Each hand-painted ball features a disfigured and decapitated zombie noggin, with plenty of gore oozing forth from the strategically-placed finger holes in their eye sockets, nostrils and mouths. The gashes on the back of their heads is a nice touch too.

The zombie bowling balls were created by Jung van Matt/Elbe ad agency to help promote Germany’s 13th Street horror/science-fiction television channel. These are the same guys behind the equally clever Stationery of Horror.

Even better yet, they went around to various bowling alleys, swapping out the standard balls for these. I would so play with these if I saw them at the local alley. If nothing else, I know what my accessory should be for my Halloween costume this year.

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[via Thinng]

With just a squeeze, this ordinary looking blue ball emits a gross green ooze reminiscent of some sort of puss-filled infections disease. Yum. There’s nothing more appetizing than that. And if the blue/green bubonic plague infection isn’t good enough for you, you can choose from smallpox (green with orange pustules), zombie virus (red with green pustules), or a deadly case of the cooties (red with red pustules). Can I say pustules one more time? Collect them all and increase your chances of a nasty new mutated strain FTW!

I think if you’re a doctor specializing in infectious diseases, you need to fill up your waiting room with these to break the ice with your patients. Catch them all over at ThinkGeek for just $4.99 (USD) each.

Since you can pick the colors for each component, there are a ton of possible color combinations. The flash drive itself stores 8GB and is made up out of two identical 21mm Bakelite beads, that close up perfectly when the flash drive is not in use.

They are available in seven official snooker colors and will cost €86 (~$124 USD) and can be ordered of Tamawa’s website.

[via MoCo Loco]

A nice set of robotic balls would be pretty cool too, I think. These Sphero remote-controlled robotic balls that glow are perfect for all geeky guys. They are even good for the ladies too. That way your lady friend can have her own balls to play with so she won’t be tempted to take yours and crush them accidentally or play too rough with them and cause permanent damage. It pains me to even think of balls being mishandled. The Sphero balls will work with a cool golf app called Sphero Golf on both Android smartphones and the iPhone.

Sphero balls are controlled by Bluetooth via your smartphone. If you are the developer sort, you can use the API to make apps that will let you play with your balls in new and interesting ways. The Sphero balls are 2.9-inches in diameter and can roll all around in any direction. Rolling balls make me a bit nervous honestly; I always fear they will get stepped on.

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Sphero balls will be priced at $130 (USD) and you will get the Sphero ball, the Sphero golf app, and two other apps as well for the price. You will be able to get the remote controlled Sphero balls later this year, but you can pre-order some balls now so you know you will have balls in hand come the holiday season. Balls.

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[via Wired]

Using stereoscopic cameras and advanced computer-vision software, Justin can track a flying ball through the air then position his hands to within 2 centimeters of the ball’s landing zone in as little as 5 milliseconds thanks to his speedy and stable arm and gripper mechanisms. His wheeled base doesn’t hurt his 80%+ catch rate either. This means Justin is probably as accurate as you or I when it comes to nabbing balls thrown in the air. See Justin in action in the video below. After he’s done playing catch, you’ll get to see him fix a perfect cup of coffee.

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I wonder how fast Justin could catch a scorching hot cup of coffee thrown at him?

[via Hizook via PlasticPals]

The Play Ball PC comes with three spherical pods, one which contains the main computer, and the other two which house matching speakers. The main pod’s computer runs on the Intel Atom chipset, has a built-in 64GB SSD storage device and 2GB RAM. In addition to built-in 802.11n networking, it also connects wirelessly to the battery-powered speakers. According to it’s manufacturer, the whole thing will be completely wireless, so I’m wondering if the computer itself will have a rechargeable battery too. It probably does, since both the computer and speakers snap into that white monolithic docking station.

The computer also features a 6-axis gyroscopic sensor, which lets you use the computer itself in place of a mouse, and allows you to interact with the media playback interfaces without a keyboard. Of course, they call this thing an HTPC, but any real home theater guru would never live with just a pair of wireless 15-watt speakers for their sound system.  While it probably won’t win any awards for sound output, it certainly will be a cool conversation piece sitting in your living room.

There’s no word on when you’ll be able to get your hands on one of these oddities. As a matter of fact, I can’t find it up on Moneaul’s website yet. That said, I know it’s at least been turned into a prototype, because I took the photos above myself during CES last week.

This thing is rather ridiculous, especially the one for the Kinect, as it’s really just a plastic bowling ball with a wrist strap attached. At least the Wii version has controls built in, and the one for the PlayStation Move holds onto the controller.

Here’s a quick video clip I nabbed of the Kinect version in action.

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Check out the incredible bowling skills of this CTA Digital employee as she knocks down a whopping one pin. At least she didn’t throw it through the screen.

Frankly, I don’t really get accessories like this. You can really only use them for a single game, and with the Kinect, you could just use an actual bowling ball if you wanted to be accurate. Just remember not to release it from your hand.

EARL, the Enhanced Automated Robotic Launcher is, according to this video clip, “the single greatest piece of bowling technology known to man.” Hmmm. I thought the ball was the single greatest, followed closely by the pin.

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As you can see, EARL takes on PGA bowler Chris Barnes, and manages to hold his own for the most part. However, EARL’s perfection is ultimately its Achilles’ heel. Since humans can make tiny corrections to make sure they’re not wearing down the same spot in the alley over and over again, Barnes manages to beat EARL by a score of 259 to 209. Still, that’s about double a “really good” game for me.

My favorite part of the video is where Barnes says (referring to EARL,) “the capabilities are fairly limitless.” Really? What else can this bowling ball-throwing robot do? Cure cancer? Turn around the economy? Eh, at least it can get a Turkey. That’s way more than I can pull off.

[via Adafruit Blog]

It’s a neat concept in itself, but combined with apps, it gets a lot more awesome. For example, GearBox is working on a “Sumo” app for the ball. Users place their GearBox balls on a table and try to knock each other’s balls off. The app also has a cool feature – stats and specs: “…there is also an onscreen component with online stats, profiles, damage, powerups and other aspects of gameplay that aren’t possible with a regular remote control toy. For instance, when the balls collide they can sustain “damage” and roll slower or I could get a powerup to reverse your controls for a few seconds.” Nice!

The prototype ball uses Bluetooth to communicate with a phone from as far away as 100 feet. Its little servo motor outputs allow it to move.

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GearBox is hoping that third-party developers can think up of more apps or games for the robot ball, like golf or curling games, or even something that would make it fun for your pets to play with. Or an app that would make the ball hit people’s faces at random. Seriously though I think it’s an awesome toy; I hope that they can make the ball bounce and jump. Now that would really be the a reinvention of the ball. Remote basketball anyone?

[via GearBox Blog via designboom]

The competition was started in 1997, and has a goal of creating a bunch of robots that will ultimately defeat a bunch of humans playing soccer, likely sometime in 2050 – after Skynet has won. Lofty goal, but for now, it’s just a fun competition to check out.

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This robot in the video above was developed by Professor Asada’s lab at Osaka University and the Osaka Institute of Technology. Its body has 22 joints and uses a servo motor with 327kg/cm of torque. Despite all of that, a lowly snail could probably still block it from kicking a goal.

[via Crunchgear]

The idea is that you place your dirty clothes in the Swirl, which can be push or pulled via its detachable handle or even better, kicked along to where you get water. Once you’ve added water and detergent to the Swirl, you can now go home, knowing that your clothes are being washed as you roll or kick the ball home.

Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it? Of course the efficacy and efficiency of the Swirl as a tool for washing clothes is debatable; the swirling patterns on the ball are supposed to help with that.

I think the Swirl – or something like it – could work as an actual product, but they should remove the toy aspect in the final product. Can you imagine how hard it would be for a kid to kick or roll around a durable plastic or steel ball that’s filled with clothes and water?

[via designboom via Design Launches]

The gun has a magazine that can fire up to 14 shots. It takes a few seconds to load the ammo – i.e. a ping pong ball – and prepare the gun, but there’s no doubt that it’s lethal.

Kissinger also injected water into ping pong balls, creating some plywood-destroying, extra strength ammo.

Here’s the gun in action:

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Don’t try this at home. You might have too much fun.

[via TinyEnormous via OhGizmo]

While the Tornader robot from Elekit can drive slowly around the floor like most remote-controlled vehicles, the real fun starts when you set the Tornader into one of its insane spin modes.

Once the ‘bot builds up sufficient speed, it’ll fly around in a wild orbit that’s reminiscent of an out-of-control breakdancer who drank a few too many Red Bulls before hitting the dance mat. Check out this video clip of the Tornader in action and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

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The 5-inch diameter robot kit takes about an hour to put together, but from the looks of the video, is well worth the effort. Each Tornader ships with a multi-channel infrared remote, which lets you operate up to four of them in the same room at the same time for complete robotic chaos. And each robot has a customizeable space on the side where you can place one of a variety of colorful printed patterns that’ll have your head spinning when the Tornader hits maximum speed.

While the Tornader is officially only available in Japan, the guys at Japan Trend Shop have started to sell them worldwide for $121 (USD). Of course, if you happen to live in Japan, you can get yourself a much better deal, since the Tornader retails there for just ¥3990 (appx. $44 USD).

While I like to think this Katamari wedding cake is filled with tiny buildings, cruise ships, cows and wildly gesticulating little people, it’s actually just lemon cake with strawberry filling. Oh well, it still sounds delicious to me. Besides, those airplanes have a tendency to get stuck in my teeth anyhow.

This amazing Katamari Damacy wedding cake was created by the appropriately named Mike’s Amazing Cakes of Redmond, Washington for the recent wedding of Flickr contributor offwithyourtv.

I wonder what happens if you try and cut into the chewy center of a Katamari? Does the universe explode? Or is it like a piñata, and do all of the items trapped inside come pouring out all of the place?

And if it wasn’t obvious enough that these guys are serious videogame fanatics, they finished off their wedding ceremony with a round of Guitar Hero.

[via Team Teabag]

All of the requisite electronics are crammed into a sphere that’s just a hair smaller than a ping pong ball.

The Camball can record 320×240 or 640×480 resolution video using MPEG-4 encoding. Since it stores everything on a tiny SD memory card, you can save up to 8GB of video with the appropriate card.

Alas and alack, this nifty little gadget is only available in Korea at this time, and there aren’t any plans to offer them stateside at this point. For the time being, you’ll just have to admire them from afar over at Korea’s Funshop.

Prices for the Camball range from 189,000 to 229,000 Korean Won (appx. $185 to $225 USD), depending on if you want the optional MP3 player capability.

ZumReed’s Sound Ball speaker hangs on your key chain or a book bag, and plugs into the audio jack on your iPod or other media player when your ready to play your tunes.

The little plastic ball comes in pink, lime green and purple, and has a built-in rechargeable battery (charges via USB). Personally, I’d paint mine white and draw in a bloodshot eyeball on the speaker grill.

No word on availability outside of Japan, but if you want to deal with an overseas transaction, head on over to Dreams6 and plunk down your ¥2,480 (appx. $24 USD).

Instead of knocking over some ordinary pins with this bowling game, you knock over a bunch of little plastic lawn gnomes. The set comes with 6 colorful plastic garden gnomes (10-inches tall each) and a couple of bright plastic bowling balls (one blue, one red) to knock ‘em down with.

While you could sneak around your block stealing your neighbors’ lawn ornaments and bowling them down with a regular bowling ball, this set lets you gnome bowl without breaking any laws. You can grab the set over on I Want One of Those for about $50.

Philips recently filed a patent application for a video game system which uses a monitor that you can actually toss. The patent describes a durable, monitor which which can show images as it’s thrown around the room. A stationary sensor tracks the position of the ball as it moves, while player positions are tracked using ultrasound. The display can then display images that respond to its movements and position within the space. The patent, entitled simply “Gaming System with Movable Display,” begins:

An electronic gaming system comprising: a robust, movable display (101); a game controller(103), arranged to generate a game scenario, comprising generation of pictures to be displayed on the robust movable display (101); and – a trajectory mapping unit (105), arranged to map a virtual trajectory in space- time of a virtual world in the game scenario, with at least two of the pictures with unequal picture content corresponding to different locations of the virtual space-time trajectory, to a real trajectory of the robust movable display (101) in real space, so that at an appropriate moment the two of the pictures are displayed on the robust movable display (101)…

At this point, plans for an actual implementation are sketchy, but one could envision games in which the images on the moving screen could react to the players in the room. Imagine hitting the ball hard, and the display showing an image of a screaming face, or one mocking your opponent when it flies past an imaginary goal line.

The concept is still a little strange, and it seems to me that most of what’s described could be achieved with a combination of accelerometers and infrared sensors (like Nintendo’s Wii-mote). Still, I’m always intrigued by new and different ways to interact with games.

Can you guys think of some other good game ideas for a system like this one?

[via New Scientist Invention Blog]