First, because I don’t really understand what could be going on in the minds of the people who came up with this. And second, because I couldn’t imagine who would want to put their iPhone’s in this little bugger.

There’s literally a giant beetle stuck on this case. But don’t fret, the Dokkiri (a Japanese beetle) isn’t real, thank goodness. It just looks pretty darn real.

However, I still wouldn’t want to carry around my phone in a case that’s got a big, plastic bug protruding on the back end. Nuh-uh.

If, for some reason, you’re interested and you’d like to own one of these cases yourself, then you can head on over to Strapya to order one for yourself.

Although now that I think about it, them nature-loving types would probably get a good kick out of dressing up their iPhones in these cases.

[via Crunch Gear]

Developed by a team of DARPA-funded engineers – led by Michael Maharbiz – at the University of Skynet California at Berkeley, the beetle Borg is assimilated at its pupal stage; as the beetle matures, the “neural electrodes” implanted into its nervous and muscular systems become one with its body. Awesome. I meant poor beetle. tsk tsk tsk.

A microcontroller and microbattery are then mounted on the adult beetle, allowing that disembodied hand controlling that laptop in the image below to control the movement of the beetle, as in “initiation, cessation, elevation and left/right turns of the beetle flight.” Note to self: Possible weakness: beetle cannot be told to go backwards. Must tweet this to the Resistance.

Insects are already capable of awesome things despite their size. For example, the beetle is strong enough to carry a “small payload”, such as a camera or a tiny tiny nuke, perhaps strong enough to cause an outbreak of zits at Ground Zero. Okay that last one was my idea. Still scary though.

The UC team are planning on working on more cyborg insects, such as cyborg butterflies for long-distance missions, cyborg dragonflies for high-speed missions, cyborg moths with a 10-inch wingspan for carrying cargo, and cyborg grasshoppas for awesome Kung-Fu lessons. I made that last one up but you never know. You never know.

[Discover Magazine via Neatorama]

The beetle’s legs can’t support its body so it has wheels, and even then it’s pretty slow. And I don’t think it has weapons of any sort, but come on, this is the work of one man. One. What if there were two of them? Three? A whole nation?

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Adidas should get this guy for their Impossible is Nothing ads.

[via Engadget]