technabob » carpet

decorate your house with own your body parts

technabob — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:05:46 +0000

Paris design studio 5.5 Designers recently unveiled their series of household items based on your own unique body parts. My personal favorite among these oddities are the eyeball lamps, which are modeled after your very own peepers.

Other objects in the studio’s “Cloning” collection include vases, mirrors and other home accessories, all derived from your own personal body attributes. The series even goes as far as to produce wallpaper based on scans of your own skin, and carpets based on your body hair. Yuck. And what could be more lovely than a pillow based on the shape of your own beer belly?

How about a clothing valet that’s actually structured from the dimensions of your skeleton? It’s perfect for keeping your clothes ready and wrinkle-free for the next day at the office.

Why not have a mirror made from your own personal silhouette? It’s not like anyone else will ever need to look at themselves, right?

I suppose if you’re particularly self-absorbed, you might want to furnish your pad with this stuff. For the rest of us, just chock this up to the annals of the Hall of Bizarre Interior Design.

[via Generate Pipeline]

giant keyboard requires massive fingers (or toes)

technabob — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:28:18 +0000

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 one end of the keyboard to the other.

Built by electronics hacker Maurin Donneaud, the huge keyboard rug rolls out onto the floor, and lets your type with your socks on. In order to make the larger-than-life keys work, Maurin had to punch hundreds of individual holes under each letter to ensure that the conductive switches beneath the fabric would trigger when walked on.

The whole thing kind of reminds me of the giant piano keyboard that Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia stomped all over in Big.

[Flickr via Ladyada via Hack a Day]

mario floor coverings for fun under foot

technabob — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:35:52 +0000

Tired of the same old bare floors? Why not cover them up with a little Mario magic? These plush mats lay down on your floor and feature icons from the classic Super Mario Brothers series.

Each squishy floor tile measures 40cm x 40cm (15.74 x 15.74″), and if you’re willing to spend some serious dough, you can cover your entire floor with ‘em. At $23 a piece, they’re more expensive than some schmancy Persian rugs, but for dedicated Mario fanboys and fangirls, money should be no object. After all, you should have plenty of extra gold coins lying around?

They’re made in Mario, Shroom, Goomba, Question Mark Block and Brick patterns, but the bricks are currently sold out, so my dreams of recreating the entire Mushroom Kingdom in my living room have been dashed for now. Made by Banpresto, they’re available from NCSX.

[via Level Select]

panasonic’s electric carpet keeps your tootsies warm

technabob — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:36:14 +0000

We’ve all heard of electric blankets, right? Japanese electronics giant Panasonic decided to take the basic concept and embed it into a carpet. That way, when you step on the rug, your feet stay nice and toasty. As a resident of a chilly Northern climate, living with hardwood floors, this really does seem like a bright idea.

Panasonic’s new heated rugs have a special radiant mat that sits beneath the surface of the carpet to keep things nice and warm. Your bare feet should have nothing to complain about with these rugs cranking out temperatures all the way up to about 114°F/46°C. But if that’s too hot for you, no worries – they are adjustable. In addition to a variety of fabric styles, they plan on offering wooden surfaces as well.

And you don’t need to worry about Rover taking a whiz on one of these and electrocuting himself. The heating elements are waterproof, and the rugs are designed for stain and germ resistance.