These cheery Xbox 360 hard drive shells replace your drive’s stock drab gray shell.

Each kit also includes a bright set of LEDs beneath its surface, which illuminate with a touch of your fingertip. Keep in mind that it looks like all the LEDs are red, so that might look a little odd depending on the color you choose. I think white or color-coordinated LEDs would have been a much better move.

They’re available in translucent blue, green, yellow, pink , clear and smoky black, and sell for just $18.91 (USD) each over at DealExtreme.

With all of that throwing and flailing your arms around, it’s certain that at some point in time your Wii-mote will break. That’s why Nyko is offering their Wand+, a Wii-mote replacement which sells for about $40 (USD). The Wand + features a rubberized trigger, more ergonomic D-pad, and larger 1/2 buttons than a stock Wii-mote – and the button are square instead of round. It comes in white, black, blue, purple and pink if color is important to you.

The Type Pad is an attachment, which will be useful for those of you who browse their web or write lots of text messages via their Wiis. It’s a QWERTY keypad which works well, but looks funky.

It works with the Wii-mote or the Wand+. An interesting side note: it doesn’t need any extra batteries, and will feed off your Wii-mote’s juice.

The Charge Base Quad will let you charge four controllers at the same time, either Wand+ or Wii-motes. Direct contact isn’t needed to start charging, so you won’t have to remove your Wii-mote out of its gel casing. It comes with an extra USB port to charge whatever you want. It will sell for $50.

Finally, there’s the  Perfect Shot light gun for your Wii. Not much to say about that, except that it’s great for killing things. It’s $15 bucks.

[via CrunchGear]

The curvaceous lamp is loaded up with bright RGB LEDs that can change to any of 16 million unique colors and brightness levels through the use of a unique touch-panel interface. It actually works sort of like the color palette control you might find in photo-editing and painting software. Check out how it works in the video below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

In addition to fixed-colors, you can set the Jellyfish to a color flow mode with a variable fade speed between the colors of your choice. And you can switch off the front side illumination, leaving only the Jellyfish’s clear “tentacle” structure which provides a cool backlighting.

When powered off, the Jellyfish maintains a stealthy look, with a sleek black top and white bottom.

While I haven’t found any U.S. retailers for the Yantouch yet, the have numerous Taiwanese and Japanese retailers as well as an French retailer listed up on their website. Pricing in Japan is set at ¥14,800 (appx. $160 USD).

[Yantouch Jellyfish via Impress Watch (translated)]

Thinking of how hard and complex something must have been to create – whether it’s a song, a bridge, or in this case a portrait – makes me appreciate it more, and with Rubik’s Cube portraits the arduousness of the process is just so apparent that upon looking at these pieces for the first time I was simultaneously thinking of how nice they look and of how frickin’ maddening they must have been to create.

If you’d like to commission Cube Works, contact Josh Chalom via e-mail. They’re willing to make portraits based on images submitted by clients, so if you want to immortalize yourself in a geeky way, now’s your chance. Check out their website for more portraits.

[via freshome and Vidafine]

The DSi Studio Kit provides you with a variety of shooting options including a removable flash, and wide angle, macro/close-up and telephoto lens attachments. There’s also a set of 6 color filters you can use to create visual effects. Thrustmaster also includes a (shiny metallic) protective cover that holds the lenses and filter attachments in place.

While the packaging and styling appear to be targeted towards the Barbie and American Girl Place set, there’s no reason that we can’t all enjoy it. Although I might have to replace the shiny metallic carrying bag with something a bit more macho.

The DSi Studio Kit should be available any day now, and retails for $19.99 (USD).

These Rubik’s pixel portraits by Irish artist John Quigley are truly mind-boggling. Not only did he have to map out the precise pixel positions for each cube in these creations, he had to rotate the sides of each cube into exactly the correct color scheme to make it all work. To put it all in perspective, the Space Invaders scene above required a whopping 1,330 cubes.

And while Sonic only took 784 cubes to get his spiky blue hairdo, he’s still cool in my book. Not all of John’s creations require hundreds or even thousands of cubes either. Check out this Pac-Man scene, created from just 102 cubes – it still gets the point across just fine.

And Mario is no less fun, even though he only consumed 24 Rubik’s Cubes.

For obvious reasons, I’m drawn to his retro video game pixel creations, but I couldn’t leave you guys without showing you John’s unbelievable 2,622 cube portrait of Barack Obama.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Be sure to check out all of John’s amazing Rubik’s Cube creations over at the Neo-literal Cubist’s flickr page. He can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in 44 seconds.

For his work titled 905, artist maybites suspended 67 strings of ping pong balls in a cylindrical formation, with each ball acting as a sort of pixel for projecting digital images. As an individual enters the cylinder of balls, a webcam tracks the person’s movements which in turn impact the images displayed on the ping pong balls.

By setting up a special mirror in the ceiling, the projector beams are reflected onto the surfaces of the white balls, creating an ethereal glow that almost looks like the light is emanating from the balls themselves.

Here’s a short video clip showing off the ping pong ball light curtain in action:

From the looks of it, maybites created the installation in late 2007, but there’s no information on when or where you can see 905 in person. For now, I guess you’ll just have to settle for the pictures and video above. Or you could always try and make your own ping pong projection screen.

Thanks to the guys over at ColorWare, you can now get your new PS3 Slim dipped in a variety of delightful paint colors. You can mix-and-match a variety of colors for the lid, base, logo and your controllers, including glossy primaries, pastels, and even metallics. And as is always the case with ColorWare, their colors are coated with a double layer of scratch-resistant coating to keep the paint good as new.

Prices start at $149 if you send in your PS3 Slim to ColorWare, or $449 if you want them to just sell you a brand new console, customized to your liking. (There’s a small upcharge for the pearlescent colors, FYI). They’ll even paint one of your Dual Shock controllers as part of the deal, but you’re looking at $30 bucks each for additional controller paint job.

Head on over to ColorWare now to custom configure yours. Be sure to hit that “Brainstorm” button to see what sort of crazy color schemes the machine randomly selects for you. There’s nothing quite like a chocolate brown and lime green gaming console.

[via Chip Chick]

The Color Picker pen works just like the eyedropper tool in Photoshop. Use the rear end of the pen to scan the color of the objects around you, and then pen imitates the color by mixing red, green and blue ink, thus negating the need for an arsenal of crayons.

Or will it? A bunch of commenters at designboom have pointed out that the CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black; ‘K’ is used for black because blue already took ‘B’) color system is better suited for print compared to RGB, which is more useful for digital media. Back to the drawing board I guess.

Another designboom commenter, joolz, linked to a similar concept has already been developed by a bunch of MIT students back in 2004. It’s called the I/O Brush, and like the Color Picker pen it scans surrounding objects for color, but it can also scan for texture and even movement. However, the comically large brush is more complicated because it requires a digital canvas i.e. a touch screen, meaning it doesn’t produce real print.

[via Neatorama]

And yes, that includes any other colors. The exact quote? There are “no plans to have other colors of Wii in the U.S.” I think we just got owned.

Or did we? Who among you might have ponied up the cash to get a bright and shiny new non-white Wii? Who’s the real loser here? Nintendo, that’s who. So much for your fabled business acumen! Take that! And take my bitter, bitter tears, too.

Damn, that black Wii looks good. Sigh. It’s out in Japan August 1.

[GameDaily via CrunchGear]

You can buy it at Beyond the Valley for $36 (USD). Rain not included.

[via crave]

These flat LED panels can be mounted on your wall or ceiling (although dancing on these isn’t recommended) and can change colors with the push of a button. Using the panels, you can set the color of your room to suit any mood. Especially if that mood is You should be dancin’, yeah!

Each colorful panel has an array of bright multi-color LEDs that can be switched between 16 different colors using the included wireless remote. The panels crank out 180 lumens of illumination, and in addition to solid colors, can be set to flash, strobe, or cross-fade between colors. Of course, to really achieve any real effect with these, you’ll need to buy a bunch – and in the case of the illustration below, you also need really bad taste.

In addition to wall and ceiling mounting, the panels can be used on the top of a table or on a bar as long as you place glass or plexiglas over the tops to protect them. If I had a bar, I’d totally cover the surface with these – then freeze the whole thing in ice.

These color-changing LED panels are available over at Chinavasion for $52.39 (USD) each.

That’s just an Aquos LCD TV, not a picture of the LCD display in question. Sorry. But what I can share with you is that the new “Multi-Primary-Color Technology” is able to display 99% of the “real surface colors” thanks to two other color filters: cyan and yellow. Normally, more color filters also means larger power consumption, but Sharp claims that the 5-color setup compensates for that because it’s able to use the display’s backlight more efficiently.

It will take some time before the technology finds its way down to consumer products, but the 60.5-in, 1920 x 1080 full HD prototype is already on display at the ongoing Society for Information Display (SID) 2009. I bet it’s showing footage of roses cruising on a sea using brass plated boats.

[via Gadget Venue]

These USB hubs from Systown bear more than a passing resemblance to LEGO blocks.

Perfect for connecting your LEGO flash drive and LEGO MP3 player to your LEGO Mac Mini, these hubs add 3 extra ports anywhere you need ‘em. That is, of course if that anywhere happens to be in Korea, which is currently the only place I can find these for sale. Available from DCX for 15,920 KRW (appx. $12 USD).

Now Mac and Linux users can get in on the polychromatic action thanks to the new Luxeed U5 keyboard, which improves on the original Luxeed by adding multi-platform support. Now I picked up the original Luxeed over at Think Geek about a year ago, and am still enjoying my colorful keyboard every day. I’ve actually programmed a bunch of color patterns to suit my mood or the current season. Purple, green and gold for Mardi Gras, all red when I’m feeling mad, pure white when I actually want to read the keys.

The Luxeed L5 also makes changes to the LED system to reduce ghosting (this was a relatively minor issue with the original Luxeed, IMHO). They’ve also added a firmware updater utility and improved the overall responsiveness of the keys. Hopefully they’ll fix some of the issues with occasionally sticky keys too. Or maybe that’s just because of the crumbs I’ve dropped between my keys during lunchtime. But does it really matter anyway? You’re not buying one of these because it’s the most responsive keyboard out there. It’s all about the bright candy-like colors. And while I don’t have any video of the new keyboard in action yet, the original footage never gets old:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

No word on a North American release date yet, but Luxeed is taking pre-orders for the L5 in Korea for KRW 99,000  (just $77 USD).

Apparently our pals over at Computer Choppers have made it their mission in life to color anodize and metallic plate anything and everything that can be anodized or plated. And the aluminum-shelled iPod Shuffle 3G fits that bill just perfectly. As was the case with their colorful anodized Mac Mini, these colors are much more durable than paint, and electrochemically bound to the metal so they won’t flake over time.

Now you’re looking at a price of $129 (USD) for a colorful Shuffle like the ones shown above (a $50 premium over Apple’s standard 4GB model), and prices go all the way up to $199 if you want to do something crazy like get yours plated in platinum. If you’re looking for a splash of color, you can order yours over at the Computer Choppers site.

The guys over at Computer Choppers are now offering a custom Mac Mini anodizing service, letting you really give your computer a new look. The great thing about the anodizing process is that it’s highly scratch resistant and doesn’t chip off like paint can, plus your machine keeps that great metal look that paints often cover up.

Colors run the gamut, including such lovelies as blood red, a sapphire-like deep blue and emerald-esque dark green among others. Exotics like a hard black, graphics, custom logos and even a camouflage finish are also available for an up-charge. Prices for the service start at $199 USD, and go up from there. For more information, contact Computer Choppers here.

Sure, they don’t look exactly the same as the original Inky, Blinky, Pinky, Clyde and Pac-Man, but they’re close enough to pass for their video game doppelgangers from a distance. Besides, it’s probably pretty tough to bend neon to look like the jagged pixel edges of the original characters.

I spotted these 9-inch tall neon lights over on eBay. As of now, the full set is still available for sale, but seller JNN2728 is also selling individual Pac-Man and Ghost neon lights with bids starting as low as 1 red cent (of course, they’ll sell for a lot more than that by the time the auction closes).

Perfect for lighting up your drab living space, these Léon and Max chairs from French designer Philippe Boulet light up using color-changing RGB LEDs inside the seats, backs, and armrests. And best of all, they’re not tacky in the least.

And then you think, “Yes, yes… and this Mystical Fire should be in powder form, so I could just sprinkle 1 to 3 packages on any outdoor/indoor wood burning fire, and so I can use it not only for camping and for luring my brother into the fireplace but also as props for Friday night D&D’s. Also, I think they should come in 25 gram sachets. Not 26 grams. 25. Because 25 grams is the right amount to create fires like the one below.”

Finally you think, “If such a Mystical Fire powder should exist, it would be really nice if it sells for like… £1.49 (appx. $2.29 USD). Over at Boy’s Stuff. Man. it sure would be nice if there really was some Mystical Fire powder.”

Here’s where I come in, and say “You there, red flame hater! You crazy psychic! Call me if you begin thinking of the numbers that a winning lottery ticket would have.”

[via boy'sstuff via random good stuff]