They call this thing a kids toy, but any of us adult children would also enjoy having a little 1.75″ long vehicle that can drive up, down or sideways across our refrigerator doors for sure. Of course it doesn’t actually defy gravity – it simply uses small magnets to hold in place as the wind-up vehicle scurries along. Still, it’s pretty cool. And at just $4.99(USD), it’s pretty cheap too.

Head on over to ThinkGeek if you want one. Personally, if I had a fridge that actually held magnets, I’d buy a fleet of 10 of these. Or an actual anti-gravity fridge.

That said, I have developed an appreciation for manga over the years. A lot of people appreciate it a whole lot more than I do, which have led them to create related manga-inspired products like these plates by Mika Tsutai.

But my favorite of the bunch is Nami Mizuguchi’s Carne Vale, which is a micro-safe ceramic bone that can be stuck into a slab of meat to recreate that nostalgic and trademark comic look of chunks of meat on a bone.

Designer Eisuke Tachikawa, who designs by the name Nosigner, appreciates such art as well, which is why he’s endeavoring to create an entire site that’s dedicated on showcasing these manga-inspired products: Comicalu.

The site isn’t done yet though, so you might want to pay them a visit later on, or at least swing by their Facebook page and hit their “Like” button.

[via Spoon Tamago]

Rodrigo took the old computer parts and layered them into a mold, and then poured in a mixture of resin and some sort of melted aluminum. The finished product is called the N+ew Stool. I’m sure that resin is hard and not particularly comfortable to sit on, but these may still be some of the coolest stools ever.

It’s hard to tell from these pictures, but I wonder if some of the computer parts stick out from the sides of the stool, or if he managed to keep the edges smooth. The parts look awful close to the sides.

The stools are a limited-edition and it’s not clear if you can buy them or what the price would be to get your own. I would think looking at the stools if you have a bunch of old computer parts lying around, can build your own form, and can get your hands on resin you could probably make one of these yourself.

[via Inhabitat]

As he shows in his video, as soon as you stretch the rubber band on a slingshot, the band heats up, which gives the slingshot more firing power. Right away the band cools and as the heat leaves, the power declines too. The problem is if you want to have your slingshot loaded and ready to fire you end up losing power. The answer to the problem of losing that power is to apply heat.

Sprave took a heating element and encapsulated it and the rubber bands in an enclosure that traps the heat and keeps the bands nice and warm for firing. This way when he stretches the bands, he can heat them up for maximum power. The heater is powered by a rechargeable battery and appears to heat quickly. He’s also included an interior/exterior thermometer for optimizing the temperature.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Joerg heated up the rubber bands on some of his more destructive creations like the circular saw slingshot or the slingshot cannon.

Each BR Twelve O’Clock watch face uses a set of three rotating disks to gradually shift between a numbers representing a single hour. When it’s not exactly that time, the watch reveals abstract geometric patterns, again revealing the time when that hour approaches again. That’s right, each Twelve O’Clock watch tells the proper time exactly twice a day. All other times, it’s just a cryptic pattern. In fact, you need to own a set of 12 of these watches in order to tell the time properly. Huh, wha?

Given that limitation, the Twelve O’Clock clearly works better as a clock than as a wristwatch, since it’s being sold in a set with a dozen watches, each placed into its own battery-powered winder. Here’s a sped-up video showing off the Twelve O’Clock in action:

And a little more footage of the concept from this year’s earlier Baselworld show where it was first revealed:

Sure, completely impractical, but its still a cool design. Bell & Ross fully admits the Twelve O’Clock is an art piece, and not really intended to be worn as a practical timepiece. With that in mind, they’re only making a dozen of these limited-edition watch sets. And if you have to ask how much it costs, you most certainly won’t be able to afford one. That said, a set is said to cost about $88,000 (USD). See? Told you that you can’t afford it.

Developed by Sanden, in cooperation with Okaya Electronics and Intel, this concept vending machine has a 65-inch full HD vertical display on front. The transparent touchscreen display can not only show animated graphics, but provides product information and merchandising, and even acts as a clock while waiting for its next customer.

The prototype machine even offers facial recognition technology so it could display customized menus based on the individual user as they walk by.  And if it doesn’t know you, it can display products based on what demographic it THINKS you fit into based on your age or gender. How Minority Report of them.

[via DigInfo.TV]

Ladyada is showing off a new project called Adalight, which uses an Arduino board and a strip of RGB LEDs around the back of your display to create an ambient color backdrop for your computer monitor. The system automatically detects the average colors around the perimeter of your display, and immediately responds with the appropriate LED color in the proper section of the LED strip. Since it works as a high-speed screen capture utility in the background, it works with pretty much any application on your computer.

Open source software using the Processing library runs on your PC, Mac or Linux and interfaces with the Arduino over USB, and sends the correct light colors to each of the LEDs pixels. See the Adalight in action in the video below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Pretty cool, no? I suppose it could get to be a little annoying after a while, but it still might be pretty cool for 3D games and action movies. While you can build the Adalight from scratch, you can also purchase a project kit over at the MakerSHED for $49.95 (USD) to help you get started. The kit includes a strand of 25 RGB LED pixels and a 5VDC power adapter, but you will still need to purchase the Arduino and USB cable, and follow the rest of the build instructions to finish the project.

Take, for example, this automaton which looks like a human hand.

This  interactive hand sculpture has sort of a steampunk vibe to it, with its structure and mechanical parts made from brass, along with wood accents and the articulating hand itself made from resin.

It kind of reminds me of Thing from The Addams Family, but it’s just a cool mechanical hand that taps impatiently as you turn its hand-crank. Here, check it out in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Pretty cool (and a little creepy), no? This very special automaton sculpture was handmade by UK artist automatonman, and is being sold in a limited edition of just 20 over on Etsy. While it does sell for a rather pricy $750 (USD), you’ll be in great company, as one of these already sold to Pan’s Labyrinth/Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro.

Thanks to the guys at Japan’s always entertaining Thanko, you can now keep your rear end chilled even if you are used to sitting in the proverbial hot seat.

With this water-cooled cushion under your derriere, you’ll be chilling your assets from a scorching 140°F, down to a more pleasant 82°F in less than 5 seconds flat. It’s not clear how much cooler it’ll make things if it’s not that hot out, but I can only imagine that sitting on a chilled cushion of water on any hot day would help cool you down.

The gadget comes with a water pump and cooler which runs on your car’s 12 VDC cigarette lighter, and it looks like it cools not just your butt but your back too. The only problem I can see with this thing is that if you forget it’s there, you might think you wet yourself (and hopefully it’s watertight so you don’t actually wet yourself.) You can bet your bottom (dollar) that you can get the Thanko Seat Cushion over at GeekStuff4U for about $245 (USD).

The In’tendo Minion custom Munny was made by Joseph Drust, and it has an NES console in the base, as a small LCD monitor in place of a helmet. All he has to do to get his game on is to snap a classic 8-bit cartridge in the back of the Minion, and he’s off to the races.

I can’t tell you how much I love this custom, and really hope that Joseph decides to do a whole retro console series at some point. Imagine an army of Atari, SEGA, Sony and Nintendo custom Munnies, each playing classic console games in its head. Or maybe a MAME Munny that plays all the classic arcade games. Sweet.

[via albotas]

The Batcave was built out of somewhere between 8 to 9000 individual LEGOs and stands 68 bricks high. I’m not sure how many feet that translates to, but it sure looks substantial to me. Inside the cave there are all sorts of cool details, including various Batgadgets, the Batcomputer hanging bats, the Batmobile, and of course The Dark Knight himself. I even thought Robin made an appearance, but I think that’s just his empty costume hanging there.

The whole thing even has some awesome neon backlighting to bring it to life. It took Orion about a week to build the whole thing, which I think is really impressive. I think it would take me a year to do the same, and it wouldn’t look nearly as cool.

You can check out more pics of the LEGO Batcave over on Flickr.

[via Lost at E Minor]

Created by Che-Wei Wang and Taylor Levy of CW&T, the Thermochromic Clock was made by taking segments of nichrome wire, covered with black heat-sensitive paint. When power is applied to the wires, they heat up slightly, making the wire transparent so you can see the time against the dark background. As each segment cools back off, it fades into blackness once again. The clock can also be reset to its default state by wiping it down with a cool cloth, as seen at the beginning of the video clip below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The 4-digit, 7-segment timer circuit is controlled by an Arduino, but they don’t reveal anything else about how you might be able to create one of these for yourself. It does make me think that you could make a really cool clock using some sort of heater wire filament placed under glass, and letting it glow to tell time.

[via Creative Applications]

I suspect it involves a super sharp knife. The artist picks the leaf for the project and washes, dries, molds, and then cuts the leaf away to reveal the art within. Just look at how detailed the works are with the little branches of the trees. I would not have the steady hands needed to do this sort of thing.

The artist’s works are based on paper cutting techniques that are used in Japan, China, and other countries.

Check out the artist’s site to see more of his works. If you see one that really grabs your eye, you can purchase the work. Duran doesn’t price anything and prefers to let the buyer set the price.

[via Like Cool]

This particular clock uses a VFD (vacuum flourescent display) like you might find on an older alarm clock or calculator, but instead of displaying boring old digits, this one tells time with an analog-style 34mm (1.33″) round clock face. This complete clock is created by the guys at Kosbo.com, and comes in a clear acrylic case that lets you see the entire circuit, both front and back.

It’s also got dual alarms built-in, and 8 adjustable brightness levels so it should work nicely as a bedside clock. They’ve even gone the extra mile to include an integrated backup battery, in case the power goes out. The clock is based on this circuit board, which can also be procured separately in case you want to make your own round-face VFD clock.

One example they posted was this cool mod somebody did, replacing the analog clock in their Mini Cooper:

Not too shabby, eh? I could see this looking good in many cars if you have the guts to rip apart your vehicle and install one. If you’re like me, you’re more likely to just pick up the fully assembled clock, which you can find over on eBay for £64.95 (~$104 USD). Keep in mind that they don’t include the 12VDC AC adapter that you’ll need to power it, but those are cheap and easy to find.

By interfacing their already cool flying machines with a Microsoft Kinect rig, they’re able to pilot the quadrotor with simple arm gestures. The pilot can point in the direction they want the quadrotor to fly with their right arm. Left-arm movement causes the flying craft to do a flip. And if you stop pointing, it just hovers wherever you last instructed it to go. Here, see what I mean:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I’ve seen a similar AR:Drone/Kinect hack before, but the control mechanics here seem much more intuitive. Hopefully someone will get this same thing worked out with the AR:Drone so we could try the same thing at home.

In my experience, if it’s raining, it’s usually not that hot, even in tropical climates. While I can see the logic behind having a small fan in your umbrella, what happens when there are gusts of wind? Won’t the fans be broken immediately?

On top of that, umbrellas are very easy to lose. I don’t lose them easily, but my wife goes through a few every few months. This also makes your umbrella slightly more attractive to umbrella thieves. Either way, the fan is a smart idea if it gets really hot and steamy where you live. Thanko’s Fanbrella sells for ¥3,980 ($49 USD).

[via Ubergizmo]

Like the earlier model, these were created by sneaker artist Nashmoney, but this time in collabo with hip-hop artist MF Doom, the Sneaker Speakers Doomsday Edition not only have actual sneakers as part of them, they’re gigantic. I’m talking Yao Ming size feet. PUMA ponied up the world’s largest pair of Suedes in order to form the foundation for these crazy things. These massive speaker shoes are loaded with LED disco lights, and the base station offers lighting controls, inputs, and an LCD screen that claims to have “barometric pressure readouts,” which I don’t quite get. But heck, we’re talking about shoes with speakers in them, so none of it makes all that much sense.

You can see a bit more of the speakers in action, along with a brief interview with Nash Money in the video clip below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Check out the full story of the giant Sneaker Speakers over at Sneaker Freaker (just try and say that 10 times fast), and see how they were built here.

I wonder if the chair is as easy on your butt as it is on the eyes. When all of the chairs are nested together, they form one wooden seat you can actually sit on. When you view it from the front, it’s an eye bending sight to see.

The designer is Vivian Chiu and she made the chair for a school project. It uses pegs and groves ranging from half an inch to an eighth of an inch wide to nest the seats. When all the chairs are removed there are ten total. I want one of these.

[via Colossal Art + Design]

First off, there is no Pez inside, which is a deal breaker in its own right. To add insult to injury, there is apparently no gold either. The place was adorned with stucco heads, and those things had already been stolen by looters. The city was discovered in a patch of Guatemalan rain forest long ago and it has only now been explored.

Locals have known about the city for a long time apparently and looters have dug tunnels to look for riches underneath. The city was buried under dense jungle and the researchers are using ground-penetrating radar to try to see what is under the ground. The city was named Head of Stone after the giant masks found there. It’s a pretty cool discovery even if there is no gold or Pez dispensers.

[via National Geographic]

What Jonathan invented is a concept for a kid-friendly helmet that looks like something a LEGO minifig would wear in space. Inside the padded helmet are speakers so the wearer can hear the comics be read with and follow along with the story. The helmet even has controls on the side for volume and skipping pages.

On the back of the helmet is a USB port for plugging in a flash drive with the comic audio file on it. The idea is that the print comic would come in the mail, an included code would allow the user to download the audio, and then plugging the flash drive with the audio in would start the storytelling.

[via Jonathan Robson]