dot on technabob...

These fun drink coasters may just look like an abstract dot pattern on the surface, but thanks to some cleverly placed perforations, you can actually make your own custom pixel creations out of them.

Each coaster is made up of 110 individual 1cm square “pixels” which are perfed in a way that lets you selectively remove blocks from each square…

I’ve written about so many modern digital watches that sacrifice ease of use for cool design (I’m talking to you, TokyoFlash). So it’s a breath of fresh air to see a modern digital that manages to balance looks with ease-of-use.
The Fusion DT1 is actually pretty easy to figure out after a quick read of the instruction sheet…

These retro/mod LED clocks use an array of individual LEDs to form each digit on their display.

Available from Japan’s ZakkaShop, the Metro LED DOT clock series comes in red, green or amber varieties. Available in either horizontal desktop or vertical wall mount versions, the clocks retail for ¥7,800 (appx. $64 USD) each.

This electronic toy out of Japan lets you create your own pixel art animations. The Dot Creator from U-Mate has a small 21 x 21 pixel LCD grid on which you can draw your own animated art and then record frame by frame animations.

It can store 3 animations of up to 19 frames each in its static memory. The Dot Creator can be found online for

Cool LED clocks keep popping up on the radar lately, and this week I came across these nifty round LED alarm clocks out of Japan…