germany on technabob...

Man, these are smartphones indeed. The wise – and probably bored – folks at the University of Berlin made a one-of-a-kind iPhone app which they called iDriver, which allows them to control a Honda Civic via Wi-Fi. But it’s not like our German friends just coded the app and then began playing real-life Hot Wheels;…

File this under “weirdest use for a piano. ever.”. This amazing bit of programming and mechanical engineering has created what is probably the first and only classical piano that can speak in English.

Here’s a cool little PC program for creating ambient electronic music. And it sure looks purty while it’s doing it.

The setting for Andreas Illiger’s Microsia is inside of a virtual “plant cell” of a leaf. As you move your cursor around, you touch “cellular particles” which will be used as triggers for the ambient…

This clever video by artist Sergej Hein offers a whimsical look at the world of old socialist housing, as seen through the eyes of Tetris.

What was the last thing you bought at a vending machine? A can of soda? A magazine? A bike? A gold nugget? Live bait? Woman’s Day’s Brynn Mannino made a list of some of the weirdest vending machines we have today. The weird thing about the list is that Japan’s entry is so lame as…

You know those annoying (but necessary) anti-robo-spam CAPTCHA boxes you have to deal with when filling out forms on the web? Here’s a clever idea for some eye-catching business cards based on CAPTCHA technology.

Berlin-based artist Aram Bartholl created these cards by uploading the individual images to MOO Cards, who specializes in making tiny business…

Martin Buss and his team at the Technical University of Munich created a robot that relies on help from humans to get to its destination. The robot is called Autonomous City Explorer or ACE, and while it looks really ugly, it’s one of the first robots that’s proven successful in a real world setting, as…

Mehli Bilgil, a student at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz, Germany, created an animated documentary about the history of the Internet.

Unlike other documentaries, Mehli Bilgil’s documentary contains no interviews, real world footage or image, not even a single shot of a PC or server. The clean and simple animation was made possible…

Batteries schmatteries. Electricity shmelectricity. Who needs modern energy sources when you can have scalding hot steam to power your gadgets? This unique robot from Germany gets its juice from good old H2O.

Strenco’s ST-2 Steambot lumbers along thanks to a tiny copper Wilesco steam engine that’s been implanted in his chest cavity.

Now don’t expect…

I had my fair share of toy weapons as a kid: laser rifles that spark and pop when you pull the trigger, swords of all shapes and sizes, a slingshot. Apparently kids these days have much higher standards. Mark – 1 Tanks recently unleashed a 1/4 scale of the Germans’ WW II beast, the King…

Do you think that there are a lot of people who are just dying to sit inside a speaker? The makers of the Sonic Chair think so. It has 2-way speakers, a subwoofer, and the chair itself is a “sound membrane”. To entice even more people to part with their money, what with the wonderful state…

It’s amazing what a difference a couple of decades makes. Back in the 1970s, fiber optic lamps were some of the ugliest, tackiest things you could possibly bring into your home. And as this photo proves, fiber optics can truly be used for evil. Thankfully, tastes have changed, and the dynamic illumination medium has found…