While it is sort of a cool analog hack, I can’t imagine you’d get much brightness from your mobile phone’s screen. That said, the makers of the HypnosEye claim you can project an image from 17″ to 45″ diagonal from a projection distance of 0.5 to 2 meters away. And of course, you’ll want to turn the lights down – way down – to see your images.

You can check out the HypnosEye in action in the video clips below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The HypnosEye kit comes with both the projection lens unit and a portable 17″ diagonal projection surface that’s optimized for projection. If you’d like to try one, they’re available over at the Japan Trend Shop for $80 (USD).

While I’d much prefer an actual pocket projector, I suppose you might want to look at this wacky device if you’re a real cheapskate.

The images section will surely be a hit, because it’s basically a treasure trove of cool and free wallpapers for you iPhone. There are two galleries available – the NASA image of the day and the Astronomy picture of the day. Is there any difference between the image of the day and the picture of the day?

The videos and updates sections offer more content, with YouTube clips in the former and twitter feeds in the latter.

Check out the app’s official page for more info. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download it here (iTunes link). Do you think the other government agencies should come up with their own apps? I wonder what the IRS app would offer.

[via MethodShop]

The Aphone A6 phone does its best to look like an iPhone, featuring a 3.5-inch capacitive multi-touch display, and a “dual-core” CPU of some sort. The phone has a 2.0-megapixel camera, GSM EDGE (not 3G), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity too. It’s pre-loaded with 20 games, Opera Mini, Skype, and Email apps too. Of course, the strangest thing is looking at the screen filled with iPhone-esque icons, then booting into Android 1.5. Weird-o-rama.

If you have the patience to wait for a video clip from China to load into your browser (let it buffer a bit and it’s not so painful), watch the video below to see the Aphone in action. Otherwise, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

No word on where and when you’ll be able to pick up the Aphone A6, but I imagine these will start to turn up in various schlock shops around the globe soon.

[via k3bbs via Shanzai with a nod to Gizmodo]

Stash a Zoombak in you kids’ backpacks and you can tell exactly where they are at all times. Or stick on in your glovebox and find out where that valet is really going with your car. Just load up the iPhone app, choose your tracked item, human or pet, then click “Find Now”. You can even enable a continuous tracking mode, which will watch the movements of your Zoombaks at five-minute intervals.

While Zoombak modules retail for $99 to $149 (USD) each, but I managed to find many modules for as little as $38 over at Amazon, which is a steal. You can grab the iPhone app here.

(Note: If you already have a Zoombak, you will need to update your devices to the latest software to use this app. Be sure to read the notes up on the iTunes store.)

Walky’s interface is idiotproof – make your fingers walk and the robot walks, make a jumping gesture and the robot jumps, kick and the robot kicks. You can imagine how much easier it would be to teach people how to control robots using a system like this as opposed to something that uses an array of buttons, levers and knobs. Nintendo hit upon that idea too, and turned it into lots of money by creating the Wii. Hand over a gamepad to an inexperienced gamer and you’ll have to spend quite some time explaining the controls before the person gets the hang of it, but give that same person a Wii and he won’t even need your help because the input system is much more natural. But is gesture-based input really the simplest and most practical input system?

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I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna have to side with buttons, levers and knobs for now. If you watched the video you saw how freakin’ cumbersome the system was; there was simply too much effort needed for a simple command. Maybe gesture-based systems are okay for entertainment or educational purposes – Walky is indeed a fun way of introducing robotics to kids – but if I had to use a natural input system I’d rather it be a voice-operated one.

[via Plastic Pals]

The basic concept of Touch Pets Dogs is simple. Pick out your favorite breed of dog, raise it from a puppy, teach it tricks, choose a doggie career, and dress it in silly costumes. You can share your dog’s progress through feeds to Facebook, and even take care of your friends’ virtual pups when they’re away. There’s also a mode where you can view everyone’s dogs across a global dog sharing network.

The game comes with seven breeds including Jack Russell Terrier, Dachshund, Westie, Portuguese Water Dog, Labrador, German Shepherd, and the elusive Robot Dog. I’m personally offended that there is no Bernese Mountain Dog or Greater Swiss Mountain Dog in the mix. I guess they’re just too big to fit into that iPhone. Knowing ngmoco:) they might offer more breeds as downloadable content in future.

Here’s a little footage of Touch Pets Dogs in action:

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Touch Pets Dogs is available now over at the iTunes App Store for the low, low price of… free. But there’s a catch – you’ll need to buy bowls of virtual dog food for anywhere from 99 cents for 10 bowls of digi-kibble, all the way up to $29.99 for 400 bowls of food. So just like real life, you’ll need to pay up or your canine pal will starve. On the free version you earn a very small amount of food the longer you play, but it’s definitely not enough to really keep Fido fat and happy.

At least your iPhone won’t poop on the carpet.

The system uses a custom wireless computer that receives digital information via a Wi-Fi connection and translates your maneuvers into servo control signals for R/C cars. There’s also a USB jack for a compact webcam. Joker Racer lets you use a web browser to drive cars on a closed course, and watch POV video from tiny cameras on-board each car.

There’s even an iPhone app coming in 2010 that lets you control cars using the iPhone’s motion sensors. In addition to being able to drive their remote-hosted cars, in future you’ll be able to buy your own Joker Racer R/C Server hardware for your own racecars.

Here’s a couple of videos showing off Joker Racer in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Joker Racer’s website recently wrapped up its initial beta and is moving on to a full release in early November. For now, you’ll just have to sit back and enjoy some of the site’s pre-recorded clips and maybe remotely control the course webcam.

[via TechCrunch]

Tell me that isn’t the face of evil–mischievous, adorable evil. Coolbeans717 has a massive Etsy shopfront just packed with all sorts of geek-inspired felted gadget cases. If you prefer, say, The Legend of Zelda, or maybe Spam (in a can, not in your e-mail), you can veer away from the path of Pac-Man, though it is inadvisable. There’s not much that compares to the ghost cases.

The pouches aren’t exactly cheap, as these things go–most of ‘em are priced at $20–but they look great, and it’s always wonderful to buy handmade.

Designed by Minneapolis textile artist Angie Davis of Byrd & Belle, these unique iPhone cases protect your precious digital cargo inside a thick and cushy blanket of Merino wool felt and a soft Egyptian cotton interior lining. The grey and orange fabric is set off nicely by a simple leather strap, which not only serves to secure your iPhone, but also provides a convenient cord wrap for your headphones. No more wire tangles – hoorah!

Best of all, the Byrd & Belle iPhone case is reasonably priced. Each handmade case sells for just $19 (USD) and can be found over at their Etsy shop. Be sure to check out their nifty felt and leather laptop sleeves while you’re over there.

Here’s Bowers on his creation: “The light sensor sends data to an Arduino, which is waiting for a spike in the data. The Arduino runs the sensor data through some averaging filters, and sets a threshold for on and off.”

The robot’s fingers are servos, and its fingertips are made of copper wire embedded in foam. Everything was stuffed “into a modified Pelican case, with a lot of hot glue (non glittery)” and voila! A rockin robot that looks like an iPhone lobotomizer. Enough talk, let’s see it rock!

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I can still hear the rhythmic squeaking.

[via Boing Boing]

Created by Amidio – the same folks who brought us the amazing noise.io iphone synth. According to the Amidio guys, Touch DJ is a serious live performance tool, and not just an audio toy like many other iPhone apps.

The app not only can mix two MP3 tracks, it lets you apply audio effects, pitch-bending, equalization and looping without ever leaving the intuitive visual interface. Each track is automatically color coded to correspond to its frequencies to make it even easier to match beats. Check out the video clips below to see (and hear) a sneak preview of Touch DJ in action.

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Once released, Touch DJ will ship with 25 dance tracks from DanceMusicHub that you can immediately create music with, and I assume that additional tracks will be available for download in the future. Amidio also plans on releasing a Touch DJ sync application that lets you send your own MP3s to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Keep in mind that the audio processing is very processor intensive so Amidio recommends using Touch DJ only on the iPhone 3GS or newer iPod Touch models with faster CPUs. There’s no word yet on when Touch DJ will hit the app store. All Amidio says on their site is “ESTIMATED AVAILABILITY DATE: ??? (ASK APPLE!)”. Hopefully, that means soon. For now, follow them over on Twitter to be notified when Touch DJ is released.

These vinyl carrying cozies are made to cloak your precious iWonderPhone beneath the facade of a good old iPod or Nintendo Game Boy. Each case is handmade out of vinyl fabric by crafter yummypocket (who also brought us the iPhone Etch-a-Sketch). The cases feature wonderful details like sewn-on red buttons in place of the real gaming buttons on the Game Boy, and hand-embroidered menu/play/pause/fwd/rew buttons on the iPod’s scroll wheel.

These and other fun iPhone cases are all available over at yummypocket’s Etsy store and sell for $18 to $28 (USD) each. All we need now is a Game Boy case that looks like an iPhone. Or maybe a Sega Nomad case that looks like an Atari Lynx.

Here’s iDriver and Spirit of Berlin in action:

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Praise Apple and the iPhone! Well, not really. Upon reading about iDriver at 8bitfix, commenter Solidsnake72 took time off from sneaking about and shared the video below. It starts small, but an insane turn of events comes about 2 minutes into the clip:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Blackberry FTW! Although RIM’s smartphone loses points for using Bluetooth, which of course has a limited range, I think we can all agree that controlling a real F1 car is infinitely more fun than controlling a station wagon, even if said station wagon has lasers onboard.

Update: as nobbi points out in the comments, the Blackberry video is (almost) certainly a viral marketing stunt. Can anyone confirm this? At least no kids on balloons  were involved. And thanks to gusto for the tip!

Every day that I use my iPhone, I discover yet another cool trick that I never knew I could do the day before. This time, it comes in the form of a little app called Snatch, which lets you turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a completely programmable remote for interacting with applications on your Mac or PC. Just install the included server software on your computer, make sure that your iPhone and computer can see each other over the same Wi-Fi network, and you’re all set.

For starters, Snatch provides you with a wireless trackpad and scrollpad interface for working with just about any program on your computer. The trackpad even supports multitouch actions like a two-finger scroll or two-finger tap. But the real power of Snatch is hidden beneath the surface in its robust remote editor, which lets you create custom graphical buttons and assign them to any key, button or mouse action on your computer. The app can store up to 8 screens of remote control buttons, and provides an easy-to-use graphical editing screen for creating new layouts.

In addition to being able to build your own interfaces, Snatch offers a library of over 20 remote templates including Adobe CS3 palettes, a Hulu remote control or a PowerPoint slideshow controller among others.

You can get your hands on Snatch over at the iTunes App Store for $3.99 (USD).

Each Notepod is a pad of 100 pages of paper with a simulated iPhone screen on the front, and a handy grid of graph paper on the back. While a Notepod pad is a bit thicker than a real iPhone, it eventually gets super thin as you use up sheets.

They’re also perfect for going completely old school and cut out all technology from your life. Heck, you can even draw yourself a couple of paper fart apps if you want.

Notepods come in sets of 3 pads for $17.95 (USD) each, and are shipped from Australia – so they may take some time to get to you, depending on where you live. You can order a set here.

(P.S.: Notepods work great when combined with Design Commissions’ metal iPhone UI template).

[via swiss miss via Make:]

Created by AssistiveWare, Proloquo2Go provides users who have difficulties speaking with a mobile text-to-speech system (known as an augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC solution) which allows individuals to quickly verbalize thoughts by pressing on icons on the iPhone’s touchscreen. The system is loaded with a vocabulary of over 7000 words and phrases, and provides an easy-to-use visual interface for finding words.

Proloquo2go features a human-sounding text-to-speech (TTS) engine which provides North American male, female, boy and girl voices. You can also download an update which allows these voices to be swapped out for British ones. There’s also a simple TTS typing interface if you want (and are able) to type words. You can even retrieve recently used phrases at any time and play them back without having to recreate them over and over again. This is a really thoughtful touch.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While many of you might think $189.99 (USD) is a lot to pay for an app, I can only imagine what a bargain that might seem like if I had difficulty speaking. Especially knowing that traditional AAC devices cost thousands of dollars and are a huge pain to lug around. It’s nice to know that our fun and disposable gadgets can occasionally serve a meaningful purpose. Kudos to AssistiveWare for making a difference.

You can find Proloquo2Go on the iTunes App Store.

Each case is crafted from solid hardwoods like walnut, cherry or bamboo, and just look just plain stunning. Not only do they avoid the environmental pitfalls of plastics, these cases are amazingly tough and can protect your delicate electronic devices as well or better than their plastic counterparts. And there’s a soft, scratch-resistant lining to keep your media player as good as new and snugly held inside the wooden shell.

They’re available now over at Vers, with the iPod touch, iPod classic and iPhone versions selling for $39.99 (USD), and the iPod nano version at $34.99.

Sure, it’s a touchscreen phone and media player. And yeah, it’s got Bluetooth and WiFi support. But it’s also got a couple of tricks up its sleeve that even Apple’s latest wonderphone doesn’t have. There’s support for dual SIMs so you can switch between two providers. And since it’s a Quad-Band GSM phone, it’s guaranteed to work worldwide. And what was the last time an iPhone ran Java apps or browsed the web with Opera? And it even supports MMS messages out of the box! There’s also a little bonus on the back of phone – from the pictures it looks like there’s a flash next to the camera lens. Oh, and did I mention it’s got two cameras? Yep, there’s a crummy 0.3 megapixel one on the front for video chat, and a 1.3 megapixel one on the back for regular photos and videos. There’s even an analog TV tuner built in – which is the last thing I need these days.

Of course, at just $159.99 (USD) for an unlocked phone, they had to skimp on a few features that you can only get if you buy the real deal. For instance, there’s no GPS, compass, or accelerometer. And I think the “32GB” on the back is just part of the phony factor. According to the specs, there’s no on-board storage, and it comes with a 2GB microSD (TransFlash) card for memory. Oh well, what do you expect you cheap bastard?

If you want to get your hands on a WPhone, head on over to Chinagrabber.

[via PMP Today via Ubergizmo]

The case is made from Eco-felt, which in turn is made from recycled materials–and it’s handmade by Etsy seller Coolbeans717, so this case is a good-feeling purchase on all fronts. Protect your iPhone, support handmade, and go recycled… all for twenty bucks.

Plus, y’know, it’s cool.

[via Wonderland]

Or, if you prefer to go super classic, the NES controller case may be more your thing:

Patola’s felting shop on Etsy has the cases up for sale for $27 and $25 (USD), respectively, and I’ve got to say that I think that’s a good price. I see a lot of handmade cases, and these look really neat and well made, with lots of attention to detail. Plus I’m a sucker for shiny red buttons. I’m a simple girl.

[via Geeky Gadgets]