Made by Gavio, the avian-inspired Wrenz is a compact speaker that can plug into your smartphone. Each Wrenz speaker is wrapped in a mirrored finish, and conceals its audio and USB charging connections behind its tail feathers.

While it’s not going to blow any eardrums with its 2 watts of power, 32mm speaker driver, and 180Hz to 20KHz frequency response, it’ll definitely sing a sweet song at higher frequencies. The speaker is powered by a built-in Lithium-Ion battery which should give you about 9 hours on a charge.

The Wrenz sells for $89.90 Singapore Dollars (~$71 USD) over at Gavio, so it’s not exactly cheep (typo intended), but I still love the way it looks.

[via iPhone Savior]

Instructables contributor Natalina encrusted this helmet with hundreds of tiny mirror squares – just like the ones in an actual mirror ball. Though these ones came with fabric backing to make it a little easier. The mirror tiles perfectly reflect light like the real deal, so she can actually keep it on when she gets off her bike to hit the dance floor.

Natalia says that since she went with the real glass tiles for optimum reflection, but that she wouldn’t recommend using it for actual motorcycle riding though. You could always go with safer acrylic mirrors, but they won’t shine as much. If you’d like to know how to make your own Disco Ball helmet, boogie (oogie oogie) on over to Instructables now.

That’s why she’s come up with the Affirmations Mirror, a “talking programmable compact mirror that enables you to provide yourself with the messages you need to remember your dreams, see your own beauty and empower yourself each and every day.”

Basically, you just plug in the headset to power the mirror up. The mirror will come with pre-programmed messages, but its best feature is that you can actually record your own affirmations yourself.

The project is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where you can make a minimum pledge of $120(USD) to get your very own Affirmations Mirror.

We’ve already seen what augmented reality mirrors can do to our faces, and while they can be used to correct or modify certain features, they can’t change our faces completely.

However, artist Karolina Sobecka wants to change that, and change it she has. Sobecka has come up with a new 3D visualization tool that replaces your face with a three dimensional image of an animal. What the mirror does is show a reflection of the person in front of it complete with real-time expressions and movements, albeit with an animal for a face.

She calls her project “All the Universe is Full of the Lives of Perfect Creatures,” which is pretty appropriate, if you think about it. Sobecka programmed her mirror by using FaceTracker, Unity3d, openFrameworks, Blender3d, and ofxFaceTracker.

[via Dvice]

The Love Box was created by the Honest & Smile agency in Barcelona, Spain and it was conceived for a documentary film as a simple way of capturing both sides of a conversation in a single shot, using an iPhone. It’s a wooden box which pops open to reveal a tray inside. It’s got a slot for an iPhone, and a carefully positioned mirror which you line up about 1/2 way in front of the camera’s lens. It requires a little fiddling with the angle to get it just right, but once set, it allows you to shoot split-screen videos and stills.

It’s definitely an interesting idea, but you’ll have to shell out €58 (~$78 USD) on Etsy for what amounts to a few blocks of wood and a small mirror positioned in the right spot. I suppose if you’re the DIY type, you could make your own if you don’t want to spend the money.

[via Wired]

Measuring in at just 5.51″(W) x 4.13″(H) x .59″(D), this makeup mirror looks very much like a real iPad 2, except that the back is white instead of aluminum. The front of the iPad even slides off and turns into a dock to stand up the iPad mirror, but alas, there’s no sub-compact Bluetooth keyboard to go with.

So if any of you Apple fans out there feel the need to check yourself (before you wreck yourself,) you can get the tiny iPad 2 makeup mirror over at Focalprice for about $7 (USD).

This Bluetooth Rearview Mirror Kit is available from Chinavasion for around $200 (USD). It seems like a pretty hefty price to pay for a rearview mirror, but that’s because (and I’m just stating the obvious here) it’s not just an ordinary rearview mirror.

In fact, it’s a touchscreen GPS, DVR, wireless camera, media and game player rolled into one pretty package.

Aside from that, it’s also a hands-free speakerphone and a wireless rearview parking camera to help you ease into those hard-to-park areas.

So really, what more can you ask for in a rearview mirror? With this baby, you can navigate through tight roads, listen to your favorite tunes, catch a quick flick in traffic, play a few games when you’re bored, and even use it to speak to the 911 operator when you’ve driven yourself into a ditch by the road because of previously-mentioned activities.

[via Gizmag via Dvice]

First shown off a couple of years ago in Milan, You Fade to Light uses a grid of Lumiblade OLED panels which light up to follow your every move. Stand still, and the panels act as mirrors. As soon as you move, the OLED pixels light up. Wherever you go, so goes the light. The 107.9″(w) x 50.4″(h) interactive display can also be set to an inverse mode, which lights up everywhere that you’re not, and leaves the mirrors where you are. It’s a really cool effect, captured here by the guys at A3Network:

The installation was created by rAndom International, with custom software written by Chris O’Shea. You Fade to Light has been produced in a limited edition of just eight units, and is selling for €140,000 (~$188,000 USD). I suppose that if you’ve got the money – I’m talking serious 1% money, that is – you could hang one of these on your wall. Or you could just watch the video above and enjoy it from afar.

[Thanks for the tip, Buster!]

That subtitle was added by Qbo’s makers, but don’t be disappointed. The robot really does say that, among other things.

Amazing. It’s so amazing how a robot that announces everything it thinks and does is somehow adorable, but if a person does the same thing it’s considered annoying. I demand equal treatment! While I decide whether I should call for robots to be treated as badly as humans or humans to be coddled like robots, the folks at Thecorpora Robotic Company are working on making Qbo recognize its own image autonomously. They also left this teaser on their blog: “What would happen if a Qbo sees another Qbo in front of him? The answer will be out there pretty soon!” I predict that scenario will lead to a conversation of epic philosophical and grammatical importance.

[via Engadget]

Forget those old powder compacts, ladies. Get with the times. This pocket mirror is made to look like that MacBook Air that is sitting on your desk. Or not sitting on your desk, depending on your budget.

Just gaze into that screen and be captivated by the stunning geek beauty that is you. You’re so vain. You probably think this article is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?

This cute little accessory is just $12(USD) from Gizmine.

[via Chip Chick]

And then here comes Joey Ruiter, a designer who decided to render his vision of a stripped-down electric motorcycle by taking away all the macho-looking frills and design elements to come up with Moto Undone.

Ruiter explains: “[We wanted to] re-set the definition of a motorbike by stripping away historical attributes that make them so great. Moto Undone is pure generic transportation and by motorbike category definition, it isn’t very cool. The motorbike references are small and when someone is riding, they are all you see.”

While the Moto Undone is definitely stripped-down in terms of design, its other specs aren’t really very shabby. The motorcycle is actually powered by a 1000w 48v electric hub motor and has a range of 90 miles. Other riding information and gauges are can be accessed through a smartphone–which is something you can’t do while you’re riding on it because, you know, it’s not very safe to fish the device out of your pocket and steer yourself on the road at the same time.

The Moto Undone was put on display recently at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.

[Toxel via TechEBlog]

The fountain isn’t new (it was unveiled in 2007), but it’s the first time I’ve seen it, so it’s new to me. It sure reminds me of a Terminator T-1000 coming up for air. The fountain spits out recirculated water, and as its facets turn, it is reminiscent of the melting molten T-1000 at the end of T2. As they rotate back into position, you eventually see it as a full-blown head again.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The sculpture even has a dedicated webcam so you can enjoy it from your desk anywhere in the world. It’s definitely an interesting sight to see if you’re ever in Charlotte.

[via designyoutrust and Colossal Art + Design]

It sounds a bit like the augmented reality mirror that researchers from the University of London have come up with. This one, however, was thought up by the folks over at the New York Times Research & Development Lab. The mirror is basically an LCD display that’s being used under the mirror here, with a sensor perched at the top.

Aside from feeding you with your daily dose of news (from the New York Times, of course), the PC behind the mirror-slash-display makes use of the Kinect SDK and an RFID tag reader that can pull up and display information about any prescription drugs or medication that you may be taking.

It can also do a quick scan of what you’re wearing and make suggestions on what you can pair with that top or what color tie you should put on with the shirt that’s already on your back. Pretty neat, huh?

[Nieman Lab via PopSci via Dvice]

The Minebea COOL LEAF is a completely flat keyboard, with no surface texture at all. Instead, you get a super-shiny mirrored surface, created from “2000 layers of PET film”, whatever that means. A complex grid of force sensors detect your keypresses on the surface. The keys are illuminated from underneath the surface of the mirror, making them easy to see in a darkened room. It also offers an adjustable keypress beep to help provide feedback. Another advantage of the smooth surface is that you’ll never have to worry about dirt getting stuck between keys (although it will surely be a fingerprint magnet).

It offers 108 keys, and connects via USB. It’s listed as working with Windows 7, Vista and XP, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t work with a Mac or Linux computer either.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can order the COOL LEAF keyboard from Dynamism for $249.99 (USD). Plus, you’ll never be able to touch-type on this thing, but at least you can see if you have something stuck between your teeth.

If you’re like me, then maybe you’ll find this electric mirror interesting, too.

This augmented reality mirror lets you edit out any imperfections and perform a few tweaks here and there on your face and mirror the results in real time as you face the mirror. Cool, right?

Maybe it’s for all the people in the world who are exceptionally grumpy in the morning or for those who are extremely critical of their own looks. Or maybe it’s for people who want to know what they might look like if they go for plastic surgery. See the face-morphin’ action in the video below…

Vlado Kitanovski and Ebroul Izquierdo of the Multimedia and Vision research group at Queen Mary, University of London, came up with this software-based mirror that takes virtual augmentation to a new level by mapping out a 3D version of your face and developing a video version where the resulting enhancements may be made, digitally.

The AR mirror will be one of the works presented at the International Conference on Image Processing in Belgium next month.

[New Scientist via Dvice]

UK artist Mark Wallinger created this awesome object – a special version of the TARDIS which can blend seamlessly into its environment. It certainly would make it a little less conspicuous than the blue one. Thought it does make you wonder if the interior is made up of even larger mirrors – like those ones in Inception. At least that’s how I imagine the inside of this shiny TARDIS.

I’m not quite sure where in the universe the mirror TARDIS can be found these days, but it was last seen at an exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery back in 2009.

[via How to Be a Retronaut via epicponyz]

Designed by Dr. Kazuo Kawasaki, the COOL LEAF keyboard is completely flat and has a touch panel feel to it. There are 108 keys that will connect to Windows machines only via USB. English, German, French, Italian versions will follow in July. Minebea has also stated that a Mac version will come out soon. That probably means August or in the fall.

The COOL LEAF keyboard will sell for approximately $245 (USD). If you really want it, you can ask import stores like Japan Trend Shop or Rinkya if someone can snag one for you. I’ve been touch-typing for years. The problem with something like this is that it’s pricey and you can’t feel your way around the keyboard without looking at it.

[via CrunchGear]

While this gadget might not solve for my lack of a tripod, it may help if you have a kid or whiny significant other that hates to be blinded by the camera flash. Lightscoop makes sure you get a nice, even light from your flash by bouncing it off the ceiling or a wall instead of directly into your subjects’ eyeballs. It also helps reduce red-eye and other unnatural things that happen when you aim a flash directly at a face. The thing is simply a  mirrored hood that sits over the top of the flash on your Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax, Olympus, or Sony dSLR camera. Sony cameras have a specific version of the Light scoop and the other cams all use a universal version.

A single version of the thing in standard or a slightly pink-hued “warming” version sells for $29.95 (USD) or you can get both for $49.95.

You’d think that whoever invented the things would have noticed that everything you see in a mirror is backwards. No, they took the cheap way out and just wrote it off as a “feature” or something. Thus, if you want to fix this problem, you’ve got to hack together a solution of your own. This True Mirror looks like one of the nicer hacks out there.Alright, so maybe I’m being a little harsh on mirrors. They do a good job for when you want to see how you look. The times where I actually care about things being reversed are quite rare. However, if you simply must see things properly, this looks like a rather nice way to do it. The device uses a pair of mirrors cut so they fit together almost seamlessly when set at a 45-degree angle.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While it is a novel idea, you’ll want to have some pretty deep pockets in order to get one. I mean, $245 for a 1-foot square mirror (am guessing on the dimensions, as none were listed)  is a tad excessive.

[via RedFerret]

By using an old-school technique with a half-silvered mirror placed at a 45-degree angle, along with a special app, the i3DG Palm Top Theater turns your iPhone or iPodTouch into a 3D display. By splitting images or video into three layers using the template below, then reflecting them off of the mirrors, it creates the illusion of depth.

Here’s a quick video, showing off the i3DG in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The devices and demo videos were created by media artist Jitsuro Mase, and have been making the rounds at interactive art exhibitions. No word on if and when they’ll put the gadget into production, or if it will remain a prototype for now.

[via Japan Probe]