Technabob » sphere

Spherical Flying Machines: The Prisoner Isn’t Far Behind

Range — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:20:25 +0000

This unusual spherical flying machine was developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defense. It’s the first of its kind and is remote-controlled.

It can hover like a helicopter. It can fly forward at high speed using wings, which a helicopter can’t do. It’s got three gyros to help keep it stabilized, and can even roll around on the ground, and move itself about.

Since it’s round, it changes the way that a plane could/would behave, especially when it comes to attitude control. The round flying machine is made from commercially available parts and cost just $1,400 USD to make. It weighs 12.3oz and is 16.5 inches in diameter, and can reach speeds up to 37mph.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It will be interesting to see what kind of aircrafts they’ll be able to make using this tech.

[via DigInfo.TV via Make:]

Rotundus GroundBot: Rolling Surveillance Robot from the Future

Range — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:00:18 +0000

I don’t know why robotics experts haven’t thought of this before, but this tire-like surveillance robot is the way to go for mobile and autonomous operations. Even better since it looks like it’s right out of science fiction, from Terminator, The Prisoner or Fahrenheit 451.

The robot is called the GroundBot and it’s made by the Swedish firm Rotundus. It’s a remote-controlled, all-weather 2-foot sphere that can go through snow, mud and sand, and even roll uphill. It supplies a live feed to its operator via a pair of cameras. The operator sees the images in 3D on a remote screen. It comes with knobby treads for all terrain action or without, which is perfect on a runway.

The surveillance sphere is currently undergoing trials with the Swedish Defense Force for use in airports and other areas, like ports, that need this kind of mobile surveillance. It could also be used in urban mapping, remote terrain exploration, and post-disaster search and rescue operations.

For now, the GroundBot can only reach speeds of 6mph, so it’s not hard to outrun. As the technology improves, it will most likely get faster. I can foresee swarms of these things roaming the streets.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via BLDGBLOG]

Throwable Panoramic Ball Cam Gives You a 360 Degree View

Conner Flynn — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:00:35 +0000

Smartphones are great for snapping pictures, but what if you want the shot from more than one angle? Well, that’s what the Panoramic Ball Cam is for. It has 36 mobile phone cameras built in, so you can just throw it in to the air and capture 360-degree panoramic photographs.

Just throw it up and once it reaches its highest point, all 36 cameras take a pic and all you need to do is catch it. Maybe in the future, all sports will have camera balls like this so we can see instant replays and other stuff from every angle.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

After you take the pics, just download them to a computer and it stitches them together into a panorama. The Panoramic Ball Cam was created by Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel and Marc Alexa. It was programmed using C, C++, QT, and OpenCV, and the pictures that it takes are pretty impressive. No word on if or when this gadget might hit the market, but I’m sure it won’t be cheap.

[via SlashGear via Geeky Gadgets]

Sphero: Get Your Hands on Some Remote-Controlled Glowing Balls

Shane McGlaun — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:11:31 +0000

Balls are very near and dear to most men’s hearts. We use them for all sorts of fun and games. We try to take care of our varied balls and keep them from harm’s way. No one wants one of their balls to go flat for instance or explode due to mishandling. We also want to be sure that our balls don’t get stained, so we wash them frequently. Balls are a wonderful thing, but they do require some maintenance and care.

A nice set of robotic balls would be pretty cool too, I think. These Sphero remote-controlled robotic balls that glow are perfect for all geeky guys. They are even good for the ladies too. That way your lady friend can have her own balls to play with so she won’t be tempted to take yours and crush them accidentally or play too rough with them and cause permanent damage. It pains me to even think of balls being mishandled. The Sphero balls will work with a cool golf app called Sphero Golf on both Android smartphones and the iPhone.

Sphero balls are controlled by Bluetooth via your smartphone. If you are the developer sort, you can use the API to make apps that will let you play with your balls in new and interesting ways. The Sphero balls are 2.9-inches in diameter and can roll all around in any direction. Rolling balls make me a bit nervous honestly; I always fear they will get stepped on.

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Sphero balls will be priced at $130 (USD) and you will get the Sphero ball, the Sphero golf app, and two other apps as well for the price. You will be able to get the remote controlled Sphero balls later this year, but you can pre-order some balls now so you know you will have balls in hand come the holiday season. Balls.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Wired]

Is Raleigh, NC Building a Death Star?

Technabob — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 02:47:26 +0000

The Death Star plans may not be in the main computer, but it does look like they are floating around Raleigh, North Carolina these days. I spotted the first of these mysterious photos over on Flickr and they sure make it look like a junior Death Star is under construction in the heart of the Southern city.

See those guys arc welding there? I have it on good authority those are Imperial forces behind all those flying sparks.

For some reason, though, I can’t imagine Stormtroopers using port-a-potties, or driving a Prius. But I have been known to be wrong from time to time.

Now that I’ve got you all worked up, I hate to burst your bubble. What they’re building isn’t a Death Star at all. These guys are actually building this giant steel orb as part for the new Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. While the structure won’t be painted to look like the Death Star, it will eventually be finished to look like the Earth:

No Stormtroopers either, but it’s still pretty cool, eh?

[Photo Credits: Brian D. Crawford and The Raleigh Connossieur]

Kinect Puffersphere Has its Eye on You

Shane McGlaun — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:45:27 +0000

This may well be the coolest Kinect hack I have seen yet, despite the fact that it serves no purpose. I can only imagine how awesome this would be as a Halloween decoration. The geeks behind this hack took a Kinect and a spherical display from Pufferfish and hacked them together.

The orb-shaped display has a big iris and retina on it and makes the rough display look like a giant eyeball sitting there on the podium. The Kinect sees when a person walks up and the eye pops up on the sphere and then follows the person as they walk around the room. You can see the setup in action below.

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The guys from The Technology Studio have a quick description of how they made it work here, and you can even grab the code over at Github – assuming you have a Puffersphere to display it on. They also posted an awesome Eye of Sauron version of the demo too:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The Weird Sisters would so love this hack.

[via YouTube]

Elipson Planet L Speakers Don’t Look Much Like Planets

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:39:59 +0000

A set of speakers called the Elipson Planet L speakers have surfaced that look cool enough, but really only share the spherical shape in common with a planet.

I would like to have the white set and paint squiggly red lines on them so they look like bloodshot eyes. Despite what they look like, the things have some nice specs. They use coaxial 2-way design with a 25mm soft dome tweeter and a 165mm paper-cone mid/woofer.

Frequency response is 48Hz to 20,000Hz with 90dB sensitivity and 6-ohm impedance. Each of the bad boys tips the scales at 15.4 pounds so you better mount them well. You can grab up a set for about $965 (USD) per pair.

[via Born Rich]

Moneual Play Ball PC: What Has Three Balls, Six Axes and Seven Windows?

Technabob — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:07:54 +0000

Would you believe what you’re looking at is a PC? Yep. This set of orbs is a completely functional Windows 7 PC, courtesy of the guys at Korea’s Moneaul.

The Play Ball PC comes with three spherical pods, one which contains the main computer, and the other two which house matching speakers. The main pod’s computer runs on the Intel Atom chipset, has a built-in 64GB SSD storage device and 2GB RAM. In addition to built-in 802.11n networking, it also connects wirelessly to the battery-powered speakers. According to it’s manufacturer, the whole thing will be completely wireless, so I’m wondering if the computer itself will have a rechargeable battery too. It probably does, since both the computer and speakers snap into that white monolithic docking station.

The computer also features a 6-axis gyroscopic sensor, which lets you use the computer itself in place of a mouse, and allows you to interact with the media playback interfaces without a keyboard. Of course, they call this thing an HTPC, but any real home theater guru would never live with just a pair of wireless 15-watt speakers for their sound system. While it probably won’t win any awards for sound output, it certainly will be a cool conversation piece sitting in your living room.

There’s no word on when you’ll be able to get your hands on one of these oddities. As a matter of fact, I can’t find it up on Moneaul’s website yet. That said, I know it’s at least been turned into a prototype, because I took the photos above myself during CES last week.

Pierre Junod Eris Planetary Sphere Watch is a Real Ball

Technabob — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:55:04 +0000

I’ve seen some really unusual watches in my time, but I can tell you without a doubt that this is the first time that I’ve ever seen a watch that’s shaped like a perfectly spherical planet. Ever.

Named after the recently discovered dwarf planet, the Pierre Junod Eris watch tells time using a pair of rotating hands that float through the equator of the globe. The orange top pointer indicates minutes, while the hours are shown on the white lower pointer.

Each timepiece is constructed from a dramatic anthracite anodized aluminum case with a curved mineral glass crystal to protect the hands. Time is kept by an accurate battery-powered Swiss movement.

Now I think you’d have a pretty tough time trying to wear this watch on your wrist, but it’s actually designed to hang from the included rubber neck strap, or can be used as a pocket watch or desk clock too. You can grab the Eris watch over at Watchismo for $450 (USD).

Elekit Tornader Robot is Really a Ball

Technabob — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:56:29 +0000

This robot kit from Japan lets you build your own ball shaped robot that can pull off all sorts of wild and crazy moves as it gyrates around your floor.

While the Tornader robot from Elekit can drive slowly around the floor like most remote-controlled vehicles, the real fun starts when you set the Tornader into one of its insane spin modes.

Once the ‘bot builds up sufficient speed, it’ll fly around in a wild orbit that’s reminiscent of an out-of-control breakdancer who drank a few too many Red Bulls before hitting the dance mat. Check out this video clip of the Tornader in action and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The 5-inch diameter robot kit takes about an hour to put together, but from the looks of the video, is well worth the effort. Each Tornader ships with a multi-channel infrared remote, which lets you operate up to four of them in the same room at the same time for complete robotic chaos. And each robot has a customizeable space on the side where you can place one of a variety of colorful printed patterns that’ll have your head spinning when the Tornader hits maximum speed.

While the Tornader is officially only available in Japan, the guys at Japan Trend Shop have started to sell them worldwide for $121 (USD). Of course, if you happen to live in Japan, you can get yourself a much better deal, since the Tornader retails there for just ¥3990 (appx. $44 USD).

Katamari Wedding Cake: With This Ring I Thee Roll

Technabob — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:54:39 +0000

Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you roll a Katamari down the street with her and roll up the universe into a giant ball?

While I like to think this Katamari wedding cake is filled with tiny buildings, cruise ships, cows and wildly gesticulating little people, it’s actually just lemon cake with strawberry filling. Oh well, it still sounds delicious to me. Besides, those airplanes have a tendency to get stuck in my teeth anyhow.

This amazing Katamari Damacy wedding cake was created by the appropriately named Mike’s Amazing Cakes of Redmond, Washington for the recent wedding of Flickr contributor offwithyourtv.

I wonder what happens if you try and cut into the chewy center of a Katamari? Does the universe explode? Or is it like a piñata, and do all of the items trapped inside come pouring out all of the place?

And if it wasn’t obvious enough that these guys are serious videogame fanatics, they finished off their wedding ceremony with a round of Guitar Hero.

[via Team Teabag]

Tiny Dvr Camera is a Ball

Technabob — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:40:39 +0000

Within this tiny little black orb lives a tiny little digital video camera. What makes the Camball unique is its totally self-contained digital video recorder.

All of the requisite electronics are crammed into a sphere that’s just a hair smaller than a ping pong ball.

The Camball can record 320×240 or 640×480 resolution video using MPEG-4 encoding. Since it stores everything on a tiny SD memory card, you can save up to 8GB of video with the appropriate card.

Alas and alack, this nifty little gadget is only available in Korea at this time, and there aren’t any plans to offer them stateside at this point. For the time being, you’ll just have to admire them from afar over at Korea’s Funshop.

Prices for the Camball range from 189,000 to 229,000 Korean Won (appx. $185 to $225 USD), depending on if you want the optional MP3 player capability.

Ping Pong Printer Produces Perfect Projectiles

Technabob — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:40:21 +0000

Why print on boring old paper, when you can get your message across on some nice bouncy ping pong balls? The appropriately named PingPongPrinter can print dot-matrix messages directly onto the spherical surface of ping pong balls.

Builders Vern Graner and Rick Abbott of The Robot Group used a Parallax inkjet print head kit and the EFX-TEK Prop-2 controller board to bring their wondrous creation to life. As each ball leaves the hopper, it’s loaded onto a rotating platform, and sprayed with tiny ink droplets.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The best part: the balls it prints are used as ammunition for the group’s other dastardly invention, the pneumatic, ping pong ball firing PONGINATOR!

[Nuts N Volts via Hacked Gadgets]

O Mighty Isis, This is One Tough Puzzle

Technabob — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:29:08 +0000

Let me start by saying this — the glorious ISIS puzzle was designed with one mission in mind — to be the most difficult puzzle ever made. Handmade in England using aluminum alloy, the puzzle not only is insanely challenging, it looks really, really cool sitting on your table.

Each spherical puzzle has a set of movable bands, covered with hieroglyphic images. You’ll need to decipher a set of 10 encrypted clues in order to figure out the correct sequence for the glyphs. Since each puzzle is unique, you’ll need to register online to reveal the specific set of clues for your ISIS. If you manage to crack the puzzle, you’ll get access to the maker’s “Award Zone”, which gives you a chance to win some actual cash prizes and gifts. But finishing the puzzle is probably reward enough.

The ISIS comes in both a monochromatic silver/black finish and purple/gold version that reminds me more of New Orleans at Mardi Gras than ancient Egypt. They measure about 2.75″ in diameter, and weigh in at about a pound, so they’re definitely substantial. At $199 each, they’re not inexpensive. But if you have a serious puzzle fanatic on your holiday shopping list, this really is something special.

Boing Balls Change Color When You Squeeze Them

Technabob — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:25:37 +0000

Boy, does that sound painful, or what? Actually, it’s fun. These colorful rubber BOING Balls (not to be confused with the classic Amiga orb of the same name) have a set of tri-colored LEDs inside of them, and change hues when you apply pressure to them.

The rubber balls can cycle between 7 different shades in three modes: constant color, slow cycle and quick cycle.

Originally designed for jugglers, the multi-colored spheres are also fun just sitting on a desk or in a bowl when you grab a bunch. They’re especially cool in a darkened room. They’re also good as a stress-relief ball if you need to chill out. But really, who could resist bouncing them around the place.

They’re available from the MoMA Store for $10 each ($9 for museum members).

360-Degree Speaker Produces Sound in Every Direction

Technabob — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:56:36 +0000

Industrial designer Pieter Maes, one of the artists responsible for developing LaCie’s cool golden hard drive created this design for a cluster of speakers which are formed into a near perfect sphere.

By joining a number of individual speaker cones to a single central spider-like structure, the orb can project sound in every direction. Unfortunately, this is only a conceptual design at this point, and Maes hasn’t announced plans to produce these.

I guess for now, I’ll need to cut some corners and go with the 12-Sided Subwoofer.

10,000 LED Orbs Land in a Field in Italy

Technabob — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Artist Giancarlo Neri has put together this stunning installation which places 10,000 individual colored LED orbs in a field. Each sphere gradually cycles through colors, creating a beautiful, dramatic vista.

While the illuminated globes are absolutely stunning by night, they’re equally as interesting when turned off during the daylight hours.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The installation, entitled Massimo Silenzio (Maximum Silence) is currently in place at the Circo Massimo in Rome, Italy, and will continue to be on exhibition through September 11th. If you happen to be in Rome for any reason, you should definitely check it out.

I’m hoping the Google Maps satellites manage to snap a shot of these before the exhibition ends.

[via NOTCOT]

Magic Ball: Your Personal Clean Air Act

Technabob — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:27:50 +0000

Does your closet smell like old gym socks? Is Fido stinking up the place and making you sneeze? Does somebody like onions and runny French cheese? If this sounds like your house, perhaps you could us one of these.

The Antibac2k Magic Ball kills unpleasant odors, as well as removes allergens and contaminants from the air around you. The spherical gadget filters, humidifies, and disinfects stale air, and can even add a pleasant fragrance to fill your nostrils with glee. It does this all while putting on a relaxing light show with a ring of 30 green, blue and white LEDs.

Just pour a tiny drop of Antibac2k’s special purifying solution into water, fill it up, and it does the rest. Your nasty, stank air will be pulled in, scrubbed, cleaned and spewed back out smelling like a rose (or one of numerous other scents.) The makers of the device claim it can effectively remove dust, smoke, odors, bacteria, fungi and viruses from your airspace. A single Magic Ball can clean the air in rooms up to about 350-square feet.

So if you need to clean up your act, you can pick one up online from b-eshop for HKD 1,680 (about $216 USD.) The manufacturer claims to distribute these all over the globe, but I couldn’t find any for sale outside of Asia.

Shiro Mp3 Player Inspired by Soccer Ball

Technabob — Sun, 13 May 2007 20:40:11 +0000

Here’s an MP3 player that doesn’t look like any other I’ve seen. Designed originally for the World Cup tournament, the Shiro AS MP3 Player looks a whole lot like a miniature soccer ball.

Sure, the Shiro won’t win any prizes for storage capacity, maxing out at 1GB of memory, but it certainly gets my endorsement for its cool design. The player measures in at just under 2-inches in diameter and a slick OLED display. It supports WMA, WAV, MP3 formats and also has an FM tuner and voice recorder built in.

[via Thoughts from the Sidelines]