weird on technabob...

Here’s an odd little gadget fresh from Japan. It’s a digital pedometer with a twist. Instead of just measuring how many steps you’ve walked, it has you play a little Samurai game as you amble along.

From what I can tell, Bandai’s YUU HO KEI pedometer game involves ordering your foot soldiers out to battle with you – by making…

There aren’t as many video game apps for the Mac as there are for Windows computers, and even then I have a feeling that there’s no program, Windows or otherwise, that lets you play and play with retro video games the way OpenEmu does. The basic function of the app, as its name implies, is emulation of various retro video…

Weighing all of 48 lbs, VPI’s award winning Scoutmaster turntable is a literal heavyweight. But now it’s got a big brother, the TEAC VPI Scoutmaster II, with an aluminum block platter that weighs 19 lbs and a total weight of 53 lbs. According to Akihabara News, the weight of the turntable offsets unwanted vibration to create the “purest sound” possible.…

Here’s a fun concept for a video game… you’re stuck in a maze and the only way out is to puke all over the place. That’s the basic concept behind Spewer.

In this indie physics-based game from Eli Piilonen and Edmund McMillan, you play a test subject caught in a variety of devious puzzles, and your only method of escape…

Sure, you can charge your USB gadgets with that boring old A/C adapter that the factory shipped with your electronics, but why would you want to do that if you could have one that looks like this?

These goofy looking Penguin chargers juice up any gadget that can plug into a USB connector.

You can also cram the battery from…

The quest to keep people indoors and separated from each other continues with the mydeskfriend robot toy penguin. The web-connected mydeskfriend will be able to connect to your Facebook account and read your messages and your feeds, in a robotic voice I assume. Your friends will also be able to interact with it via Facebook, thereby avoiding interacting with you.…

Apparently, the folks in Japan have some different ways of chilling out in the tub than what I’m familiar with. Banpresto Fruit Palette are light-up fake fruit that you float around your bathtub while you soak to help you let your mind drift. Ahhhhh… There’s nothing like some oversize plastic citrus to help you relax.

But unlike conventional (or organic)…

Sometimes I worry that the day would come when there’d be nothing weird to write about anymore. And sometimes I come across shit like this, a (fake) deer head mounted on a wooden plaque that can be ordered to “sing” Sweet Home Alabama whenever it senses movement. Good for scaring the hell out of visitors and would-be thieves, Buck the stag…

I know, I know, what the hell does a salt shaker have to do with technabob? Nothing, really. I normally wouldn’t write about such a dull, utilitarian thing, but this one deserves a mention for its sheer design and wit.

Fred & Friend’s wonderful Saltside Out salt shaker does the seemingly impossible by placing the salt OUTSIDE of the shaker.…

Ever since 2007’s creepy CompuBeaver casemod, there hasn’t been too much news in the budding field of computer taxidermy. I suppose that had to change sooner or later.

This disturbing creation is a compact computer mouse that’s been stuffed into the carcass of an actual dead mouse. Now I’m not a big fan of live mice in general, but this…

This remote-controlled helicopter has the unique ability to be flown by voice command.

Japan’s Taiyo Toy makes these unusual toy helicopters that come with a voice control mode. Just speak into the included microphone, and you can direct the helicopter up and down, and turn the engines off and on.

Of course, it doesn’t quite understand English, so the commands…

How many times have you said to yourself: “I really, really wish I could cook a pizza while driving.” Well have I got something for you.

The Porta-Pizza oven could be just what the doctor ordered. This 12-volt pizza oven looks almost like an April Fools prank from The Onion, but it’s real. Now I’d be afraid that I’d kill my…

Ever wonder what classic arcade games might have looked like in an alternate dimension? From the looks of it, the arcades of the Cold War era Soviet Union were definitely not what you’d find anywhere else on the planet. Isolated from western gaming, the nation developed their own unique games to keep minds occupied back in the 1970s and 1980s.…

Remember the BowLingual? Released in the early 2000’s, the device claimed that it could translate your dog’s barks into phrases and emotions that told you what your dog was thinking, or how it was feeling. Now the BowLingual has gotten a 2009 upgrade, which actually gives your dog a human voice.

Just place the bark-sensor collar around your pup’s neck,…

23-year old Edo Kriegsmann is not swayed by fads. Okay I don’t actually know that, but it seems that that is the case, as he is defying the HD trend and all that it entails -  billion to one contrast ratios, screens with the surface area of small towns  and of course stroke-inducing price tags – with his color TV…