Archive for June 2008

Firefox 3 hit the streets less than 24 hours ago, and a nifty little easter egg has already been uncovered. Simply type about:robots in the url bar and you’ll get this: Oh no! They really are taking over!

These DIY headphones look fantastic! I can only (probably erroneously) assume the sound quality matches the look. Flickr user j.rusten furniture studio shared the story behind these headphones he made for himself. He says, “I adapted a pair of normal safety earphones for speakers, and added a vintage look.

The girls of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are undoubtedly some of the dopest chicks you’ll ever encounter. Not only do they do they possess mad algebraic skillz and could probably kick your ass in World of Warcraft, they have the only finest taste in tech blogs.

The Lightpipe is a supercool light that looks like an industrial pipe. I love how they’ve photographed it next to “real” pipes, but on the flip side it makes it a bit difficult to imagine what it might look like, say, in one’s own living room.

This is a concept for Singapore’s Metro Rail Line so that trains can pick people up without ever stopping. That sounds impossible, right? The idea is that people who want to board the train get into a smaller car that piggybacks onto the moving train as it passes through the station.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Russian craft of Matryoshka, they’re those little stacking wooden dolls that fit inside one-another, gradually getting smaller and smaller. Designer Art Lebedev has taken these traditional dolls and put a geeky spin on them, adding data storage measurements to each one.

The last thing you ever want to see on your good old iPod is the sad iPod icon. This usually tells of some sort of nasty failure of your iPod’s software or hardware, and is often a sign that you’ll soon be heading out to the Apple Store to pick up a brand new iPhone or iPod Touch.

Inside this unassuming red cube lurks a fancy shmancy label making system. Click the black button and the top opens up to reveal a keyboard and LCD screen. The keyboard appears to be a standard US qwerty version, but unfortunately (for those of us who can’t read Kanji characters, that is) the screen text looks to be in Japanese.

What could be better than Darth Vader, Death Star and Stormtrooper themed PEZ dispensers, loaded with sugary fruit-flavored candies? I’ll tell you – GIANT Darth Vader, Death Star and Stormtrooper themed PEZ dispensers, loaded with MASS-QUANTITIES of sugary fruit-flavored candies.

These pixelated cufflinks feature the dreaded goombas of Super Mario Bros. lore. Etsy crafter pixelparty makes them from shrink plastic (like ShrinkyDinks?) and silver-tone hardware. He hilariously notes that “…if mario doesn’t get his princess (who seems to be castle hopping, maybe she’s the player and mario is getting played) well then he’ll never be a player.

Nooka watches tell time using four digital bars. The top bar shows hours 1-6, the second shows hours 7-12, the third shows minutes, and the bottom shows seconds. Are you confused yet? While the watches in this set all function in the same way, Nooka offers several choices for style and color- camo, rubber, leather, or metal.

Remember the 1970s classic Mr. Microphone? Here’s a fun use for the old toy that turns it into a bit more devious of a device than originally intended. This brilliant, but simple hack by electronics tinkerer Kipkay takes the guts out of an old Mr.

There isn’t much worse than trying to swat an annoying fly with nothing but your hand. What better way to obliterate buzzing, disease-carrying insects but with this delete key flyswatter? Created by German industrial designers Ding3000 for Fred, the delete key flyswatter will keep your typing hands clear of that sticky goo from smashing flies with your bare mitts.

I haven’t come across too many hacks involving the Wii Fit Balance Board yet, but they are starting to emerge. In this recent demo, the board has been configured to control 3D movement in a game of World of Warcraft 3.

FireNes is a little Firefox widget that allows you to instantaneously play any NES game in your browser. It’s free and it’s incredibly easy to install and use and it’s probably going to ruin my life because I can’t stop playing with it.

Big Chief Design couldn’t handle the inexorable month-long wait until the new iPhones come out- so they made a downloadable papercraft one for the interim! If you want your own, head to Big Chief and download the PDF.