Archive for December 2008

2008: What a year it was. Every year there are a handful of posts that really make readers go wild. But at the same time, not everyone can be expected to read every post on the site (as much as I’d love for you guys to).

The ol’ “hero/heroine is about to die, so must seize life” theme is an oft-used one in all forms of literature, and Electronic Arts’ Hachi Koi is adding its own spin to the old saw, except in this Nintendo DS game, instead of seizing life, you’re tasked with seizing girl flesh.

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.

It’s not only Internet/text shorthand, with its LOLs and OMGs, that’s everywhere; it seems lots of tech-based and inspired memes are creeping out into the world at large, including in graffiti and other urban art forms.

This keyboard is perfect for people who don’t have a lot of space on their desk. Verbatim’s speaker keyboard integrates a pair of speakers into the keyboard’s top edge. The keyboard also has dedicated audio controls and a backlight.

For those of you who have put in your fill of time playing Bioshock, you know that Big Daddy can be one mean dive suit wearin’ mutha-flippa’. But now that he’s been transformed into a tasty lunchtime treat, he doesn’t look so imposing anymore.

For some strange reason, I never thought I’d write a story about floppy disk coasters twice. But these really floppy, floppy disk coasters I found over on Etsy today were just too good to be ignored.

The Nintendo Sixtyfree Lite-R: the past of gaming, futurized in handheld form. While playing this shrunken, portable N64 might be a challenge, particularly when it comes to, say, some of the console’s excellent first-person shooters, it certainly looks good.

Some people want games to be as sweet as sugar, with showers of fresh blossoms and lollipops instead of blood, and frolicking in place of combat. Those aren’t the people who made this custom Wii Zapper.

USB flash disks are very popular not only because they carry a lot of data in such a small size. They’ve also become a hit because they come in all sorts of weird designs. It’s reached a point where if I see something small and weird I assume that it’s a flash disk.

I’m happy to report that Domo-kun is adorable anywhere… even on the hulking side of an Xbox 360. In fact, the strange creature himself brings a beautiful color scheme to the console, and the result is a chocolaty confection of cuteness that suits the 360 very well.

I was working on a story about something completely different today when I came across this intriguing digital image technology they’ve been working on for a while over at Microsoft Research. The team sums up their not-too-lofty goal for their HD View technology as follows: “…to create the best picture given (a) a source with high resolution, arbitrary dynamic range, any field of view & color gamut; (b) the user’s interaction; and (c) the display being used.”

Wear your retro Apple spirit on your sleeve (or really on your chest) with one of these illuminated t-shirts, sporting the old school rainbow Apple logo. The t-shirt lights up using an electroluminescent display that responds to music and other ambient sounds.

Are you a biochemist who works for a certain pharmaceutical company that for the past 12 years has been making viruses that turn people into zombies? If so, then you’ve  probably received an Umbrella Corporation umbrella, maybe for Christmas, or when you were hired.

I know it’s a bit late, but I’m sure everyone’s still up for a bit of Christmas fun, and I swear this one’s worth watching. Creative marketing company AKQA set up 49 microwaves to play Jingle Bells, one note per microwave. 

I can see how this could be fun, but if you show this to a Star Wars geek he’ll probably shake his head, gather his robes and walk away. Some guy who looks like a mugger took 2 glow sticks, put them together with a link chain and voila!