Archive for February 2010

If you’ve never heard of a Munny, you’re probably not a vinyl toy freak. But if you have, you know they’re these non-descript bodies which can be used as a blank canvas for creating unique handmade toys.

At first glance at this ridiculous looking thing, I thought I was looking at some sort of wooden kids’ toy. But this oddball device is actually a synthesizer. Created by Alex Abreu & Ithai Benjamin, the Synthinetic is simply described as “The little kinetic noisy synthesizer of your dreams.”

Ah, product designers. You and your neat concepts and even neater illustrations. Never asking “What’s possible?”, but instead, “What’s awesome?”, which is a pretty good mentality if you ask me. Here’s one of your brethren’s deliciously high-tech idea for a timepiece: a watch whose minute and hour hands are lasers.

I don’t own a Nintendo DS, so this time I’m not being sarcastic: DS owners, do you think controlling vehicles on your portable would be more fun if you had a virtual steering wheel? Because it seems that Nintendo thinks that it’s a great idea: the company filed a patent for a “Driving Game Steering Wheel Simulation Method and Apparatus” last November. You can check out the full details at the USPTO‘s website, but here’s the short version: it’s a touch screen steering wheel, apparently for a portable gaming device, as shown in the above sketches.

I really don't know what else to say. Read on, hit "play", and enjoy!

Are you the type of person who’s curious about what makes gadgets work? Love tearing stuff down? Would you like to build your own gadgets? Then you might want to get yourself one of Make’s Electronics Components packs, the perfect complement to their Electronics Book, which lets you dive into the world of tinkering with its lessons, experiments and projects. The Electronics Components pack 1 contains over 200 doodads – batteries, LEDs, resistors, even an X-Acto knife – all you need to perform the first 11 experiments in the book.

Did you ever wish you could take your Nintendo Wii with you wherever you go? Well this enterprising casemodder proves that you can do it if you have the time, patience, and modding talent, it’s definitely possible. Modder OMGPedoBear took about 3 months in his spare time building this Wii laptop.

This just can’t get any better: mash up robots with dinosaurs and LEGO bricks and you’ve got Robo-Rex. Could we want more? Robo-Rex is the brainchild of Alyse and Remi. It’s an awesome LEGO Technics build that they designed themselves.

I have been all excited about getting a 3D TV since hoards of them showed up at CES this year. Some of the first 3D TVs that will be on the market will be from Samsung.

The one concept of Cyberpunk that I’ve always enjoyed is bionic limbs. In that near future universe, people could have cybernetic limbs. For years, this concept was relegated to science-fiction. However, there has been progress to make these sort of replacement limbs a reality. A lot of people lose limbs in warfare, disasters and accidents.

Do diabolical minds look up to villains in the same way that good men and women idolize heroes? In his exhibition, “cultural archeologist” Michael Rakowitz presents evidence that Saddam Hussein may have fancied himself to be like the Sith Lord Darth Vader.

With Apple’s insistence on being different, Macbook-owners like me have to pay extra for video adapters if we want to connect our laptop to a monitor. Wisair’s wireless USB DisplayDock aims to simplify the transition from a mobile to a desktop environment by offering a single device that not only connects a Macbook with a monitor, but also with a keyboard, mouse and even speakers. As stated in Wisair’s press release, the DisplayDock does the job of four cables – assuming all of your peripherals are wired – and is wireless to boot.

Created by science fiction fan/modder Henk Hamers (aka “Gup”), this incredible casemod gets its inspiration from the famous pyramid/spacecraft from the Stargate series. No detail was spared in the construction of this neo-futuristic PC, which Henk built using a custom metal frame, wood, acrylic and polystyrene panels.

These amazing headphones will make your puny little earbuds look like nothing! These headphones were designed by William Gerwin do everything you’d ever want your headphones to do, and then some. To start out with, the headphones are wireless.

Google is inviting K-12 students all over the United States to participate in Doodle 4 Google, a contest to see who can create the best Google doodle – you know, the modified logos of Google that they use to celebrate holidays, honor important people or commemorate special events.

This has got to be the coolest thing I’ve seen this week. These incredibly small dinosaur kits let you build a miniature museum of natural history on your desktop. Artist Kelly Farrell’s Tinysaurs are incredibly weensy kits which let you build your own mini-dinos.