Archive for May 2010

With summer here, each time we go to the lake or the pool I worry that my camera and camcorder will get wet and ruined. It’s not just the water at the pool or lake I worry about, it’s the kids spilling their drinks on the camera too.

It must be insanely hard to be a Pokémon fan. For someone who’s been trained to “catch ’em all”, it’s bad enough that there are a hundred and one Pokémon games out there, there’s also the awesome merchandise to collect.

Suraj from Machoarts put together this roundup of great digital robot illustrations. Most of these can be downloaded as wallpapers for your computer. Here are a few that tickled my fancy.

LED-powered signs have rapidly become omnipresent in big cities. Now you can even have one inside your house. It’s called Lucia and was created and designed by Tangible Interaction. Lucia is a sound reactive LED matrix, which consists of a 112×20 pixel RGB LED light box that can display a variety of shapes and colors, depending on the sounds it detects.

About a year ago Samsung revealed the LD220, a monitor that connects to computers via USB. I’m not sure if this is the same monitor, or if it’s an offshoot, but this is amazing nonetheless – a few days ago the Korean electronics giant showed off an 18.5-inch LCD monitor that not only connects via USB, it’s powered only by USB.

Designed by Studio Psyho, the “unpackman” bottle opener is the perfect way for retro gamer geeks to crack open a cold one.

The guys over at Tiny Cartridge stumbled onto this awesome Dreamcast boombox casemod by XCKDIY. The design seamlessly integrates the Dreamcast’s CD-Rom drive into the portable’s old DVD tray, and wired the console to the front-facing LCD screen.

Assuming you don’t have to pass through airport security, this iPhone carrying case that looks like a gun will definitely draw attention whenever you whip it out to make a call. Created using 3D object printing technology on a MakerBot, DIY-er Junior Tan created this bit of awesome for all of us to enjoy.

Ubisoft has ported the original Prince of Persia for the iPhone, iPod Touch and of course the iPad, just in time for the release of the movie.

Here’s a nerdy a sub-genre in an already geeky genre: some Lego Mindstorms enthusiasts all over the world love creating Great Ball Contraptions, or GBCs – a large, modular machine that does nothing but transport balls in a never-ending route.

Who loves writing term papers? Me neither. And if this archeological find is any indication, our beloved comic book heroes must have hated writing them too, mainly because they suck at it. Well, not everyone – the nerdy Peter Parker got an A+ on his paper, although I doubt his teacher knows the tragic story behind this:

Taking a page out of old school client/server tech architecture and updating it with modern hardware and software, Pano Logic’s mini clients are definitely one to check out if you’re running a corporate IT team. The miniature Pano Device sits at each person’s desk, and has just enough processing power to provide network access and a “dumb” terminal attached to a centralized server farm.

The guys at College Humor dug up this never-before-seen footage of what actually happens while the ducks and dog get ready to play their part in the classic NES shooter.

Polk Audio’s Atrium Garden Speakers are specially made for the outdoors, with “long throw” drivers that ensure that your music isn’t drowned or lost. The system is made of the Atrium Sat30 mid-range satellite speakers, and the big Atrium Sub10, a downward-firing subwoofer.

It seems that the megapixel count in digital cameras won’t stop climbing. That’s also true for camera phones. Or phone cameras. Whichever way you put it, the new phone from Altek has a 14MP, now that’s quite a lot for something so small.

Apparently the hoverboard that I’ve always wanted has finally become reality. It was made by Nils Guadagnin for a Back to the Future exhibition. As is obvious from the pics, this is a copy of the one Marty McFly rode in Back to the Future Part II.