Archive for December 2015

We’ve seen our share of custom PC cases, but nothing quite as impressive as this Venator Class Star Destroyer. It is named YAZI and was created by asphiax as part of a modding contest by MSI.

I’m kind of mad that The Force Awakens downplayed my favorite droids and gave BB-8 the majority of screen time. Not that BB-8 isn’t cool, but the little soccer ball is no R2-D2, if you ask me.

Earlier this year, BigBoysToys launched its Street Fighter The New Challenger line with a kick ass Ryu figure. The toy maker has stayed busy and has since released a Ken figure and a Chun-li figure. Like Ryu, both collectibles have light up effects integrated into their respective diorama stands. You can pre-order both figures from Play–Asia for $90 (USD) each or as a bundle for only $160.

Want to encourage the ladies to kiss you during the holiday season? Nothing beats the Mistletoe Drone from Hammacher Schlemmer. This compact remote control drone is outfitted with a festive mistletoe design. That’s one way for a nerd to get some action.

“Hoverboards” are complete bullsh•t. They don’t hover at all, so stop lying to us and just call it an ass-busting sideways electric skateboard. That is a much more accurate name. So far as I can tell everyone who steps on one of these ends up on their ass.

Growing up, my mom had this picture of a knurled old tree hanging on our wall. It was one of those reprints of some artist’s work that looked like it was made with oil paints and canvas.

Flickr user Nick Chen aka solscud made a cute collection of Star Wars minifigures wearing their respective vehicles. For instance, Kylo Ren has his command shuttle, Han Solo is wearing the Millennium Falcon and Rey is, well, in the Millennium Falcon, but with the new different radar dish. Check out the rest in the gallery below or wear your browser and blast off to Nick’s Flickr page. [via Geyser of Awesome]

Disney made a robot and it is not named BB-8. Check out this video demonstration of the VertiGO wall-climbing robot car. It was designed by Disney Research and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Apparently people were super excited about these Air Jordan 11 sneakers. You can see why. These awesome shoes sport a moon landing theme. They were supposedly created by Spanish shoe company sivasdescalzo and were set to debut on December 28.

Researchers from The University of Tokyo’s Shinoda – Makino Lab have created a mind-blowing device that clones both images and low amounts of haptic feedback. In other words, it creates reflections that you can “touch” and can “touch” you back. Invented by Yasutoshi Makino, Yoshikazu Furuyama and Hiroyuki Shinoda, HaptoClone has a pair of panels filled with microscopic mirrors.

We have seen Star Wars pens in the past, but those were nothing compared to this high-end fountain pen. This fancy thing fountain pen that looks like a lightsaber, and it levitates while stored. It is awesome and terrible at the same time. The only Force at work here is magnetism levitating the pen, which is designed to look like Yoda’s lightsaber.

P.T. Barnum said that there’s a sucker born every minute and he was right. All you have to do is look at certain Kickstarter campaigns to realize that he’s right. Take, for example Shield: Signal Proof Headwear, which has over 200 backers as of this writing.

Mechanical engineering student Daniel Olson helps the Empire rise again with his design for a miniature motorized AT-AT. You’ll need an electric motor and a 9V battery to make it move, but the rest of its parts are 3D printable, even the gears that connect the legs to the motor. It’s going to take you a bit of sanding and trial and error to get the gears right, and it also lacks many of the vehicles’ surface details.

Epic’s Unreal Engine is mainly used to create video games, but now it can also be used to create augmented reality apps, thanks to Adam Horvath and his plugin for Unreal Engine 4. Adam’s Unreal4AR is based on the open source augmented reality SDK ARToolKit.

I really liked the new Star Wars flick. I’m not going to give it away, but you need to go see it soon because it won’t be long before I start working little tidbits into my stories.

I freely admit that being cremated after death is something that I want no part of. The idea of flames consuming my body or that of my loved ones doesn’t sit well with me. Some folks love the idea though because it allows their relatives to keep their remains on the fireplace mantle or spread the ashes wherever they want.