Category: Strange + Wonderful

Do you have too many adapters plugged into in your power strip? This decidedly Flinstonian piece of office equipment eliminates the need for electricity by using hamster power. As little hammy pedals his butt off, he generates his own shredded paper bedding.

I’ve seen some crazy robots in my time, but this one could take the cake. It’s a replica of everyone’s favorite trashcan robot, R2-D2, running on steam power. The R2-S2 robot uses compressed steam to drive the bot around, spewing jets of water vapor into the air as it goes for a ride.

A group of scientists working with the National Human Genome Research Institute claim to have identified the specific gene that controls the size of dogs. Without getting into all of the scientific details (I flunked biology,) the researchers screened a group of almost 500 Portuguese water dogs (a breed with lots of size variance,) and sequenced their DNA to identify the differences.

Now you can bring the famous Northern Lights inside your house with this nifty light projector from Japan. The Genso Kukan Aurora simulates the beautiful atmospheric phenomena known as the Aurora Borealis and projects the images on your wall or ceiling.

For some time now, there’s been buzz about the Military working on a new “crowd control system” which works by blasting people with an invisible, yet highly uncomfortable electromagnetic blast. Well it turns out that they did a little demonstration of the weapon on some members of the press back in January, and here’s a clip of the reaction of one such test subject: The device, known as the Active Denial System (which probably refers to the fact that the Military will actively deny using it if it ever comes to real world use) hits its victims with a non-lethal blast of EM radiation at a range of up to 500 yards away.

Are your kids not sedentary enough? This LCD television from Hannspree lets your little ones enjoy all their favorite product-placement-enhanced TV programming, all the while reminding them of what they’ll probably be eating for dinner tonight, junk food.

For the low, low price of just $250,000 you can have your very own jet pack that you can strap onto your back. The TAM Rocket Belt is a complete rocket pack system which is custom fitted to the exact specifications of the pilot.

While there are plenty of spill-resistant keyboards out there, this is the first time I’ve seen one that can actually be washed in the sink. Unotron’s line of washable keyboards, mice and Smartcard readers can all be submerged under running water and cleaned with antibacterial cleansers.

If this season’s storyline on 24 has you worried about the threat of nuclear terrorism, you might want to pick up one of these little gadgets. The $160 NukAlert keychain radiation monitor automatically warns you of the unseen atomic threat anywhere you go.

Check out this rare DELTA-C vintage Soviet computer (if you can call 1991 “vintage”) that I found over on eBay. It’s apparently a clone of the classic Sinclair ZX personal computer, but it sure looks like something you’d find down in a Dharma station on LOST.

I stumbled across this video over on Technovelgy this morning and thought it worth a mention. The HUBO FX-1 is a humanoid robot that happens to have a seat on top of it instead of a head.

Japan produces some of the most important innovations in the world of technology, but they also are known for making some of the oddest gadgets ever invented. This one is no exception. This strange looking device from SEGATOYS produces three-dimensional “healing” sounds which are designed to help you relax.

Here’s an odd one from Hong Kong importer Brando. It’s an external hard disk enclosure that looks exactly like an internal hard drive. The drive enclosure is literally a large mock version of a hard drive that you can place any 2.5-inch IDE drive inside of, and connects to your PC or Mac via a USB 2.0 port.

NASA is thinking about a new technology to save the lives of astronauts if something goes wrong at launch time. The proposed new emergency escape system is actually based on those vertical drop roller-coasters that have popped up at amusement parks around the country.

Police officers in England now have a strange new trick up their sleeves in the war against crime. The Roboglove is a special glove that police can wear when patting down suspects that contains a miniature metal detector.

The tracking technology known as RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) is showing up everywhere from grocery stores, to shipping containers, to gas station, to toll roads. Now, your intestines can join in the radio wave fun! Kodak has filed this patent application for RFID tagged capsules that could be swallowed to track activity in a patient’s digestive system.