Once in awhile, you find something that where practicality loses out to the powerful forces of all that is awesome. this Etch-A-Sketch based clock is one perfect example. This might be the coolest thing you’ll see all day.
Make Blog [Make]
This is exciting for me; when I was studying Neuroscience I wrote a paper on Vision Substitution Systems. Well, now the Boston Retinal Implant Program seem to actually have a prototype (for a different kind of blindness, but still) for a retina replacement device. Basically, it’s a freaking bionic eye.
The device is really cool, and it has to be waterproof, durable enough to last ten years in the body, and small enough to do its job while inside your little eyeball. The project spans multiple universities and hospitals and has been going on for decades, and they’re close to a working product. Can’t wait to get mine!
Eyes on prize: Visionary device gives hope [Boston Herald]
Force feedback plus six dimensions of movement — I like what I’m hearing so far.
This yet-to-be-named device has been in the workings for 11+ years by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and uses a bowl-shaped apparatus connected to a joystick, all of which sits inside a larger bowl-shaped apparatus that magnetically levitates the smaller bowl.
There are only ten such devices in the world so far but the project’s been spun off into a commercial company called Butterfly Haptics (web site here) and more details will be announced at a haptics conference in Reno on March 13th and 14th.
Sure, it’s no Microsoft’s Surface, but it’s pretty cool anyway. Using an array of infrared sensors and a CPU, the LED table tracks motion and activates the LCDs in response.
It’s not as expensive as Surface, but of course it does a whole lot less. That being said, $2,215 sounds a bit steep still.
The Wave Interactive LED Coffee Table [Cool Hunting]
The Polaroid brand refuses to die. Though you can’t get film for your camera anymore, Polaroid is all about using retro design and nostalgia to keep the name alive, and this clever mini digital photo frame is a great example.
It’s a concept, but one that could enter production soon, if they can come up with a cheap enough way to run it. It’s a Polaroid picture-shaped frame that acts just like an old school Polaroid photo, with a small whiteboard at the bottom to write cheeky messages on. What would be great is if they found a way to activate it by shaking, but that’s just wishful thinking at this point.
Digital Polaroid Frame [Product Dose]
So this isn’t really technology, but it’s a really geeky way to keep your to-do handy, if you’ll pardon the pun, which I hope you will.
You write your list on a special piece of paper-like material and then transfer the text to your hand, just like some sort of tattoo you’d get in CrackerJacks.
I’m sure somewhere there’s a similar product that allows you to create you own temporary tattoos. I need to find it.
Keep a to-do list in the palm of your hand [Popgadget]
Monotonous sitting in front of computer
provokes serious health damages!
Yes it does!
Or so says, er, somebody at HK-Ergonomics, the pastel-colored manufacturer of this innovative belt-like laptop stand thing. It doesn’t look very stable, but we like the overall idea. I’m going to try to get one of these for NAB, so I can walk and blog at the same time!
HK-Ergonomics Hip Office [Product page, thanks Andrew!]
Hello, children. Sit down please. There are three of you who didn’t get permission slips signed so you will have quiet study in the cafeteria. We’ll split you up into boys and girls and the boys will go in with Father Trenor and we’ll stay here, ladies. OK.
Thank you. You’re all in junior high now and old enough to be asking a number of questions. This is a time when we can all feel free to answer those questions about our bodies and the changes we’re going through. I have all of your questions here in this box and I’ll try to answer them all as thoroughly as I can. OK. Let’s start.
“What is a BSOD?” Ah. Excellent question. When a man loves a PC very much and starts installing strange software onto it, it causes the PC to become unstable. Sometimes this is is fine and nothing happens. Most software installs have a 95 percent effectiveness rate — remember, the only 100 percent safe way to compute is through abstinence — but sometimes something happens. That’s when Windows does a minidump, which is a small, easy to read file describing the problem. If you read the story in the package we presented you with at the end of this post, you’ll get some very cool information on how to read and handle minidumps all by yourself and even solve some major problems quickly and easily.
Now. The next question. “What is a dildo?”
Beat those bluescreen blues: what a Windows bluescreen actually means [APCMag]
How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and teachers? My name is some guy with an iPod and an onion and physics is my business and our very special business for today is electrolytes and onions. Man, Julius Sumner Miller was the bomb.
[Thanks, James!]
I think I’m beginning to understand the whole You Make It You thing, but I could be wrong. I think it’s very cool that MS is taking the laser engraving beyond some stupid text like Apple does, but you’re really not making it you, per se, when you’re using graphics from 18 different artists that includes 27 unique designs. Wait. No. That’s pretty damn cool and if you want text (up to three lines with graphics or five without) then you can have that, too. Aside from the Artist Series, there will be a Tattoo Series with 20 designs. Hopefully the Tattoo Series will be sans everything tribal because that’s been played out more than Chasey Lain’s you know what. The list of artists after the jump. Oh, and it’s all free.
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This will make people’s lives easier. That’s why I like Google, plain and simple.
Gas pump manufacturer Gilbarco Veeder-Root is rolling out 3,500 Google Maps-enabled touchscreen pumps around the country that “include an Internet connection and will display Google’s mapping service in color on a small screen. Motorists will be able to scroll through several categories to find local landmarks, hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station’s owner.”
I wish this video was lighter but these friends who created one of the most complex and amazing-tastic Halloween costumes I’ve ever seen. Click the jump to see them in their full still-photo glory or you can just enjoy seeing a Big Daddy and Little Sister dancing in the murky darkness, waiting to steal your ADAM.
[Thanks, Nathan]
Another user-generated diamond in the rough here. Skateboarder William Spencer has apparently “signed a deal to develop a skateboarding stunt series based on his clips on YouTube for MTV,” according to sources over at NewTeeVee.
It’s thought that the show will be called “Hollarado” (Spencer is from Colorado) and will feature Spencer and his friends performing insane stunts. And when I say insane, I mean insane. I’ve seen a fair amount of skateboarding videos in my day and the very last trick in the above video is absolutely, 100% mind-blowing. Unbelievable.
William Spencer: From YouTube to MTV [NewTeeVee]
Hey is that a life size LEGO replica of Hans Solo frozen in carbonite? Indeed it is!
There are some other pretty cool photos, including MC Escher’s “Relativity,” a 14-foot long Stegosaurus, a gigantic Loch Ness Monster partially submerged in a lake, and an even more gigantic aircraft carrier.
Enjoy!
Awesome Lego creations [srsly cool] via Digg
Linux, to me, is like all the girls in college when you’re still dating a girl from back home. Free, good looking, easy to use, and with a lot of cool, unique features and abilities. After a while, though, you end up missing what’s familiar to you so you head back to what’s comfortable even though it’s expensive, unstable, and needs constant tweaking to keep things running smoothly.
I don’t have the patience to go through a full install of Ubuntu but I also don’t think that running the Live CD does the operating system justice. If only there were an easy-to-use Windows installer that didn’t "require you to modify the partitions of your PC or to use a different bootloader." Enter Wubi.
Geoff Evila recently awoke from a 4-month coma and realized that he’d missed camping out for the launch of the iPhone.
His buddy Steve dropped by the Chandler, Arizona Apple Store and relayed Geoff’s story of an almost-deadly car crash turned 4-month coma and convinced the store’s employees to do their best to recreate the excitement of June 29th, the iPhone’s original launch date when Geoff showed up to purchase his iPhone.
The conceptual P’gasus wheelchair provides a cool look into what the future of personal transportation for people with disabilities will be like. It it based on technology similar to that of the Segway as movement is controlled by shifting the riders weight. Best of all, the chair can be adjusted into an upright position which would help the rider accomplish every day tasks. There are still a few problems to work out such as effectively balancing the chair in the extended position.
A similar chair is already available but it doesn’t look nearly as cool.
Pegasus WheelChair Concept [tuvie]
We here at CrunchGear fear the elderly and their strange powers, and so we revel in anything that will turn their gimlet eyes from our soft, tasty underbellies and back onto their daily pill ration. To wit: the Poppet, a solution to a fairly big problem.
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Remember when the coolest mod for your bike was sticking a baseball card in the spokes? That totally got the chicks didn’t it? I’m not sure if this will pick up the ladies, but it so damn cool. Everything retro makes me vomit these days, but this is cool and something I’d definitely consider if I had a bike. The streets of NYC are way too crazy for me, but if I ever get over my ‘itis’ I’d give these a whirl.
This DIY kit is comprised of 30 LEDs per wheel and is powered by two AA batteries. Your choices for graphics aren’t limited to Pac-Man, either. Coded in Python, the open software allows you to upload any bitmap image for the 256 radial pixels. Awesome. Kits start at $37.50.
Product Page [via Gearfuse]
The Actface from KDDI au in Japan has one of the craziest interfaces known to man. The three LCD screens alone would make anyone giddy, but it does the strangest thing when you press the keys. Details are pretty slim on the Actface. Plus, it’s a concept phone and it remains to be seen if this will make it into consumers’ hands.
Au Triple Screen Phone Still Lacks Something [Oh Gizmo]
