Still can’t get enough of Mario Kart even though Nintendo’s been pimping the series out on every platform? Grab this Mario Kart R/C racer and make your own races. Well, actually, all your races would be Mario vs. Mario vs. Mario. Unless, of course, you get dress one up in a Barbie dress, cover another in dog fur, and spray paint the third with green and shave off his love handles. Then you’d really have a Mario Kart race. – Jason Chen
Product Page [Think Geek via Gizmodude]
Despite announcing these pretty neat looking iPod docks back in January, Griffin’s only getting around to shipping them now. If you recall, the Amplifi is a standard-looking iPod dock with a PowerMate stuck on the front for volume control. Like a wheel in the sky, perhaps.
The Journi, on the other hand, is a world’s apart, since it’s a battery powered dock that lasts 8-10 hours on a single charge and gives you music when you take the midnight train going anywhere.
Both are available now and go for $149 (Amplifi) and $129 (Journi). Please do not discontinue your beliefs.
Oh those Brits. On Monday they were kvetching about a Wi-Fi-induced “health time bomb.” Now they’re telling you to keep laptops out of the, um, laps of your oh-so-precious children because it’s like dropping—oh the horror—a mobile phoneright into into their pocket in terms of signal exposure. That $100-but-really-$175 laptop’s not looking so great now, is it?
Apparently, children are pussies “and are much more sensitive than adults to dangers such as pollutants like lead and UV radiation.” Bah, if you want them to grow up to be hardcore geeks I say take the George Carlin approach and temper them in raw radiation. – Matt Buchanan
Unfortunately not a real product, this Russian-designed SpongeBob USB Drive looks like your kids’ favorite character when empty, but fills up to a gigantic blowfish when full. Although cool, the concept doesn’t make any sense. SpongeBob is a sponge, not a blowfish. Otherwise he’d be called BlowfishBob. Get it together, Russians.
It’s of the same design as the flashbags, which get full when full. Neat, but ultimately unusable because your drive will spend most of its time somewhere in between, which takes up unnecessary space. – Jason Chen
Design Page [Plusminus via Dailygadget via Nerd Approved]
At first we thought this was a lighting detector (for photographers), but upon closer inspection we realized it was a lightning detector. You know, the type that tells you if there’s lightning. The thing has a convenient belt clip and tells you whether lightning’s 20-40 miles away, 12-24 miles away, 6-12 miles away, or less than 6 miles way.
We’re not sure how well this works, but it’s probably more useful than relying on your own eyesight to tell you whether Storm’s coming. Yes, we’re talking about the X-Men character. She’s very angry. – Jason Chen
Product Page [Strikealert via Gizmodude]
If anyone takes their R&D seriously, it’s the US Army, who produces sweet combat tech on a consistent basis, from grenade bots to paralyzing searchlights. The Plasma Acoustic Shield System continues that fine tradition. I mean, come on, it has the word “plasma” in it, so it has to be awesome.
The tech behind it, “dynamic pulse detonation,” uses an “intense” laser pulse to generate a ball of plasma, which is followed up by a second laser pulse that produces a supersonic shockwave to along with it—bright lights and big sounds to shock and awe, in other words.
Alright, so if you’re not that impressed, just wait—the same builder, Stellar Photonics, is hawking a laser rifle to the army that would be able to frag foes from over a mile away. Lethal. Laser. Sniper. Rifle. Yeah. – Matt Buchanan
Plasma shield may stun and disorientate enemies [New Scientist Tech via Slashdot]
You crazy people love lamps, whether they’re the coolest lamps ever by Frank Buchwald, or these pretty darn cool recycled lamps by Martin Carujo. Martin creates each lamp individually from junk he finds, and gives them the “work of art” touch that puts them over and above standard cool lamps you buy at the store.
If you’re interested in getting one, send martin an email at powerpotatoes@hotmail.com. From his two samples above, you can see that they’ve really got that ’50s era Sci Fi look to them. Which may make a great present for Father’s Day if your dad’s an old school Sci Fi geek. And if so, it’s a wonder he managed to bag a lady and conceive you. – Jason Chen
Martin Corujo’s lamps’ [Treehugger via Nerd Approved]
It must be take out week this week, and if you didn’t get enough of take out goodness with the Take Out Container lamps, these Take Out Container Containers should satisfy you in the moo goo gai pan. These are ceramic containers that you can actually use to hold stuff. Be it flowers, actual other take out containers, or soy sauce packets, these containers will, er, hold them.
Despite being slightly less classy than the take out lamps, these containers are still neat and really accentuate the fact that you eat Chinese take out way too much. – Jason Chen
Product Page [Wrapables via Cooking Gadgets]
We’re actually fans of Meizu’s players, despite (or maybe because of) their similarities to Apple’s offerings. Their latest, the Meizu M3 Music Card, has 8GB of storage, 1.5-inch display, FM radio, 20-hour battery life, and a $100 price point.
You can get 2 and 4GB models for $65 and $80, which really makes this a lot cheaper than getting a Nano. Too bad you can’t use this with the Nike+iPod kit, which we’re still cursing as the reason why we’re forced to buy a player we otherwise don’t really need. Anything to get sexy, we suppose. – Jason Chen
Ultraslim Meizu M3 Music Card Video Preview [TechEBlog]
No pictures yet, but EpiZENter claims to have some details on the upcoming Creative player being released in may. Supposedly, it’s called the Zen Stone and have a very small form factor—think iPod Shuffle sized. It’s going to come in five different colors, be priced at less than $50, and have a simple user interface.
Our gut reaction is this Stone is going to be shaped somewhat like the MOTO PEBL—you know, like a stone—and have playback buttons on the front and a minimal screen. Or maybe even no screen, if they’re going up against the Shuffle. – Jason Chen
New Zen coming Next Month? [EpiZENter]
