Cameron, a student at Cornell University, built an analogue amp/feedback system, and then wired his muscles up to the thing via electrodes. It’s kind of like a Theramin, but more weird. A doctor in the comments suggests fitting different voltages to each of the twelve muscles in the arm to vary the sound. I suggest shaving your whole body, covering yourself with electrodes, pantsing the analogue amp and then going for a run. Cacophony rules. [Music Thing]
We’ve shown you lots of weird and wonderful gizmos that DIY electronics fans have made using the powerful Arduino board, and now there’s a new option: the Nano. It’s not very much bigger than a stick of gum, and comes with full USB support and almost the same functionality as the bigger Diecimila board: immediately I start to think of the potential uses that makers will put this to. Its diminutive size means it’ll fit in more pocketable devices, I suspect. Available in June for US$44.95. [Makezine via Crunchgear]
It seems as if we are being bombarded with ingenious applications for the iPhone, and iDial is no different. Basically a rotary dial on the touchscreen, it’s probably more time-consuming than useful, but chapeau for coolness. Shame the video is so blurred, though. [Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]
These spanky Olon speakers from Mythos Audio were launched at the Munich High-End Audio show last month. Standing over five feet high, they’re made of two-tone stacked birch plywood and have all sorts of meaty tweety goodness inside. Find out what, and see another pic, below.
It may be way too early on Monday morning to get you pondering the inner workings of your IQ and EQ, but nevertheless here’s this new gizmo from our favourites Brando. It’s a puzzle supposedly designed to improve both of those measures of intelligence, working in a sort-of, but not quite, Rubik’s Cube kind of way. The idea is that as you twist and wiggle the the cone-like wings of the puzzle, trying to match up the colours on each face, you’re working on your right brain (with spatial reasoning and mental imagery) and your left brain (strong nonverbal logic). Both halves of my brain are currently stalled and needing a coffee, but then maybe a spin with this toy would perk me up just as well. Available now for US$14.90. [Brando]
These scaled-down replicas of walking coke dispensers found on the streets of Japan would be cute additions to anyone’s desk. As well as the black Coke Zero model above, there’s a regular version, and they come in the most fabulous of retro boxes. They were available on eBay, but it looks like they’re currently sold out. Perhaps it’s worth contacting the seller to see if he’s going to import any more. Gallery, including a picture of one the life-sized vending machines, after the jump.
Kazuya Koike’s Sensor Tray Lamp, an ABS resin and polycarbonate tray which uses four LED lamps to light up when you put something on top, is one of those ideas that would be perfect if you were organised enough to always put your personal stuff on the same place. Knowing me, its cool design—available in sand white, charcoal grey, and wenge brown—would probably disappear in a mountain of unopened mail and bills in its first week here. If you are one of those organised people, however, you may want to buy it for US$77. [Ideaco via Apartment Theraphy]
Six months after Pentax released the Optio V10, the japanese company has upped the stakes with the V20. The slimline point-and-shoot has upped the zoom from 3x to 5x, as well as increasing Digital SR mode to ISO 3200 and ISO 6400. With a nice, big 3-inch LCD screen on the back, smile recognition and blink detection, (Earl Hickey, this one’s for you) the V20 will be available in Japan next month for the equivalent of US$288 Bonus shot of the V20 after the jump.
If you were obsessing over Vodafone’s (and Optus’s) upcoming release of the iPhone, then you might try and extrapolate all kinds of hidden meanings from their decision to cut the cost of their BlackBerry data plans.
After all, the iPhone is likely to use even more data than a BlackBerry, and with the prices for data still quite expensive, you could argue that this is a move by Vodafone to try and test the waters for their iPhone release.
But we won’t do that. Instead, we’ll take it as it is. Vodafone have cut their BlackBerry data packages to start from $14.95 for 1.5MB of data (or approximately 500 emails) or $24.95 for unlimited data. Of course, when they say unlimited, they mean anything but. And you need to be on a $79 plan or a $49 plan to be eligible for those prices too.
They’re also giving away the BlackBerry Pearl 8110 for free on a $79 cap over 24 months.
This isn’t a bad deal, but it isn’t quite as good as 3′s Blackberry deal. Although in the case of 3, if you start downloading emails outside of their coverage zone… your wallet will say ouch. So weigh up what’s best for you before you make your choice…
[Vodafone]
If you could use one word to describe a digital SLR, chances are “lazy” wouldn’t be at the top of your list. That’s because most of them are hard-working, solid-performing machines that generally perform above and beyond the call of duty.
So why would you want to buy your camera a beanbag, the lazy man’s security blanket? The answer to this riddle lies inside the beanbag’s design. For instead of being a place of relaxation and lethargy, the Cam-Pod’s four separate sections can be folded up to act like a miniature tripod to keep your camera still.
And because it’s a beanbag, not a tripod, it means that you can rest it on objects that usually wouldn’t exactly be camera-friendly, like rocks, knives and nuclear weapons.
