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Lego Death Star Video Requires Lots of Mental Pew-Pew
Posted by Gizmodo US Edition at 10:30 PM on June 21, 2008
Our friend Nannan Zhang from Brothers Brick is now in Chicago attending Brickworld, the annual convention for all things Lego. He was able to snap this cool video on the new US$400 Death Star diorama, showing how things move, including the working trash compactor. I still think they should make one to the scale of the Millennium Falcon, but I guess that could probably alter Earth's orbit. As an alternative, they should release a Lego stormtrooper mini-cloning facility. [Brothers Brick]
MIT mobile experience lab's latest experiment is The Cloud, a pseudo-organic life form made of carbon glass that perceives humans using hundreds of sensors. It responds with sounds and light, using more than 15,000 individually-controlled optical hairs. That's 64 kms of fibre optics inside this 4-metre long furry. After seeing it in action, I have to admit that there's something strangely sensual and even erotic about it. Or maybe it's just the pretty girl in the tight pink dress caressing it in the video.
Behold the biggest Lego aeroplane in the world, made after the largest passenger aeroplane in the world, the Airbus A380. Made at a 1:25 scale-2.9 metres long, 3.2-metre wingspan98 cms tall—the Lego A380 uses 220 pounds (100kg) of bricks. That's a mindblowing 75,000 pieces in eight colours—
There's a Lucid Dream Machine sleeping mask on Instructables that pulses LEDs in your eyelids four hours after you fall asleep, waking you up just enough to notice your dreams and control their outcomes. The mask requires a fair bit of soldering and programming experience, so it isn't for DIY luddites like me. Which is good, because my sleep is too precious and my dreams are too weird to want one of these anyway. [
Hobbymedia spotted this gigantic Ultraman at the Tokyo Toy Show 2008. It's a gigantic Ultraman that's made up of tiny little Ultramen. Or mans. The whole thing looks to be about the size of 10 average Japanese attendees if you stacked them up correctly. What's also interesting about Tokyo Toy Show is that they've got three separate bathroom categories, men, women, and defecating toddlers. [
Next month, a commercial satellite named the GeoEye-1 will go into the Earth's orbit. Its highest resolution photos--shots that will spot a 40cm beachball--will be reserved for military use. However, slightly lower resolution imagery will be made available in the commercial sector, like Google Earth.
Awhile ago, 
The third eye or "Hard-Ware" concept jacket by designer Paul Coudamy gives the wearer an expanded range of vision by awkwardly integrating a micro-camera on the back. The device records all of the people behind you laughing at your ugly jacket and then transmits those embarrassing images to an awkwardly integrated monitor located on the wrist. I can see how something like this could be useful from a safety perspective, but something needs to be done about the style before anyone in their right mind would wear it.
Japanese kids and otaku need slightly more motivation than the rest of us to save money, and to that end, Takara Tomy has made a piggy bank with an RPG game built right on there. It's called Bank Quest (was Final Bank Fantasy taken?) and you can buy weapons and armour for your dude from the savings you place inside. That reminds us of the RPG Toilet we saw in Japan one time that rewarded us for the size, weight and consistency of he deuce we dropped. Wait, that might not have happened. [
At the risk of sounding less than 100% diesel masculine, I'll admit that I absolutely adore this comic strip on computer love. Click the link for the whole story, but I found this panel alone somewhat poignant in a it's-late-afternoon-so-I'm-searching-for-life's-meaning sort of way. [
When I think of snow globes, images of pleasant Christmas settings usually come to mind. Even now, on a hot summer's day, the thought is kind of refreshing. However, it seems that artists Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz must have had a traumatic incident involving snow globes, because the imagery they have created in their Travelers series is just a tad on the disturbing side. Hit the following gallery to see what I mean. If you want go a step further and actually purchase one, they can be had for US$750 apiece. [
This cute 800 DPI optical mouse with a built-in speaker slides out like a mobile phone to reveal a keypad for VoIP calls. It has an LCD display for Caller ID and switches between mouse and phone functions automatically. It also looks much cooler than 
Fortune has a nice package for Bill Gates' upcoming 
Poised and waiting for ATI's latest graphics card to hit, Nvidia immediately fired off the 9800 GTX+, a nimbler version of its behemoth 9800 GTX, aggressively priced at US$229 to put serious pressure on the US$199 HD 4850. Benchmarks comparing the two weren't available yesterday, but PC Perspective has 'em up now. In short, while the HD 4850 can mostly keep up with Nvidia's older, regular 9800 GTX, the steroid-injected 9800 GTX+ has enough juice to edge it out in almost every single benchmark. The Radeon HD 4850 has about a month on the shelf to itself before the 9800 GTX+ hits though. Check out PC Perspective for more graphs and numbers than your brain wants to deal with on a Friday. [
I already have a GPS unit but I'll be dammed if I'm not throwing it out because the guys at Mio have come up with a Knight Rider branded GPS unit with voice prompts by the one and only 
Wilson caught this limited edition Red OLPC at the company's headquarters near MIT's campus in Cambridge today. The limited edition run of 100 is made for developers working on the dual boot Sugar Linux and Windows XP system, and has specs identical to the regular OLPC, except 
For many of us, the first day of summer starts just before midnight tonight. That means it is time to start thinking about how to beat the heat when the temperatures soar and the air conditioning unit in your home or office inevitably breaks down. In this scenario, survival means being prepared for anything. The following summertime gadgets will ensure that you have all of your bases covered.
Japanese TV broadcaster NHK has demonstrated 
The U.S. military has been running two prototype generators that run on leftovers, shredded documents and ammunition wrappers at their headquarters in Iraq. The Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery (TGER) works by breaking down garbage into small bits and then heating it up until it becomes a synthetic gas and then combining it with the ethanol produced from the fermenting of foods and liquids. The result is a fuel capable of running the generators.
HTC's installing an updated ROM on all the Touch Diamonds they're shipping out in Europe now, which hopefully will fix the 
Jacobs Digital Photo & Video, a UK camera supplier, is boasting a "a big surprise on the 1st July 2008, a major supplier will be announcing a brand new SLR." The consensus seems to be that it'll be 
As reported from an NBC affiliate, this surveillance video (from May 21st) has just been released that depicts a particularly vicious attack on a Columbus, OH, bus--all to acquire an iPhone. A hooded teen lunges at a man who was wearing headphones on his way off the bus. No one did anything to stop the attack (not that you can blame a woman with child for not stepping in). Surprisingly, despite sustaining injury from blows to the face and body, the passenger did not lose his iPhone. Anyone with info on the teen is asked to call 614-645-8477. [
I recently had the opportunity to learn more about TiVo's award-winning remote control when I met with their Senior Director of Consumer Engineering Paul Newby, father of the TiVo remote. Aside from hearing the story of how the remote slowly sprouted into the "Peanut," I found out some unknown stories behind the clicker. Stuff like TiVo butting heads with Sony, rare remote colours that no one outside TiVo will ever own (or see until now). Or how the remote could get a QWERTY or lose all its buttons in favour of a touchscreen. As I sat down with Paul and began to weed through containers of foam molds and old remote prototypes, I asked him to start from the beginning and explain how TiVo had turned a Peanut into one of the world's most loved remotes.
After all 
With ATI's latest Radeon graphics card already 
While many of us may ooh and ahh at the new