Saturday, June 21, 2008
Toys
Lego Death Star Video Requires Lots of Mental Pew-Pew
10:30PM Gizmodo US Edition | 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] More »
Design
The Cloud Is Your Furryoptics Best Friend, Strangely Turns Me On
9:34PM Gizmodo US Edition | 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. More »
Toys
Lego Airbus A380 Is Biggest Lego Aeroplane in the World
10:10AM Gizmodo US Edition | 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—15 Lego Millennium Falcons. With that amount of bricks, and knowing how long my Falcon is taking, I’m not surprised that it took 600 hours for the entire team of professional Legoland model builders to assemble this beast. [Giz's Lego Trip] More »
Gadgets
DIY Sleeping Mask Puts You In Control of Your Dreams
9:50AM Benny Goldman | 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. [Instructables via Make] More »
Toys
Gigantic Ultraman Made Out Of Thousands of Tiny Ultramans
9:30AM Jason Chen | 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. [Hobby Media] More »
Cameras
GeoEye-1 Commercial Satellite Packs Military Power
9:10AM Mark Wilson | 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. More »
Software
Mac OS X Snow Leopard for Servers Getting ZFS
9:00AM Brian Lam | Awhile ago, there were rumours of Leopard getting Sun’s clean-sheet designed file system from the future, ZFS. OS X server is getting it in Snow Leopard, according to Apple’s preview page. The consumer version doesn’t look to be receiving the theoretically incorruptible file sytem yet, but we can hope it’ll trickle down eventually. [Apple via ZDNet] More »
Gadgets
Third-Eye Jacket Records People Laughing at You Behind Your Back
8:50AM Sean Fallon | 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. More »
Games
Tomy’s Piggy Bank Comes With Built-In RPG
8:30AM Jason Chen | 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. [Akihabara News via Boing Boing Gadgets] More »
Entertainment
