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Lego. Mindstorms RCX. Donkey Kong. Rolling barrels. Donkey Kong throws rolling barrels. Mario jumps. And jumps. And jumps. All synchronised. Dan Kressin even generated the game start tune with Lego. After seeing it in action--and hearing the rattling noise it makes--I want this on the wall of my bedroom, as my alarm clock. Videos and high res pictures after the jump.
A couple spent an eternity covering their Volkswagen Beetle with small oak pieces that look like fish scales, and replacing some parts with carved wood equivalents. I can't decide if its the dragon look or its picnic-baskety flavor, but being unconditional fans of the classic Beetle and wood in general, we love it. The best thing is that it works perfectly, as you can see in the video:
Like to game but hate unplugging and putting away the various peripherals you need? For US$379 you can get Digital Edge's Gaming Table, which fits every gaming gadget you could possibly own, plus three 21-inch LCD monitors. Granted, I haven't fired up the PC for anything in a long while, but I don't remember that many games requiring more than a keyboard and a mouse. If you're more hardcore than me though, and you have a couple hundred bones to spare, the Gaming Table is available for order all over the continental United States. [Dvice]
With all the hacks going on this weekend at DefCon, the world's largest annual hacker convention, perhaps the most embarrassingly easy to crack was Medeco's high-security locks. According to a group of security researchers, all you need to get into an Medeco M3 lock, used in sensitive facilities such as the White House and the Pentagon, is a low-res image of someone's key and a credit card.
Pendulum Studios, the guys who brought you the in-game movies in Stuntman 2 and are working on the forthcoming Silent Hill 5, have released a couple videos showing off their AlterEgo team's proprietary facial performance software. The program brings out some of the most realistic and precise 3D animated expressions available to the market today. When you've finished watching the (kind of hilarious) video above, check out the company's hi-res demo videos as well. [Technabob]
Researchers at UC Davis have designed contact lenses that can give you an in-eye checkup to make sure there's nothing wrong, as well as dispense medication automatically when needed. The "smart" lenses use an organic polymer called PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane, if you're nasty) that detects eye pressure and sends that data to a computer--important updates to get if you're at risk for glaucoma.
Kotaku's just got a tip about an upcoming silver-coloured DS Lite that's supposedly going to be in stores September 7. Other areas (Japan, Europe) have already had this, so it's not a big deal, but if you really need to complement your Silver Surfer ensemble, here ya go. [Kotaku]
The folks at Crackberry has obtained marketing photos of RIM's new non-3G smartphone, the Blackberry Javelin, which gives us the down low on the details of the phone. Javelin will contain a 512 MHz processor, 256 MB of onboard flash memory plus a hot-swappable microSD slot, a hi-res 460 x 360 HVGA+ display, Wi-Fi with UMA and GPS, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. What briefly piques my interest though is the promise of "integrated lens/LCD technology." Does that mean a second camera hidden behind the display or is it just more ad speak for "the display is pretty"? The release date still seems to be slated for 2009. [Crackberry]
I don't think I'll ever understand the type of conspicuous consumption that produces junk like this: A leather iPhone case that's embedded with 272 diamonds (6.8 karats worth) fashioned into luxury goods purveyor Noreve's St. Tropez logo. The asking price is US$14,990. You heard me right: US$14,990 to keep your iPhone from scratching. The company's VP of sales, Sam Brust, says the case is "yet another step we are taking to help the Noreve brand become one of the most unique and recognised case manufacturers in the world," which I feel like actually means "We are trying to make sure that anytime someone sees you with a Noreve product, the first thing that springs to their mind will be that super rich asshole." [Born Rich]
Sure, some of us remember using the Commodore 64, but do any of us recall what the ads for it were like? Boingboing has aggregated a wonderful collection of 101 classic computer advertisements by everyone from AT&T (yeah, I forgot they tried their hand in making PCs too) to Texas Instruments. Aah, to be back in a world where everything fit inside a bulky keyboard and displays were monochromatic. [Boing boing]
PSP Fanboy just learned that Sony's discontinuing their 2200mAh PSP battery pack, an official aftermarket addon that would allow you to game for up to 12 hours or so. What's the deal? We're not sure, but someone from Sony said they're looking at other ways to "service the consumer," which might say to us that they're looking at ways to extend battery life without making the back of the PSP bulge out in an unseemly manner. And just when we learned how to hack your PSP for homebrew apps too. [PSP Fanboy]
Are you curious about exactly how drunk that guy screaming Livin' on a Prayer at your local karaoke jaunt is? Sneak a breathalyser into the microphone and you'll soon determine whether his BAC has anything to do with his preference for off-key Bon Jovi. Randy at the fffffatlab has posted a cool little Instructables for a microphone with a "system for the inconspicuous collection of blood-alcohol content level data sets." Despite the great number of steps involved, Randy insists that it's one of the easiest projects he's ever undertaken. I can see this also being useful for producers who need to know when to actually start recording the ramblings of reality show contestants. [Instructables via Technabob]
The latest version of the iPhone jailbreak/unlock utility PwnageTool is available now, and includes both Cydia and Installer 4 beta. You still can't unlock your iPhone 3G with this, but you can jailbreak it to use apps that aren't purchased from the official iTunes Store. Yeah, you know what to do by now. Go grab it. [iPhone Dev]
Watching videos of NES enthusiasts playing the Super Mario Bros. theme on weird stuff is always fun, and here's one of musician Randy George on the theremin. What's a theremin? It's a Russian invention that's also one of the earliest electronic musical instruments ever created. Players move their hands around the Theremin's antennas, controlling the sound's frequency and amplitude (pitch and volume). Randy's working on recording a classical Theremin album--I wonder if it'll include his version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy as bonus material. [Laughing Squid]
So for those of you who caught the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony last night--Holy crap, right? The synchronisation, the music, the timed fireworks; it was a spectacle so awesome that for entire stretches of it, I couldn't really think of anything to say but "woah." The show owes a lot of its splendor to the absolutely amazing amount of technology that went into it and Chinese news sources now have a breakdown of what was employed to create something that'd make a billion nationals proud. Some crazy stats:
