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.
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]
