newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/amCyVpY4cQI&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams":[] ,"width":500,"height":332.5,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );On display at Art Basel in sunny Miami, this LED sculpture from Troika bathes the floor with 50 light-based raindrops using a series of Swarovski crystal lenses and moving mechanical arms. Very soothing! [YouTube via Engadget] More »
Christmas shopping can be tough. Christmas shopping for that special someone can be tougher – especially if that someone happens to be a theoretical physicist. Luckily, for the brainiac who has everything, there’s this beautiful Calabi-Yau Manifold crystal. More »
Oregon Scientific are releasing a weather station studded with Swarovksi crystals. Yes, a weather station. Am I the only person who feels like their head wants to explode just so it doesn’t have to think about that unlikely combination any more? More »
I know what you want. You want an iPod nano, covered in 250 color-coordinated Swarovski crystals and donning Elton John’s signature. Wait, you don’t? WELL IT HELPS FIGHT AIDS YOU JERKS! DON’T YOU HATE AIDS???
newVideoPlayer("/New_Years_Ball.flv", 506, 423,"");At first glance, the new ball set to drop over Time’s Square this New Year’s Eve looks a lot like designs from years past. However, the updated ball is twice as big as previous versions (12-feet tall, 5,385kg) and it will be the first to be a permanent year-round fixture atop One Times Square. Besides its size, the ball is decked out with 2,668 Waterford Crystals and powered by 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDS that are capable of generating more than 16 million distinct colours and billions of patterns. Essentially, it’s a giant LivingColors lamp kaleidoscope for the world. [Times Square NYC]
Tokujin Yoshioka likes chairs as much as the next chair designer, but he’s not accustomed to using standard building materials. His latest project, the Venus Chair, is not built but grown. He shapes a sponge-like substrate called polyester elastomer into a sort of chair skeleton and then submerges it into a tank to grow crystals inside and out. The result is fit for Superman, except he’d never fit in this tiny scale model. He’d need something more like this full-blown La-Z-Boy version:
A new technology presented in the New Journal of Physics may lead to completely soundproof homes, cars, or any other space using a meta-material called sonic crystals. One of the developers, who is not Reed Richards but Dr José Sánchez-Dehesa of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, says that this “acoustic cloaking will deviate sound waves around the object that has to be cloaked.”
Despite the stigma, I’ve always wanted a pair of video goggles. I never did mind the nerd factor accompanying any piece of gear, at least not after admiring sci fi heroes like Cyclops of the X-men and Geordi from ST:TNG. But they’ve never been cheap or high-res enough until now. The Zeiss Cinemizer (US$400) and the Myvu Crystal (US$300) both do 640×480 resolution, which is best in class. And so today I’ll try to figure out which one is better headset. During it all, I will suspend all disbelief when it comes to the practicality of wearing a second screen for your video iPod on your face. I mean, what are you really saving here but neck cramps?
