We’ve seen electronic cigarettes before, but not one that charges via USB.
Electronic cigarettes are OK. But when you need to tell the world that your tobacco habit is tops, you need an electronic cigar.
Remember the ’80s? You know, the decade that playing a beat on your chest passed as music? Just me? Wow…I am getting old. Anyway, you can relive those days with a high-tech upgrade thanks to this electronic drum kit shirt from Think Geek. That’s right, you can actually play seven different drum sounds through a built-in speaker by tapping on different areas of the shirt. As you can see in the video, the effect is awesome—but the whole thing has reminded me of Bobby McFerrin, which has reminded me of that God-awful Don’t Worry Be Happy song, which is now deeply entrenched in my head. Damn you, Bobby McFerrin…damn you to hell. [Think Geek]
Kids nowadays are so showered with electronic goodies that I suspect a traditionally-lit birthday cake just wouldn’t cut the mustard for some of them. Luckily, over at Instructables they’ve got a recipe for DIY electronic “candles” that actually lets you blow them out. Its flickering LEDs are accompanied by a thermistor warmed above room-temp by a nearby resistor, and accompanied by a microcontroller. When you puff hard on the thermistor, the circuit senses the temperature drop and switches off some LEDs. Brilliant, but sadly it seems you can’t get extra wishes by blowing them all out at once. The demo video is undeniably funny though: a fake birthday part thrown by the builders.
Does the world really need another steam powered anything? And if it does, would an electronic newspaper be the most appropriate thing to be steam powered? We don’t have any answers for these questions. All we know is that this Japanese setup can turn a page in all of 15 seconds, making it a whole two seconds faster than our “pull down our pants and turn it with our ass” approach. [Digital World Tokyo via Uber Gizmo]
To be honest, I wish that I never learned of the Josef Fritzl story in the first place—but it was hard to avoid given the severity of the crimes committed. However, the fact that a man could imprison his daughter in a basement for 24 years and father her seven children is too horrifying and baffling to ignore. Over the last few days we have learned the full magnitude of the events that transpired—three of his incestuous offspring (aged 19,18 and 5) had never seen the sunlight until their release and one of the seven children died due to inadequate care. We also learned that he managed to keep the whole thing a secret—even from his wife. The question is…how?
Although it sounds like something you might find tucked away in Monica Lewinsky’s bedside table, the electronic cigar is a SMOKE. Give it its full title, “Natural Wood Effect Electronic Cigar” and you would think that it belonged in Bill’s bedroom, though. It works on the same principle as most electronic cigarettes—see how in the diagram below.
Having the internet be constantly displayed no matter where we look is a dream we’ve had for years, but having to shove an electronic contact into our eyes makes us think twice. This prototype device, which has red LEDs and can be worn for up to 20 minutes (tested on rabbits) with no adverse effects. The contacts beam images directly into the eyes, which means you can have either superhuman vision by feeding a zoomed in image to the device, or even heads-up displays like Arnold had in T2 or RoboCop had in RoboCops 1, 2 and 3. [MedGadget]
If you’re not exactly down with the state of e-voting in the US (and you really shouldn’t be), the Election Assistance Committee (a federal oversight committee that now has reign over certifying e-voting machines) wants to hear about it and what you think of their recently proposed guidelines (PDF, 600 pages). More »
