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Amazing Origami Star Trek, Star Wars Spaceships Make Good Use of Dollars
Posted by Kit Eaton at 3:45 AM on October 28, 2008
Spaceships, famous sci-fi ones from Star Trek and Star Wars, made of cunningly folded dollar bills—the Millenium Falcon takes just three dollar bills—and possessing fantastic detail. Enough said. Well, that and the fact it seems a pretty good use for dollar notes nowadays. Check out the gallery below, and more of origamist (?) Won Park's work at the DeviantArt link. [DeviantArt via Dvice]
This has to be the dream of every kid and adult on Earth: Make a paper plane and throw it from orbit. Well, there's one lucky Japanese astronaut who is going to get nine of them, a paper space shuttle fleet which will go up to the International Space Station. Then, they will be dropped from orbit into a 400km, two-day flight to the ground. If you are thinking that these origami spacecrafts won't be able to resist the re-entry, think again: They can sustain Mach 7 speeds (8,500kph) and 200-degree Celsius temperatures.
No doubt about it, this is one bad-ass-looking desk. But the 3Fold from Formtank is more than just a striking visual design—it is also impressive because it was cut and folded from a single sheet of steel using CAD/CAM technology. Formtank bills it as an excellent CEO desk, which is why it takes CEO money to buy one. Constructing your own version starts at around US$7,000. [
Even with Netflix's reusable mailers, the little torn-off panels begin to add up. Of course, you could just throw these away. Or if you're a bit more pretentious about it, you could recycle them and tell the whole block what a fantastic recycler you are—after all, some people just throw these things away. Or, if you're really great—and by "great" I mean freaky-obsessive compulsive—you'll fold these scraps into origami. Full instructions await those who are finished tweezing microscopic shreds of red paper from their rug while patting their heads and singing The Wheels on the Bus. [
As if yesterday's 
A real Iron Man would be too powerful for this world. That's why origami artist Brian Chan used a bit of restraint while constructing his own super suit and utilised only one piece of paper for the fabrication. Our own Jason Chen calls it "beef jerky man." Takes one to know one, Jason! Here's a shot of just the tiny mask:
Microsoft has released its second version of the Origami Experience, making it available as a free download for Ultra-Mobile PC users with Windows Vista. The OE 2.0 software includes Picture Password, Weather, RSS functionality, an e-mail client, calender and other web features - basically what you get with Vista, but more touch screen friendly. OE 1.0 was barely used, partially because UMPCs had yet to really catch on in January 2007, but also because it made them slow down to a crawl. Hopefully, they've rectified that problem this time around. [
If you find yourself with some time on your hands during this long Memorial Day weekend, making your own folding origami lamp could prove to be a good time-killer while you wait for 
Researchers at USC's Information Sciences Institute produced this amazing pyramid, around 30 microns across, which may one day be used to deliver precise micro- or nano-doses of medication. The structures, dubbed "voxels" are made of silicon, cut into flats and then folded up and sealed to enclose tiny volumes of space inside. The team hasn't stopped at pyramids either— they've tried flat envelopes, cubes and partial dodecahedra, but these don't close together the way the pyramid does.
