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Want to be the coolest guy in your neighbourhood? Slap a full-sized Viper MkII on your lawn. Too big? Well, how about sprucing up your office with President Roslin's desk? Or making yourself more intimidating by wearing Colonel Tigh's eyepatch? This is the motherlode, my friends.
As a kid, I raised my hand too often in class and looked forward to science projects. I drew pictures of space ships and aliens on my notebooks before rushing home after school to play on my IBM 386. As for many young nerds, school could make for a solitary life. I related to a set of books—the My Teacher Is an Alien series—better than I could with most of my lunch-table peers.
If you are in your mid 20s like me, chances are you've read the series, penned by Bruce Coville, one of the most acclaimed names in children's sci-fi. It's the ongoing story of a young boy named Peter who—kidnapped by an alien disguised as his teacher—visits other planets, travels on space ships and meets a universe of aliens first hand, before having to argue humanity's case against a galactic jury, lest they quarantine or even kill us for our warmongering ways. After rereading the series on a nostalgic rainy weekend, I decided to call up Coville and ask him what was going through his head when he wrote it all. It ends up, he's just as interesting now as I, at age eight, would have imagined him.
The devices Coville dreamed up for Peter's journey were amazing then, and still amazing now. Peter uses a URAT ("Universal Reader and Translator," kind of like a PDA on steroids) to teleport around a ship the size of New Jersey. Meanwhile his crush Susan is caught in a stasis forcefield, and his arch nemesis, Duncan the former dunce, is the smartest person alive following a zap to the brain. Some of the tech was and is farfetched, while much of what was once considered alien (literally) has become commonplace. The first book in the series was published back in 1989, before broadband, 3G wireless and laptops in every home.
3M's new Mobile ID Reader scans MRZ and RF chip data from passports and visas and immediately checks them against local or international watch lists by using wifi or GSM/GPRS EDGE networks. It seems like a great tool to further make you feel like you're living in some scary dystopian sci-fi novel, especially when you hear that dastardly monopolist Bill Gates got his little-loved Windows Mobile 6 OS onto the device.
Honestly, we'd have posted the Stimuli 3.0 lamp even if it did nothing special. Just look at it, sitting there all science fiction-y, like some huge alien computer's vulnerable data core. But it just so happens that the spherical shape and surrounding panels have a specific function, to constantly adjust the lamp's light levels to correspond with that coming in through the windows. By shifting around the panels with an internal 3 axis gearbox, light output can fill the light gap left by a waning sun, maintaining a constant light level through the day. Plus, it'll match your alien autopsy dinner table fabulously. [Cnatt via Yanko Design]
I think NBC's web-only Sci Fi series The Gemini Division is about an alien, or a robot, or an alien robot that somehow got Rosario Dawson to be its girlfriend. I like that. I also like the Rosario somehow got her deliciously moisturised hands on what looks like a "Windows Mobile" phone, which Screen Junkies was kind enough to point out. That phone ain't Windows Mobile. If that phone is Windows Mobile, I'm Diane Keaton. And let me tell you, Diane Keaton is a lot manlier than I can ever claim to be (and looks nicer in a suit). Maybe buff alien robot guy brought it from wherever he came from and gave it to her as a present?
As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation got ironsmithing genius Kogoro Kurata to display his insane 1:1 scale model of the Scopedog mecha from the 80s anime series VOTOMS. Weighing in at two tons and standing a full four meters tall, it dwarfed everything else at the exhibition. The cast iron structure was actually finished in 2005 and has been on display before at other Japanese conventions, but it still thrills every time it rears its mechanical head. Look at the detail on this thing!
So you've seen John Connor and you've met Marcus Wright, but where are the stills of the robots? Lucky for us, one intrepid Gizmodo reader searched through the Hi-res trailer to find us a good picture of what humanity's up against. Check out the colour corrected version! Is that bot wearing... cargo pants? [Terminator: Salvation at Giz] - Thanks Dimitris Karakatsanis!
For sci-fi and comic book movie fans, it doesn't get much better than right now. This week has brought both Dark Knight and the Watchmen trailer, and later this month, the Profiles in History auction house in Hollywood is opening up the prop vaults from just about every classic film over the last, oh, fifty years and isn't stopping until everything is gone, gone, gone! Marty's hover board? Check. Capt. Kirk's phaser from Search For Spock? Yep. The actual holy grail from The Last Crusade? Oh yeah! No shitty replicas here--all are the actual props used on screen, and they can be yours. But those are just the beginning.
This Millennium Falcon was never going to do the Kessel Run... but it might just qualify as the most awesome birthday cake ever made. I mean, look at the detail! Made by Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, one lucky guy received it this weekend... and can you guess his generous brother's profession? Yup, you were close: it's as a sysadmin. I just hope he appreciated it, since I know an armload of people who'd weep with joy if this arrived on their birthday. Particularly if it were cunningly combined with LED birthday candles for special lighting effects. There's another pic below, if you haven't seen enough.
Remember we showed you the awesome WeRobot T-shirt? Maker Chop Shop has just stumped-up with two new versions, peppered with pics of famous movie, game and TV icons. This time though, there's a suite of aliens on the AlienWe version and cars and bikes on the WeGo. Check out both T-shirts in detail below. Is that the original Batmobile?
I think NBC's web-only Sci Fi series The Gemini Division is about an alien, or a robot, or an alien robot that somehow got Rosario Dawson to be its girlfriend. I like that. I also like the Rosario somehow got her deliciously moisturised hands on what looks like a "Windows Mobile" phone, which 