Now you can have your Mii character come to life! Keep in mind that you, yourself, are the real live version of your Mii character, though. But if the thought of taking the real live version of yourself and making it into a Mii for the Nintendo Wii and then making it into a sculpture sounds intriguing to you AND you have $75 plus three to four weeks to wait around, then this, my friend, is for you. Web site MiiSculptures.com takes a photo of your Mii character and turns it into a sculpture. It costs $75 and takes three to four weeks. They’ll also do wedding cake toppers, too, which appear to be a little bit bigger and cost $140. Ask your girlfriend if she’d be cool with Mii wedding cake toppers and if she says yes, propose immediately. via Geekologie → Read More
Iron Man comes to us next week, and we are stoked bloggers. Sure, this isn’t a movie site, but we’ve moved beyond just gear into the CrunchLifestyle, and that includes all things awesome like Iron Man himself. Live Science has put together a neat little gallery and run-down of real-life Iron Man-type power suits that actually exist, including the HAL and Sarcos XOS exoskeletons. This is power armor, letting you lift heavy burdens and do other physically tiring tasks with no trouble. Sure, they don’t look as cool as Iron Man’s armor, but then they weren’t designed by Tony Stark either. → Read More
The Swashbot will probably be the first robot to come to your house to look for living matter. Once it senses you, this four-servo robot — human-controlled now but hivemind controlled later — will call in its shock troops to blow in some fire bombs and then the Scanner-bots will come at night to check for survivors and, if you’re still huddling in a closet, allow the Swashbots to finish you off. (via BBG) → Read More
Regular readers will note that I’m an avid fan of Opera Mini for cellphones. Most phones’ built-in browser sucks, pure and simple. While Opera Mini isn’t as good as a desktop browser, it’s still easy enough to use on a small screen that it’s a no-brainer. When the Goog finally introduced Android, I was impressed. It’s a step in the right direction and something someone should have done awhile ago. Now Opera is working on an Android-native version of Opera Mini, and that gets me very excited. Two great tastes that taste great together or whatever. What’s notable is that Opera Mini usually runs on a Java virtual machine, however the Android version will run with the OS itself, meaning it’ll be faster, slimmer, and allow for more OS interoperability. That means it will rock. → Read More
http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&file=http%3A//blip.tv/rss/flash/817065&feedurl=http%3A//crunchgear.blip.tv/rss/&autostart=false&brandname=CrunchGear&brandlink=http%3A//crunchgear.blip.tv/ Sadly, this odd platform wasn’t working today due to firmware problems. However, as you can see from the video, it’s basically a moving platform that can move in any direction without turning. You can basically turn at a 90 degree angle while moving forward and the thing runs as if it were on rails. It’s a Segway prototype right now and can be embedded in almost any configuration, including this odd table thing that never falls over. The devices move so smoothly it’s eerie. → Read More
What do you do when you’re an engineering student and the frat kids won’t leave you alone? What if you want to be a long-distance party animal? You build a 1/2-scale Panzer tank that shoots cans of Red Bull, that’s what. → Read More
http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=719432 Once in awhile, you find something that where practicality loses out to the powerful forces of all that is awesome. this Etch-A-Sketch based clock is one perfect example. This might be the coolest thing you’ll see all day. Make Blog [Make] → Read More
This is exciting for me; when I was studying Neuroscience I wrote a paper on Vision Substitution Systems. Well, now the Boston Retinal Implant Program seem to actually have a prototype (for a different kind of blindness, but still) for a retina replacement device. Basically, it’s a freaking bionic eye. The device is really cool, and it has to be waterproof, durable enough to last ten years in the body, and small enough to do its job while inside your little eyeball. The project spans multiple universities and hospitals and has been going on for decades, and they’re close to a working product. Can’t wait to get mine! Eyes on prize: Visionary device gives hope [Boston Herald] → Read More
Force feedback plus six dimensions of movement — I like what I’m hearing so far. This yet-to-be-named device has been in the workings for 11+ years by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and uses a bowl-shaped apparatus connected to a joystick, all of which sits inside a larger bowl-shaped apparatus that magnetically levitates the smaller bowl. There are only ten such devices in the world so far but the project’s been spun off into a commercial company called Butterfly Haptics (web site here) and more details will be announced at a haptics conference in Reno on March 13th and 14th. → Read More
[photopress:LED_Table.jpg,full,left]Sure, it’s no Microsoft’s Surface, but it’s pretty cool anyway. Using an array of infrared sensors and a CPU, the LED table tracks motion and activates the LCDs in response. It’s not as expensive as Surface, but of course it does a whole lot less. That being said, $2,215 sounds a bit steep still. The Wave Interactive LED Coffee Table [Cool Hunting] → Read More
[photopress:draft_3727_big.gif.jpg,full,left]The Polaroid brand refuses to die. Though you can’t get film for your camera anymore, Polaroid is all about using retro design and nostalgia to keep the name alive, and this clever mini digital photo frame is a great example. It’s a concept, but one that could enter production soon, if they can come up with a cheap enough way to run it. It’s a Polaroid picture-shaped frame that acts just like an old school Polaroid photo, with a small whiteboard at the bottom to write cheeky messages on. What would be great is if they found a way to activate it by shaking, but that’s just wishful thinking at this point. Digital Polaroid Frame [Product Dose] → Read More
[photopress:to_do_tattoo.jpg,full,center] So this isn’t really technology, but it’s a really geeky way to keep your to-do handy, if you’ll pardon the pun, which I hope you will. You write your list on a special piece of paper-like material and then transfer the text to your hand, just like some sort of tattoo you’d get in CrackerJacks. I’m sure somewhere there’s a similar product that allows you to create you own temporary tattoos. I need to find it. Keep a to-do list in the palm of your hand [Popgadget] → Read More
[photopress:stretch.jpg,full,center] Monotonous sitting in front of computer provokes serious health damages! Yes it does! Or so says, er, somebody at HK-Ergonomics, the pastel-colored manufacturer of this innovative belt-like laptop stand thing. It doesn’t look very stable, but we like the overall idea. I’m going to try to get one of these for NAB, so I can walk and blog at the same time! HK-Ergonomics Hip Office [Product page, thanks Andrew!] → Read More
Hello, children. Sit down please. There are three of you who didn’t get permission slips signed so you will have quiet study in the cafeteria. We’ll split you up into boys and girls and the boys will go in with Father Trenor and we’ll stay here, ladies. OK. Thank you. You’re all in junior high now and old enough to be asking a number of questions. This is a time when we can all feel free to answer those questions about our bodies and the changes we’re going through. I have all of your questions here in this box and I’ll try to answer them all as thoroughly as I can. OK. Let’s start. “What is a BSOD?” Ah. Excellent question. When a man loves a PC very much and starts installing strange software onto it, it causes the PC to become unstable. Sometimes this is is fine and nothing happens. Most software installs have a 95 percent effectiveness rate — remember, the only 100 percent safe way to compute is through abstinence — but sometimes something happens. That’s when Windows does a minidump, which is a small, easy to read file describing the problem. If you read the story in the package we presented you with at the end of this post, you’ll get some very cool information on how to read and handle minidumps all by yourself and even solve some major problems quickly and easily. Now. The next question. “What is a dildo?” Beat those bluescreen blues: what a Windows bluescreen actually means [APCMag] → Read More
How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and teachers? My name is some guy with an iPod and an onion and physics is my business and our very special business for today is electrolytes and onions. Man, Julius Sumner Miller was the bomb. [Thanks, James!] → Read More
I think I’m beginning to understand the whole You Make It You thing, but I could be wrong. I think it’s very cool that MS is taking the laser engraving beyond some stupid text like Apple does, but you’re really not making it you, per se, when you’re using graphics from 18 different artists that includes 27 unique designs. Wait. No. That’s pretty damn cool and if you want text (up to three lines with graphics or five without) then you can have that, too. Aside from the Artist Series, there will be a Tattoo Series with 20 designs. Hopefully the Tattoo Series will be sans everything tribal because that’s been played out more than Chasey Lain’s you know what. The list of artists after the jump. Oh, and it’s all free. → Read More
This will make people’s lives easier. That’s why I like Google, plain and simple. Gas pump manufacturer Gilbarco Veeder-Root is rolling out 3,500 Google Maps-enabled touchscreen pumps around the country that “include an Internet connection and will display Google’s mapping service in color on a small screen. Motorists will be able to scroll through several categories to find local landmarks, hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station’s owner.” → Read More
I wish this video was lighter but these friends who created one of the most complex and amazing-tastic Halloween costumes I’ve ever seen. Click the jump to see them in their full still-photo glory or you can just enjoy seeing a Big Daddy and Little Sister dancing in the murky darkness, waiting to steal your ADAM. Flickr Photoset of the Build [Thanks, Nathan] → Read More
Another user-generated diamond in the rough here. Skateboarder William Spencer has apparently “signed a deal to develop a skateboarding stunt series based on his clips on YouTube for MTV,” according to sources over at NewTeeVee. It’s thought that the show will be called “Hollarado” (Spencer is from Colorado) and will feature Spencer and his friends performing insane stunts. And when I say insane, I mean insane. I’ve seen a fair amount of skateboarding videos in my day and the very last trick in the above video is absolutely, 100% mind-blowing. Unbelievable. William Spencer: From YouTube to MTV [NewTeeVee] → Read More
