One of my fondest childhood memories was of visiting the Tid-Bit in Martins Ferry, Ohio and buying out their old collection of chemistry set chemicals for 60 cents each. I bought the fun stuff like sulfur, copper, iron filings, and potassium nitrate (charcoal I could make at home) and some off the odd stuff like Cobalt Chloride that I just loved to look at for the color. I learned very little from… → Read More
Sales Manager: Where’s Paul? He’s the only one who knows how to paste in the fake images onto devices in the catalog. Intern: He’s at lunch. I can try. I know Photoshop. Sales Manager: No, you’re an intern. I’ll do it. What is this thing? A tablet? Intern: Yeah, but… Sales Manager: Go take pictures of those USB thingers that just came in. Let me concentrate. And… → Read More
It is rare to find a gaming accessory so ham-handed and ridiculous that you just know this is going to be a patent troll situation where they start suing Microsoft Kinect for stealing their “gaming standing up” idea. But you have to hand it to this guy for his tenacity. There are plenty of YouTube videos up showing him showing it off and the real money shot is where he’s brought in a “real… → Read More
I’m not exactly sure what this image is trying to stay – it’s evocative of the red red kroovy in Clockwork Orange – but I’m sure someone somewhere understands it. Anyway, this is the Carmazzi1 Bag. It is designed to be completely customizable and the basic set includes 12 different configurations for $89. You can buy extra pockets and straps and set it up to open from… → Read More
This robot, made by the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon, is named Sarco. He is a human analog that can move just like a human being while balancing on two legs. In the video above, Sarco dances for his creator by mimicking a motion captured session. Sarcos is not happy about this but is not yet sentient and so will remember the indignity of this moment but will not act on it until he is free… → Read More
Square is a great little device for capturing credit card information for quick sales. It is free. However, you can now buy the device for $9.95 in the Apple Store. That’s right – in the mail, free. At the Apple Store, $9.95. The Apple tax is, as they say, alive and well. → Read More
“The name is Bond, James Bond. Oh, this wire connected to my watch? It’s nothing Blofeld. No, no, don’t look under my jacket.” This watch, marked Protana, is basically a microphone that connected to a “pocket sized” reel-to-reel recorder hidden under the wearers’s jacket. A company called Minifon sold the device to detectives, spies, and police back in 1958, and it was called the Pocket Wire P-55. → Read More
Nick pulled out his iPad and placed it on the table. He pressed the icon for the Moleskine App and began to write. He wrote for a little over an hour. The baristas all eyed him angrily. He was taking up a perfectly good table and hadn’t ordered anything since his Chai Decaf Latte with Extra Foam three hours before. He was also eating outside food. But Nick was an artist and his Moleskine… → Read More
For your morning edification I present to you without comment a mini-crossbow made of silver and gold. It can, if threatened, pop balloons. via reddit → Read More
Every few years in the CE industry we get products that really make us scratch our heads. A few years ago it was some guy who had built a “quantum computer” and this year at CES we had the goofy Peep Wireless, a company that stripped the label from one of those RSA keys and pretended they had invented a mesh networking telephone. This one is a bit harder to fathom but, sadly, it has… → Read More
At about 39 seconds into this video we can see a wheelchair powered by an XBox 360 controller. If that isn’t cool enough, keep watching. This wheelchair will respond to human commands but it filters them to ensure that the driver doesn’t roll down stairs or into a wall. → Read More
This Brando USB key has a unique “lock shape design” and comes in multiple sizes. It is “Portable and easy operation” and the USB key pops out of the bottom like a wee tail. → Read More
Say you’re someone who uses a money clip. Maybe you thing it’s classy. Or maybe you carry a lot of cash for your “business.” But most money clips look like, you know, clips. This one is some kind of crazy sticker that makes it look like you’re clipping your money with a dollar bill. Why? Because I don’t know, that’s why. → Read More
A young woman with a bit too much time on her hands built her own realistic Angry Easter Birds using real eggs, paper, and some glue. Why? Because she wanted to. Is that wrong? Let the girl have some fun. → Read More
You’re riding along, living your life thinking that Star Wars is all a big joke, a work of fiction. Then, suddenly, the U.S. Navy brings out a device called the HEL laser and it can blow up boats from afar using only laser light. Lasers have been used to disable vehicles before, but this is the first time it’s worked in the moist ocean air. → Read More
A test: A Russian buyer goes to a “rogue” electronics dealer on the Russia-China border to pick up a 500GB portable hard drive. He takes it home and plugs it in. It shows up as a 500GB drive but when he tries to put files on it doesn’t work. Feh, he says, and when he returns to the market the trader is gone. Rather than give up, the intrepid victim takes the HD to another shop. → Read More
It’s rare to see medical implants that are so important yet so wildly frightening. What you see here is a new implant designed for anterior lumbar fusion, a process designed to reduce lower back pain due to disk degeneration. → Read More
All these games are being played by one (virtual) controller sending the same controls to every system. This video, and others like it, is mind-blowing in the truest sense. My brain can’t really even compass what’s going on at any one time, but I know there’s a system behind this madness. → Read More
Sure this is a permutation of the old old news chestnut, “Reporter gets shot by Taser, falls to ground,” but this one involves the Taser Grenade, a little lump of Taser goodness that shoots out 50,000 volts of sweet crowd control. Watch as Justin Rocket Silverman feels the wrath of the great Electricity Goddess and feel just a bit safer knowing that some dude with a hair trigger may throw one of… → Read More
The Touchwood from Docomo is clad in real wood. In order to celebrate this dubious honor, creative agency Drill made a huge wooden xylophone in a forest and played Bach’s Cantata 147 aka “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire.” Then they ran a ball down it and made the woodland creatures listen to a plinked out version of a Bach classic played on what I would term one of the most egregious wastes of wood I’ve… → Read More
Ziggybox from Christian Losert on Vimeo. Christian Losert and Paul Schengber built this wild synth that uses cigarettes as triggers for some hot house beats. The system uses a camera to sense the position of various items on the surface. Add a loosie and you get a bass drum, open the cigarette box and get some high-hat. You can modify the tempo with a dial or you can just keep smoking and… → Read More
I realize this is a bad day to show off something amazingly cool, but this turret is worth the abuse. Basically it’s a Tupperware cake container with an airgun inside. It uses a small microcontroller and an IR sensor to accept commands and it can swivel and tilt up and down to take on attackers from all sides. A press of the green button fires and a press of the red button stops the gun. → Read More
Google is planning to introduce a smartphone app that can identify faces. If you capture someone’s head shot on your smartphone, Google will search their database of photos to try name them. We were pretty excited when Google Goggles came out. But this is a bit excessive. → Read More
A Chinese games company, ShunXiang Technology, has created a four-player, arcade version of Plants Vs. Zombies. “Great,” you say. “I love PvZ!” But wait, there’s more! → Read More
I think we can all agree that while bass is an important part of most music, there is a limit past which it is pointless to amplify that part of the sound spectrum. This video is about going so far beyond that point that the sound starts being measured in gut punches rather than decibels. That poor phonebook never had a chance. → Read More
This is… potentially disturbing. Mohamed Hassan recently purchased a brand-new Samsung laptop. As part of his normal setup procedure, he ran a complete scan with security software and found a keylogger installed in the Windows directory.
Hey, maybe it’s just an innocent mistake. This is my skeptical face.
Update: Debunked. No keylogger, kids. → Read More
Dell’s Andy Lark may know a thing or two about heavy iron in the enterprise but when it comes to the gadgets that are quickly replacing that heavy iron, he’s sorely mistaken. Take the iPad, for example. In a CIO interview, Lark says:
“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying,” he claimed. “That’s not feasible…. Apple is… → Read More
Up here in Seattle there’s a band called A Gun That Shoots Knives. That’s a good idea, but until we get the technology for that ultimate weapon worked out, we’re going to have to use A Crossbow That Shoots Machetes. → Read More
The various cases of Internet use may be divided into four different classes. Though each class will be found to have many symptoms in common, yet there are variations so marked that there will be little-difficulty in placing each patient in his proper class for treatment. When this division is made and the characters peculiar to each described, it will be well to give the various local and… → Read More
They say if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. They also say if you build a better nail clipper someone, probably a very strange-looking man, will bring the nail clipper onto the subway and proceed to groom his fingers between the 36th St. and Pacific Street stops on the N train, filling the subway car with the endless, gut-gurgling sound of spent fingernails… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
