By Andrew Liszewski

Before the Game Boy and handhelds from Tiger came along, I was obsessed with Nintendo’s Game & Watch devices. But I had no idea the collection spanned some 59 different games! Were it not for the ridiculous $10,999 asking price (and the fact that it appears the auction has ended) this lot might actually be tempting.

[ eBay - Rare: Full Nintendo Game & Watch Collection !!! ] VIA [ TechEBlog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I seem to be fighting some manner of cold or flu today, not sure which it is, so we’ll keep these brief this morning. As cool as this USB Bomb flash drive might look, I’m afraid it isn’t actually for sale. It was designed by Joel Escalona Studio to serve as a “metaphoric and conceptual object designed to be show on a desk or a work place not so much to carry around.” But they are looking for someone to make it a reality, so if you happen to have a novelty USB flash drive factory at your disposal, why not drop them a line?

[ Bomb USB Memory ] VIA [ Likecool ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we watched the activation of a life-size Gundam in Japan, found out that Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually a Russian terminator robot from World War II, wondered why anyone would ever buy the most annoying robot toy ever, watched snakebots test out different types of movement, felt doom approaching with robots controlled by zombie bug heads, met a motorcycle evaluating robot named Flossie, watched a robot that’s trying to learn how to ski, saw the Rotundus Groundbot go for a swim, found out that the spunky little battery powered Evolta robot is attempting a new endurance record, cringed at the uncanniness of Archie, cringed again at HRP-4C modeling a wedding dress, watched a humanoid robot from Toyota that can outrun Honda’s ASIMO, felt sorry for a robot with a binary tramp stamp (but bought the shirt anyway), didn’t know what to think about a bizarre killer barbie death robot, and watched a new VTOL UAV take to the air.

So far this week, we’ve written about a robot bricklayer that creates complex patterns in buildings, a quad-rotor UAV that knows how to perform “provably safe” backflips, and some industrial robots that play baseball better than humans… Almost.

Last week’s Bots with Stuff, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

Not only does the Withings Connected Scale look ridiculously stylish with its tempered glass surface, brushed metal accents and inverted LCD display, but its functions actually manage to outweigh its form. It’s able to measure both your weight and body mass index, giving you a better idea of your fitness and health levels, and thanks to a built-in WiFi connection it can upload that data to a website allowing you to monitor your weight and BMI over time in convenient graph form. And the icing on the cake, or maybe the cottage cheese on the celery is a better analogy, is the free WiScale iPhone app which gives you access to those graphs and weight data from your phone. $183 from the Withings website.

[ Withings Connected Scale ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By Chris Scott Barr

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I’ll rock just about any plastic instrument that you throw at me. Well, almost. Last year Activision released Guitar Hero for the DS, which left a bad taste in my mouth, and a cramp in my hand. After playing through as many of the tracks as I could bear, I took out their special controller and never even considered playing it again. Not only was it uncomfortable to play, but it turned a portable device into something bulky that I wouldn’t dream of carrying around. Well guess what, they’re at it again with a new instrument.

Not content with just letting us play guitar, Activision will be launching Band Hero with a “drum grip” for the DS. The drum grip slides onto your DS lite (no, it won’t work with your shiny new DSi) and does two things. First, it lets you turn your D-pad and two buttons into a set of four drum pads. It also appears to prevent you from actually closing your DS. Once again defeating the purpose of having a portable device by not letting you take it anywhere. Look for it sometime this fall.

[ Guitar Hero ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Have you ever lived with a roommate that liked to steal you food and drinks out of the fridge? They’d usually claim to think it was theirs, citing the fact that there was no label on it or something. Well here’s a way to make sure that everyone knows which stuff belongs to whom.

This stackable Flatshare Fridge concept has four different compartments that stack on top of each other. If you had four people in a house, you could each have your own little fridge. You can even control the individual temperatures of each one. While it might seem like a cool idea at first, it would likely end up being more trouble than it’s worth. Most places you rent (or buy for that matter) already come with a refrigerator. So unless this thing is really inexpensive, you’ll be much better off going with a regular full sized fridge.

[ Toxel ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Chris Scott Barr

After the movie Home Alone came out, I’m pretty sure that every kid at the time (myself included) wanted to setup all kinds of booby-traps for their room, fort or whatever. Well we’re all grown-up now, and we can actually afford cool things like that. Take for instance this anti-burglar doormat.

Basically what you’ve got is a doormat that is really freaking sticky. You’re supposed to leave this on the inside of your door after you leave your home or business. If someone tries to break in, they’ll step on the mat and get stuck. Sure, they’ll eventually free themselves, but the idea is that they’ll get frustrated and leave. Of course on the other hand that might just make them angry and want to tear up the place a bit, in addition to robbing you. These will be released in Japan sometime this fall. There’s no word on a release for any other locations.

[ Rakuten ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Chris Scott Barr

If you’re looking for a way to kick your smoking habit, there’s a a chance that you’ve at least considered e-cigarette solutions. We’ve seen a few around, and always the manufacturer has gone to great lengths to express how much safer they are from a regular tobacco cigarette. Well apparently you might want to think twice before dropping the cash on one.

According to US health officials, these things might be plenty harmful to your health. First, since they still promote the use of nicotine, they probably won’t help anyone kick the habit. In fact, users will be likely to return to cigarettes. That’s not the biggest concern. Apparently when testing samples from e-cigarette manufacturers NJOY and Smoking Everywhere they found samples with diethylene glycol, which is used in antifreeze, as well as several different carcinogens. Long story short, these things aren’t the way to go if you want to quit smoking.

[ US News ] VIA[ UberGizmo ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Over the last couple of years I’ve started to really learn how to cook. Sure I could make some simple stuff before, but now I can pull off a 5-course meal. I never really appreciated how hard my mom worked every night cooking until I learned to do it myself. Sometimes it seems like you need an extra arm or two just to get everything done. Well here’s a little gadget that can take one of the tasks off your hands.

The Stirr is a small battery powered stirrer. You just set it in a pan of whatever you’re cooking, turn it on and it’ll keep things stirred up until you’re ready for them. This would be great for soups, gravy, sauce and any number of other things. For around $25, you really can’t go wrong here.

[ Lakeland ] VIA [ Dvice ]