By David Ponce

After posting news of the Enicycle a few days ago, here comes another personal transportation device that purports to solve the issue of urban mobility. It’s called the YikeBike and is essentially a folding electric bicycle with a design reminiscent of the high wheelers of old (also known as Penny-Farthings). It’s powered by a 1 kW battery and can accelerate up to 20 kph (about 12 mph) with a range of 7 to 8 km (or about 5 miles) on a 30 minute charge. Made from carbon fiber, it weighs in just under 22lbs and with practice can be folded up and stashed in a bag in about 15 seconds.

There are working pre-production models and the first 100 orders should be delivered in “early to mid 2010″. But at €3,500-€3,900 (~ $5,500), you might as well get a Segway.

Hit the jump for a few videos of the YikeBike in action and a gallery.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s not that hard to make your own custom Rubik’s Cube, all you really need is enough patience and perseverance to replace 54 little stickers. But the results can easily make the puzzle-solving experience a lot harder. Take this Mega Man Rubik’s Cube redux for example. Instead of getting all the same colors on each side, you need to re-assemble scenes from all six boss battles from the original NES version of the game. Definitely harder than a standard Rubik’s Cube, but still not as difficult as I remember Mega Man itself being.

[ Capcom Blogs - JGonzo - Mega Man Bosses Get More Frustrating On a Rubik's Cube ] VIA [ GoNintendo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Recently revealed at the Caravan Salon Dusseldorf RV show, the Snakeliner President-Suite is the perfect recreational vehicle for those who like to look absolutely ridiculous when they pull into a campsite. Its 969 square feet of living space (when fully expanded) is carried on an actual tractor trailer, and amenities include everything you could possibly imagine like central heating, a whirlpool, flat screen TVs in every room, a waterbed, remote window shades and of course satellite TV.

But the options are even more ridiculous and include such luxuries as granite floors, a garage, a motorboat in the ‘cellar’ and even a helicopter landing pad. Not surprisingly the base version of the Snakeliner runs just under $930,000, though I’m sure that can easily be pushed past a cool million with a fully loaded configuration.

[ Snakeliner President-Suite ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Designed for students learning wind and string instruments, not talent-challenged pop stars, the PT-7 from Tascam combines a high-speed chromatic tuner with a large display to help aspiring musicians find their pitch, an electronic metronome with rates from 30 to 300bpm in six time signatures and a basic mono recorder for capturing performances. There’s a built-in speaker that can be used for playing back recordings or listening to the metronome, but a headphone jack is also provided if you want to keep things private. $99 available from Tascam dealers sometime in October.

[ PR - Tascam Announces PT-7 Chromatic Tuner/Recorder ] VIA [ Fareastgizmos ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Yep, it’s a 4×6 standard photo frame (ie non-digital) that features an extra layer over the picture filled with fake snow flakes. But instead of having to shake the frame like a snow globe, there’s a proximity sensor that will automatically cause the flakes to swirl when somebody comes near the frame. So even if your ski trip was ruined by a lack of snow, the photos you took will at least look like a winter wonderland. $24.99 from ShopGadgetsAndGizmos.com.

[ Really Snowing Photo Frame ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s hard to believe that Spongebob is already 10 years old, but it’s even harder to believe the Spongebob brand has teamed up with Nooka to help commemorate his anniversary! That partnership has resulted in 3 different Spongebob-themed watches including the ‘SpongeBob ZenV Aluminum Spongenvader’, the ‘SpongeBob Zub ZenH 20 Spongelevator’ and the ‘SpongeBob Zot Aluminum SpongeBamo’. The watches seem to sport rather subtle designs (compared to other Spongebob merchandise) but according to the Nooka website there are distinct similarities between the designs and the cartoon character.

The linear nature of the graphics on all three watches represents a common geometric theme in both the SpongeBob character and Nooka’s design concept, while the bold colors of the watches are reflective of Nooka’s own color pallet and the official colors of the SpongeBob cartoon.

So if nautical nonsense be something you wish, you can buy all 3 watches from the Nooka website for $275, $175 and $250. (Left to right.)

[ SpongeBob ZenV Aluminum Spongenvader, Zub ZenH 20 Spongelevator & Zot Aluminum SpongeBamo ] VIA [ Josh Spear ]

By Evan Ackerman

While most robot designers shoot for more capable and more complicated robots, the philosophy behind swarm robotics is totally different: make the robots as simple as possible, and let complex capabilities emerge from the cooperative powers of a whole bunch of them. We’re already familiar with macro-scale swarm robots, but researchers in Europe are trying to shrink things down to insect scale.

These tiny (4 millimeters on a side) robots are members of the I-SWARM project…

Read More At BotJunkie…

By David Ponce

Backblaze is an online data storage solution. For $5 a month per computer, you get unlimited storage. But no one really cares about that, since there’s a lot of competition in this field. The reason we’re writing about them is that they’ve decided to show us how to build the basic unit of their storage solution: a custom-built, 45-drive, double-PSU, Linux-powered, 67-Terabyte, 4-U, rack mounted, storage pod. This particular storage unit can be built for a mere $7,867. We actually wish we were being sarcastic about that figure, but as it is, it’s really freaking cheap. The diagram below shows you how much a Petabyte of storage (or about 15 of these storage pods) would cost under several competing cloud storage services.

The reason they’re making this information available

is that by sharing, others can benefit and, ultimately, refine this concept and send improvements back to us. Evolving and lowering costs is critical to our continuing success at Backblaze.

Hit the link below to find out all the details on how to build your very own $7,800, 67-Terabyte storage solution.

[ Backblaze Article ] VIA [ BoingBoing ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Remember the first day of school each year when the teacher would hand out new supplies? Pristine erasers, un-chewed pencils and crisp wooden rulers just waiting to be twanged on the edge of your desk. But did you know that in some circles the ruler is actually considered a musical instrument? Well at least by Dan Wieden who came up with the Musical Ruler. It’s your standard plastic model with the measurement units marked in centimeters on one edge, but it also features finger markings and note positions showing you exactly how far the ruler needs to hang off the edge of your desk to produce a particular note.

I can’t imagine teachers will be too thrilled with the idea, but if you’ve always wanted your kid to play a musical instrument and the piano or violin just isn’t going to happen, this seems like an easy alternative. ~$11 from Gadgets.co.uk.

[ Dan Wieden's Musical Ruler ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]