Never let the 80′s die with this combination vinyl wall graphic and wooden shelf from Rocket that makes it look like you’ve got a giant cassette deck embedded in the wall with a half-ejected cassette tape sticking out. Available in a dark or light gray color theme the shelf and graphic come as a set from Yoox for $128, making for a rather expensive sight gag.
Tired of fighting over who gets to choose what to hang on the living room walls? The photo of Einstein sticking his tongue out vs. sad clowns on black velvet? Well thanks to designers Jean-Louis Fréchin and Uros Petrevski, anyone with an iPhone can decorate as they see fit with this special augmented reality wallpaper. Now as wallpapers go it’s not the most subtle design, but the ‘random’ circle patterns allow their FabLabWall iPhone app (I couldn’t find it in the App Store) to show virtual pieces of art, and even sound and video.
The wallpaper was actually created to be an art installation at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris as part of an exhibition that runs from May 7 to August 15, 2010. And while there are no immediate plans to put the wallpaper into mass production, I’m sure the idea will inspire entrepreneurial types to take advantage of the current augmented reality trend.
It’s Friday, and we’re in a giving mood. You know what that means; it’s time to give something back to you! This week we’ve got a SmartSwipe for one of our lucky readers. What is this contraption, you say? It’s a credit card reader for your home computer. No, it’s not for taking payments at home, but rather for making your life a little easier (and safer).
The SmartSwipe allows you to enter your credit card information by simply swiping your card. No more trying to punch in 16 digits, just swipe it. This also helps protect against any sort of malicious keylogging software that may have infected your computer. Whether you’re worried about online security, or just want to make buying things online a bit easier, this could definitely come in handy.
We’re running this contest much the same as the others lately. If you’re in the US and want to get your hands on this, just drop us a comment below. Next Friday, a winner will be selected at random. Good luck!
It’s been said for many years that Macs aren’t a viable gaming platform. As a gamer that owns both PC’s and Macs, I can generally agree with that statement. This week, however, Valve shook up the Apple gaming community by finally releasing Steam for Mac. At the time of launch, there were 64 titles available.
Valve took things a step further by deciding to make Portal, their popular puzzler, free until May 24th. This goes for both Mac and PC gamers. If you’ve never tried Portal, I’d certainly give it a shot. There’s really no other game out there that has quite the same spirit of this game. Between the mind-challenging puzzles and the dry humor of the robotic antagonist, there’s a lot to enjoy. What are you waiting for? Download it already!
It’s hard to get excited over a device designed to make tea, since I absolutely abhor the beverage, but there’s enough high-techery in this Breville One-Touch Tea Maker to make me want to give it a go. (Play with it that is, not drink the wretched results.) The non-removable aluminum basket is designed to hold loose tea leaves, so tea bag lovers are out of luck (heh) and an automated mechanism automatically raises and lowers the basket into the boiling water at specific times, depending on what type of tea you’re brewing.
A small LCD display lets you specify what type of tea leaves you’re using (black, green, white, and oolong) which will result in different water temperatures and brewing times to maximize their unique flavors and aromas, and you can choose the strength of your tea, whether strong, medium or mild. And if morning coffee isn’t your thing, there’s also a timer allowing you to fill it with water and tea leaves in the evening so you can wake up to a freshly brewed pot in the morning. Just remember that perfection has its price, and in this case it’s $249.99.
You can never bring too many extra belts with you when traveling, but trying to find a way to fit just one into a packed suitcase is a puzzle that has plagued mankind for years. You usually end up with 75% of the belt sticking out through the zipper, or you have to invest in a special belt tube carrying case that just doesn’t fit in an overhead compartment. Thankfully the engineers at Hermès have come up with a remarkable solution. Their folding travel belt features 6 pivoting hinges allowing the belt to collapse and fit into something as small as a briefcase. Remarkable! Of course you’d expect to pay thousands of dollars for such innovation, but Hermès will be selling the belt for a very reasonable $730 (580€) when it’s available in July.
At Sony’s NEX-5 & 3 launch event on Tuesday the company also had a mockup camcorder, locked away under glass, that used their new E-mount camera lenses. It was an exciting prospect, but if I remember correctly the reps on hand said it wouldn’t be available until later in the year at the earliest. So if you can’t wait that long, this $99 camcorder from Brando kind of provides the same functionality, with a few trade-offs.
Instead of capturing video at 1080P, it maxes out 640×480, and instead of being able to choose from a growing collection of E-mount lenses, you’re limited to either the cameras 7.45mm fixed lens, or the included telephoto add-on which provides 8x optical zoom. It’s also limited to only capturing video as MP4 files on an SD card, where as the Sony alternative will no doubt support AVCHD to SD or Memory Stick. But again, the important thing is that this camcorder is available now! Junior’s not going to wait to take his first steps until Sony gets their version to the market.
Casio’s G-Shock brand is already synonymous with being tough and durable, but the company is taking things one step further with these special editions of the GW-5600 that use carbon fiber in the case and band. Besides added strength and reduced weight, we all know that carbon fiber just looks really cool, so these two new editions have everything going for them, except price. While they’re both relatively simple watches, the GW-S5600 pictured on the left will be available on June 30 for ~$340 (¥31,500) while the black inverted version, the GW-S5600B, will be available on July 31 for ~$362 (¥33,600). And both versions will only be available in a limited run of 1,500 pieces per style.
I’ve got nothing against touchscreens, they’re great for most applications, but they’re not always the ideal alternative to a physical button, slider, knob or even scroll wheel. So I like this clever compromise that dsLabs have come up with. Using the same principles people have used to create capacitive touchscreen-friendly styluses, they’ve created a touchscreen-friendly knob that allows you to rotate objects on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad by rotating the knob while it’s sitting on the screen.
And making your own doesn’t seem to be that difficult. It just requires a bit of trial and error and some extra care to ensure the knob you’ve re-appropriated doesn’t scratch up the display.
Similar to the soft stylus, the trick is finding a way to create a conductive path from your hand to the screen. We started by using copper tape, conductive fabrics (see the soft stylus) and wires to simulate two touch points on opposite sides of the knob. It takes some careful tuning to get the touch points spaced correctly and sized such that the screen reads them as a touch, but it does work with a little patience.
Related Tags: Design, Furniture, Retro
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