There are endless ways to hide your high-tech gear around the home, like stashing your LCD display behind a painting, but this idea, called the TV Flash Lamp, is a bit more practical. It can hide an LCD up to 23 inches in size behind a sliding lampshade, and while you’re not watching TV it works like a standard lamp when the shade’s up. It was designed by Denis Santachiara for Roche Bobois, but since those both happen to be two of the most annoying flash sites I’ve ever encountered, I’m not exactly sure if it’s available for sale, or for how much if it is.
It never ceases to amaze me what people manage to create with LEGO Technics. In this case it’s not only a Lee Enfield sniper rifle that looks like a perfect replica, but it even has a working bolt-action mechanism complete with removable clips, and yes, it of course fires. It was created by Jack Streat who posted an extensive collection of photos and a bit of a description of the rifle’s mechanisms over on MOCpages, but you’ll want to check out the video I’ve included to see it in action to truly appreciate its incredible engineering.
The NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster, has always been an innovator when it comes to television technologies. I mean you can basically thank them for ‘inventing’ HDTV. But this time around they’ve been showing off a new Millimeter-wave technology camera at their 80th annual Open House that can actually see through walls.
The camera works a bit like radar, sending out 60GHz millimeter radio waves (the same kind used in modern airport full-body security scanners) and then capturing the reflected waves using a high-speed beam scanning antenna to produce a 2D image. By analyzing the propagation delay of the reflected waves, which essentially provides depth information about what’s being shot, the system can be tuned to ignore obstacles in front of or behind the subject, as is demonstrated in the video below where the camera ‘sees’ a pair of moving mannequins behind a piece of plywood.
According to the NHK, practical applications of the technology include news crews being able to film through smoke during an emergency, but hopefully they’re inclined to license it out to emergency rescue personnel as well.
Having the ability to watch videos on your iPhone seems great, except for one small issue. The screen. I don’t care to watch anything of great length on mine, because staring at a tiny screen isn’t the way I like to enjoy a movie or TV show. However, if you can easily pipe the content to your larger TV, then it might make things worthwhile. This is exactly the idea behind the ReflexDock Pro from Konnet.
This simple-looking cradle is connected to your TV with an AV cable, which will allow it to display whatever video content is on your iPhone or iPod (you’ll need at least the 3G iPhone for it to work). It will also sync and charge your iPhone using the included USB cable, which means you aren’t going to drain your battery watching movies. I think the best use for this will be when the new Netflix app arrives later this year. Imagine streaming movies from your phone to your TV using a $50 cradle. I’m sold.
Sometimes passing the time by playing games on your laptop or smartphone at work or school is considered unproductive by the powers that be. But you know what’s never frowned on? Taking notes – or at least looking like you are. So for those times when your electronic distractions are not an option, this Maze Pen should totally fit the bill. It’s your regular old ballpoint pen that takes standard ink refills, but the inside of the pen’s tube features a complicated maze and a couple of tiny ball bearings that need your help getting from one end of the pen to the other. It’s also just $5 (€3.90) from getDigital making it one of those things you’ll always want to carry with you.
Rhythm and pattern games seem to still be all the rage, but before there was Guitar Hero and Rock Band, way back in the early 80′s there was Simon. And as far as I can tell, Mattel’s Loopz seems to be an attempt to rekindle the popularity of Simon by making it appeal to today’s kids who are used to all kinds of high-techery.
Simon’s colored light-up pads have been replaced by half-circles with motion sensors requiring you to simply stick your hand inside for one of them to be triggered, but it looks like it still uses the same basic gameplay mechanics, making you remember and recreate patterns. This modern version is also able to keep track of your performance and remember your best times and scores, and even seems a bit more musically capable when compared to Simon’s low-tech electronic beeps. It should be available sometime this month, and you can pre-order it from Entertainment Earth, if you’re so inclined, for $37.99.
Soon to be appearing in the living rooms of BP executives, this Papervore coffee table will keep guests entertained as they use the mahogany and oak crank to shred their way through confidential reports and incriminating documentation. The table itself is made from a single piece of powdercoated aluminum that’s been bent into an arch, and the clear acrylic bin underneath holds the shredded results until you need them for a giant hamster cage, or to soak up a spill…
$1,950 from Voos Furniture, and yes, for that price you can choose a custom color for the powdercoat finish.
There’s nothing terribly high-tech or innovative about this backpack, I just really like the clever great white shark, ready to attack from below, design. It’s got a couple of metal eyelets that do a good job at reproducing a shark’s blank stare, and there’s two zippered compartments, with one between the rows of teeth so you can make it look like the shark’s found a meal of coiled notebooks and binder paper. Unfortunately if you want one for yourself you’ll have to brave the waters of importing, since I found it on a Japanese site called CainaMarket for about $98. (¥8,925)
ThinkGeek has a knack for teasing us with incredibly awesome April Fool’s products. Thankfully, they also release some of these, provided there is enough demand. I’m still waiting for them to make the iCade that we were teased with a couple of months ago, but they’ve not shown any signs of doing so. Of course that hasn’t stopped one crafty fellow from making his own.
In the above video you can see that they are able to plug in their iPad to the unit, and control it with a joystick and two buttons. This is made possible with an Arduino unit and a bit of tinkering. Sadly, the person hasn’t posted exactly how this was done. I hope they do, as I would certainly like to make one of these for myself.
Related Tags: 
Permalink
