You might think it’s far too early to start thinking about a Hallowe’en costume, but if you had hopes of following in Volpin Props’ footsteps and making your own Daft Punk helmet, you’re about 3 months too late. That’s because it took them 4 months to make this replica of the robo-like helmet that Thomas Bangalter wears during performances and other public appearances.
And even if you did have aspirations of building one of these yourself 3 months ago, the process looks very involved, particularly if you’re completely unfamiliar with prop-making techniques. And, Harrison Krix has been through all of this before, as last year he completed a 17-month build of Guy-Manuel’s helmet. AKA, the other Daft Punk guy.
So you’re probably better off just sticking with that tried and true hobo getup come October 31st.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got a desk covered in random flash drives that once contained instruction manuals, images or press kits. They end up getting randomly used throughout the day, which is why mine never get stashed away in a drawer. And occasionally, one will go missing. So here’s a novel way to wrangle a handful of your flash drives and memory cards.
Memory City can hold up to 4 USB flash drives, turning them into towering skyscrapers and architectural masterpieces in a miniature town. There’s also room for 3 SD cards, 3 microSD cards and the best feature of all, 3 places to store flash drive caps because we all have a few that haven’t gone the retractable route yet. Available from design3000.de for ~$14(€9.95) in red or white.
I had an amazing childhood, but once again, I feel it could have been even better had my parents been aware of Hammacher Schlemmer. For example. Cleaning my room was never the most enjoyable chore. But picking up laundry and putting away toys with a working, miniature, pedal-powered forklift? I’m pretty sure I’d sleep in the thing! It wouldn’t have only been great for cleaning my room, though. Other chores like clearing the table, taking out the garbage, walking the dog and dealing with his ‘indiscretions’ and even raking leaves would have been made about 1,000X more entertaining with this at my disposal.
The chassis is made from durable ABS plastic so it could easily endure a couple years of kid life, and the hand-crank powered forks are capable of lifting up to 6 1/2 lbs. Sadly it’s limited to kids up to 55-inches in height, a mark I passed many years ago. And a maximum riding weight of up to 110 lbs. It’s also $319.95, making it a hard sell to your parents that your bedroom will most certainly be kept slightly cleaner, at the expense of plastic tire tracks all over their home. The Fresh Prince was right, parents just don’t understand…
With a device called a PowerWheel attached to my bike I’d expect to be easily pedalling my way up steep mountain courses, or even towing cars out of ditches. But instead of making your ride easy, the PowerWheel is designed to do just the opposite. It’s a complete wheel designed to replace the standard one on your bike while you train. And thanks to a specially engineered hub, pedalling, even at slower speeds on a level road, becomes far more strenuous.
As to how strenuous is up to you, since the PowerWheel can be adjusted between 7 different levels of resistance, or completely disengaged when you’ve had enough. It’s even clever enough to automatically disengage when you’re riding slower than 6mph so the bike is easier to handle at slower speeds. And the same happens above 30mph, to prevent the resistance mechanism from overheating. Pricing and availability are still TBA, though, a simpler version known as the SlowWheel will also be available. While it only has 3 resistance settings, it’s also designed to be more affordable for those not training for the next Ironman race.
Last night the good people of London, England were privy to one of the coolest marketing stunts I’ve seen in a while. Worried that there still might be in excess of 10 people on this planet who weren’t already aware that Star Wars was being released on Blu-ray, Lucasfilm turned the 581 ft tall BT Tower into what is probably the largest lightsaber in our galaxy. The folks over at Pocket-lint managed to snap a few decent photos of it lit up, and I particularly like that someone dressed as Darth Vader probably had to spend the entire night posing for awkward forced perspective shots. (He’s still called Darth Vader in the latest version of these films right?)
Since the original iPad was released a few years ago, there have been a steady stream of new tablets coming from Apple’s competitors. Blackberry, Samsung, Motorola and a host of others have all released follow-up products to compete with Apple. But one of the biggest names in consumer electronics, Sony, has only recently unveiled their tablet offerings. And in true Sony fashion, they certainly stand out from the crowd.
The first to hit the market, the Tablet S, went on sale just days ago and Sony is hoping that their somewhat unorthodox design has what it takes to allure consumers away from Apple’s juggernaut. Or at the least, lure Android fans away from other Android-based tablets. We had the chance to spend a couple of weeks with the Tablet S, sans finalized firmware, and walked away with some distinct impressions of the latest tablet to cannonball into a market that’s getting more and more crowded every week. More after the jump.
There are plenty of incomprehensible languages in the Star Wars universe, and right up there with Huttese and the random bleeps and bloops that astromech droids use to communicate, there’s Wookiee. Spoken by the residents of Kashyyyk, including Chewbacca, it’s probably one of the most impersonated (usually very, very terribly) dialects from the Star Wars films. But until now, impersonation has been the only way to learn and speak their language.
Beating Rosetta Stone to the punch, Chronicle Books has created a handy guide to learning Wookiee that could help avoid having your arms ripped off at the sockets. While it’s far from in-depth, an included sound module, recorded by none other than Chewbacca himself, provides the correct pronunciation of ten key phrases that are sure to help ease intergalactic diplomatic relations.
It’s available directly from Chronicle Books for $16.95, or, you could just find a cupboard door that you can use as a translator like this guy did:
Just when we thought Dyson had created the definitive vacuum cleaner, a design and development firm called Cambridge Consultants have conjured up a new concept that promises to be the world’s most eco-friendly. And how does it justify claiming that crown? Well most obvious is the fact that it would be made from sustainable components, like the wooden frame which holds all of the components together.
However, the real innovation is how the Stem regulates its power use. It’s able to detect whether it’s being used on carpet or hardwood floors, or with the hose attachment, and automatically regulates the suction power. Though at all times ensuring it never compromises on its cleaning capabilities. It will even drastically reduce its power usage when the person vacuuming pauses to move furniture without shutting the vacuum off. Overall they feel the Stem could use as much as 43% less energy than the average vac, but since they haven’t actually built a concept to test out this theory — nor do they have plans to get it in consumer’s hands — your best bet is to still probably stick with a Dyson.
Dell is offering a cool 20% off on its XPS line of laptops. The more options you add to this machine, the more dollars you save. The base configuration includes: “A Core i5-2410M 2.3GHz processor, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB discrete graphics with Optimus, 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive, 24-months McAfee SecurityCenter, DVD burner.” If you leave it like that, you’d already be saving about $200 on the $1,003.99 list price, leaving the machine at $803, shipped. But of course, there are SSDs to be had, more RAM, etc…
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