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Category Archives: Unusual

WillItBlend’s Latest: The iPhone

By David Ponce on 07/11/07 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

We think that no video in recent memory has evoked simultaneous feelings of utter glee and excruciating pain as the one embedded above. BlendTec has become famous in the last few months for its brilliant marketing campaign named Will It Blend. In it, the company has fun blending everyday objects, from marbles, to brooms, to hockey pucks… and now, they’ve done the unthinkable and blended an iPhone.

Yeah, it blends. And damn if seeing that black cloud of freshly misted electronics spewing from the blender at the end of the video isn’t one of the most techno-eerie moments in marketing history. It’s also interesting to see how long the device keeps on playing before it gets shattered to dust.

Satisfying, to say the least.

VIA [ CrunchGear ]

Make Your Alcoholic Friends Feel Inadequate With The One Gallon Flask

By David Ponce on 07/10/07 • Leave a comment!

orvis huge flask

By David Ponce

You’re the kind of guy that always has to stick it to someone; your neighbor gets a pool, you get three with two jacuzzis each. Never mind not needing that. Your best friend gets a BBQ, you go out and get this. You’re just that sort of competitive fellow.

So, it stands to reason that when one of your drinking buddies decides to get a liquor flask for some undercover boozin’, you’d want to one-up the fella. The Orvis Stainless Steel Huge Flask seems appropriate enough for this sort of situation. It’s made from stainless steel and holds up to one gallon of your beverage of choice. Sure, it kind of defeats the purpose of flasks in the first place, but you stand above such rational arguments: this mother is honkin’ big, and that’s all you care about.

Sticking it to your drinking buddy in this fashion will set you back $200.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Geekologie ]

Warping Wallpaper For Those Trippy Nights

By David Ponce on 06/13/07 • 1 Comment

warped wallpaper from surrealien

By David Ponce

The wallpaper you see in the above picture is not an artist’s rendition of a hallucinogenic experience; it’s actual wallpaper from a German company called Surrealien. You send them a detailed technical plan of your room, including doorframes, hangings and outlets, and the company then sends you back specially designed wallpaper. The patterns wrap around objects in the room, giving your crib a unique look.

Wallpapering is placarding – why not react? Paper is sloppily slapped onto walls, disregarding the surface. Windows, doors and switches rip holes into patterns, disturbing their continuity. Our product dissolves limits between architecture, wallpaper and hangings, with the wallpaper functioning as sensitive gobetween. So it’s time to: warp your room!

Browsing the site reveals nothing of cost: it all depends on how complex you want it, and how much wall you got.

A bunch more pictures after the jump.

… Continue Reading

Ãœberorgan Is Ãœberbizarre

By Evan Ackerman on 06/13/07 • Leave a comment!

Uberorgan

By Evan Ackerman

This tubey balloon monster that’s taken over the atrium of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles is a sculpture/industrial waste depository/musical instrument designed by artist Tim Hawkinson. Called Ãœberorgan, it’s air powered and can play hymns and pop music. At least, that’s what the description says it plays, but I can’t for the life of me discern any actual melodies coming out of the thing:

The Ãœberorgan uses an array of photosensors to read dashes of black paint as they move past on a 250 foot long roll of laminated paper. Each dash activates a valve, channeling pressurized air through a sort of trumpet thing, which sounds until the dash ends (much like a player piano). Although it definitely doesn’t sound any less, um, atonal in person, it’s quite impressive to see. The Getty is free and there’s a bunch of other, you know, arty stuff in there, so check it out if you’re in the LA area. The Ãœberorgan will be on display until September 9.

[ Tim Hawkinson's Ãœberorgan ]

Coin-Eating Piggy Bank Is Fugly, Gives Nightmares, Makes Good Children’s Gift

By David Ponce on 06/08/07 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

I’m going to say something possibly unpopular, and may my soul burn in Hell if it has to: I don’t like children. And if I were somehow forced to cohabit with one, I’d be sure to give him this: the Face Bank from Banpresto. Under the guise of paternal love and care for his financial future, I’d make him save his pennies in this nightmare-inducing mechanic piggy bank. It has a little detector that sees you coming with your change, and starts chewing on it as soon as you place it in its mouth… but darn if it ain’t the ugliest, most disturbing piece of low-tech I’ve ever seen.

I’m not sure what the intended result of this psychological bullying would be, but long lasting scars are almost a guarantee. Perhaps it’s just retaliation over the scars I’m sure to get from having to raise the little one.

The Face Bank comes out August 6th, for about $20, and is available for pre-order now from Strapya World.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ TechEBlog ]

Slow Motion Video Of A Non-Bursting Water Balloon

By David Ponce on 05/25/07 • 2 Comments

highspeed.jpg

By David Ponce

Yes, it is Friday. While you’re counting down the hours to 5pm, here’s a cool slow motion video of a water balloon hitting the ground, but not bursting. It’s completely unrelated to gadgets, but darn if it isn’t fascinating.

VIA [ TechEBlog ]

Friday’s Weirdness, 1-Click Game And The Japanese Connection

By David Ponce on 05/25/07 • Leave a comment!

Arrow

By David Ponce

It’s Friday, and we’re thinking there no better way to start the weekend than with a bit of a Japanese mindgame. It’s called 1-Click, and it’s not really a mindgame at all, we don’t think… but dammit if it doesn’t make us wish we’d huffed some paint first. See, if you click the picture above (or the link below), you’ll be able to play a “game” that only makes sense to certain people, presumably most of them Japanese. Here’s the explanation, which I still don’t fully grasp:

Anyone who has a Japanese dad knows that they wear this wife-beater + cotton legging set under their business suits every day; and anyone who has ever been to a Japanese street festival knows that these men are experts at carrying portable Shinto shrines (omikoshi) on their shoulders while making noises that express cooperation and motivation.

The 1-Click “game” essentially mimics this behavior, right on your browser.

It’s just plain weird, and sort of interesting, so give it a spin, and let us know what you think.

[ 1-Click ] VIA [ Tokyomango ]

Pur Flavor Options Lets You Flavor Your H2O Right At The Tap

By David Ponce on 05/18/07 • 2 Comments

pur flavor options

By David Ponce

Tap water (or any water for that matter) tastes pretty darn bland, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Proctor and Gamble’s “Pur Water Filtration System” (the kind that attaches to your faucet and filters the water on the go) just got an interesting upgrade: Pur Flavor Options. With this, you’ll be able to get strawberry, peach or raspberry flavoring right from your tap. The system works with an add-on flavor cartridge, which is inserted on a specially modified Pur Water Filtration System; press a button with the filtration on, and the flavoring begins. You can get up to 75 glasses worth with every cartridge, and as you might expect, the concoction contains no sugar, fat, carbs, vitamins or pretty much anything other than some taste.

We’re not sure about taste of availability, but there’s a nifty website for you to browse, with lots of flying fruit and some gimmicky games.

[ Pur Flavor Options ] VIA [ Strange New Products ]

SpamTrap Does Nothing But Shred Incoming Email

By David Ponce on 05/10/07 • 3 Comments

spamtrapBy David Ponce

It’s clear that spam is one the most hated elements of online life, and it’s nice to see people deal with it in creative (if not necessarily useful) ways. Bill Shackelford created the SpamTrap, a contraption that prints incoming spam mail, and proceeds to immediately feed it into a paper shredder. He used a

Pentium II computer connected to a wireless network, personal printer, personal shredder, aluminum rails, Spamtrap email addresses, automatic printing software, email client software, antivirus software, and a SpamCop user account. The paper is recycled after the spam email has been shredded.

What he means there by “SpamTrap email addresses” is that he uses email addresses he created specifically for the purpose of being spammed; he left them in forums and other online bulletin boards, luring spam. Once the spam is in, it gets printed, and immediately shredded, for your satisfaction. [ Update: True, the spam also gets sent to a blacklist, with SpamCop, so there is some actual use to this contraption. ]

The device is a one of a kind project at the moment, and there very likely no plans to commercialize.

[ Project Page ] VIA [ BoingBoing ]

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