Cassette tapes have little to no useful purpose in today’s world. Sure, in their prime you would record sappy love songs to give to your girl/boyfriend, or just listen to your favorite album. With CDs (and more importantly) digital media, these ugly plastic rectangles are little more than a memory of better days. Of course if you’re feeling nostalgic, you can always get one that’s been re-purposed into something a little more useful. We’ve seen MP3 players and USB hubs tucked away inside one, but what about a low-tech device?
The Cassette Tape Measure is another one of those ideas that makes you wonder why you didn’t think of it. Okay, maybe it’s not the most practical of applications, but it is pretty cool. I’ve no idea how long the tape is, as the only numeric value is 120 minutes. Not sure how that translates into inches. We do know that it will only take $8 to get this strangely appealing tape measure.
Chess is a rather timeless game. I can think of few other games that are just as old and are still played as much as this one. The best part is that the game pieces can be modified to reflect just about any part of pop culture. This particular set has a Super Mario theme.
This $40 set would be go well in the house of almost any video game geek. You’ll find many of the classic characters ready to duke it out on the board. There are two things that I find rather odd. First, the pawns seem to be represented by coins. Since when are coins used as a weapon? Second is that you’ll find Luigi in the queen’s spot. This just raises a whole host of questions that I’m not even going to touch.
In case you weren’t aware, the Transformers franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. To commemorate the anniversary, Toshiba is releasing a new line of mice and USB flash drives. As you would imagine, there is more than meets the eye with each one. All will be fully transformable, and will set you back $50 each. Kids and huge fans of the series might enjoy them, but $50 is a bit much methinks. They haven’t released a lot of details, such as the capacity of the USB drives, though we do know these will be out before the holiday season. Read the rest of this entry »
For a long time I’ve thought about developing some skill with 3D rendering. Why? Because I want to be one of those people that designs really cool products that will never get paid. That way people can look at my work, and get excited thinking that it’s something they could one day own. Then in one fell swoop, I’ll crush their dreams as I tell them it is only a concept. Why the rant? Because I want this Pac-Man chair.
As you’ve no doubt guessed, this chair is only an artist’s rendering. There’s a good chance that this will never be produced by anyone, so don’t get your hopes up. Were it the real deal, it would make an awesome addition to any gaming lounge or bachelor pad.
If there are any young’ns reading OhGizmo! I want you to take a close look at these photos. What you see here is how Devastator from the Transformers is supposed to look like, not that monstrosity that appeared in the Transformers sequel and in toy sections across the country. But I can understand how you’ve been misled. While Takara and Hasbro have re-released a decent collection of the original Transformers toys over the past few years, Devastator hasn’t been one of them, so there’s been little opportunity for you kids to be educated on the real Constructicons. But thankfully eBay seller ‘malsmasterpieces’ took it upon themselves to create this custom 25th Anniversary version of Devastator which I’d like you to study thoroughly. (There might be a quiz later.)
All six construction vehicles are represented, complete with their original accessories, and they each transform into their robotic alter-egos including Mixmaster, Bonecrusher, Scrapper, Hook, Scavenger and Long Haul. As far as I’m concerned this thing belongs in an art gallery given all the work and detail put into it, but you’re welcome to add it to your own collection if you’re willing to top the current bid of $1,025. Four days left!
David Berry, an ‘ILMer’ who worked at the world renowned effects shop when it was just started back in the late 70’s has posted a great collection of behind-the-scenes super 8 home movies he shot while they were working on Star Wars. These days the effects industry is mostly driven by software, so it’s cool to see how shots were created and assembled before the advent of the render button. Not to mention the fact you’re watching people who completely revolutionized an industry and obviously had fun while doing it.
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like I can embed the video here, so you’ll have to head over to Vimeo to check it out.
As far as movie trilogies go, Back to the Future will probably always be in my top 5. I mean it’s got a time-traveling DeLorean, it’s always going to be cool. As such, we’re probably always going to see replicas of some of our favorite items from the movies. Be it actual props from the set, or Nike’s Hyperdunks which were nothing like the ones from the movie. Well today I’ve found the weird-looking hat Marty McFly Jr. wears in the second movie.
I think the most prominent feature of this hat is the strangely-colored fabric that it’s made out of. There’s really the most high-tech thing about it, and not really futuristic at all. I’m no fashion expert, but something tells me that kids aren’t going to be wearing these in 2015, unless they’re reenacting scenes from the movie. This cheesy one-size-fits-all replica will only set you back about $25 when it ships on July 15th.
This video might not mean much to you if you’ve never played Myst. But if like me you were one of the early adopters of the CD-ROM drive, this footage probably brings back a heady mix of nostalgia and frustration. Myst is now available in re-rendered (but still old school) glory for the iPhone and iPod Touch, packaged in a 700 mb download that requires a massive 1.5 gigs of free space to install. It’s been long enough since the original that I’ve reliably forgotten how to solve most of the puzzles, meaning that this is an opportunity to pay $6 for the privilege of wasting countless more hours trying to figure out how to activate the damn rocket ship.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of what I consider to be one of the greatest gaming consoles of all time, Nintendo’s Game Boy. Besides the fact that it was the only console you could stash in your school bag and play almost anywhere, the limitations of the Game Boy’s Z80 processor and dot matrix LCD display meant that developers really couldn’t rely on fancy graphics, cut scenes or other gimmicks to sell titles. They basically had to focus on gameplay. And arguably the poster child for simple but addictive gameplay on the Game Boy was the title that Nintendo decided to include at launch, Alexey Pajitnov’s Tetris.
Like Windows’ Solitaire, Tetris is the kind of game that you can enjoy for 5 minutes or 5 hours, which made it the perfect title to include with the Game Boy which could be used for killing 5 minutes in the dentist’s waiting room, or a 5-hour car ride. In addition, the basic gameplay mechanics and easy-to-learn controls meant that everyone could play Tetris, so suddenly those ‘new-fangled’ video games weren’t just for kids anymore.
And I won’t even get into Tetris’s ridiculously repetitive but surprisingly catchy soundtrack, lest I get it stuck in my head again… Damn!… Too late.
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Useless, but amusing as hell.