Working for a website called ‘I Want One Of Those’ might incline one to be desensitised to gizmos that are particularly gobsmacking. However, some inventions are simply impossible to ignore – the Seabreacher is one such creation. It’s a submersible craft based on the aerodynamics and movements of sharks (that may be the coolest sentence I’ve ever written). To digest its magnificence in full, you have only to watch this video:
Cripes. A quick glance at the FAQ section of the Seabreacher website throws up some equally amazing statistics. It can travel at 50mph underwater, they have a 260bhp engine, it’s got GPS, there’s a snorkel-mounted camera… but most importantly it allows you to muck around in the water like a flippin’ shark. So if you’ve got a spare $65,000, I’d quite like to borrow it… I’ll let you have a go on it, honest!
We might not be the first to have noticed this, but some wily person has taken an existing (and thoroughly amazing) video of a Stormtrooper dancing to ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ and added some rather snazzy CGI baby Stormtroopers in the background. Just watch…
Wonderful stuff. We’re getting Stormtrooper outfits for the next time that song comes on in the office (it could happen!). Particularly impressive reflections on the glass for the CGI characters – maybe George Lucas needs to take a leaf out of this book for any future SW tie-ins…
If there’s one thing you can rely on the internet for (apart from cat pictures) it’s continually taking the Star Wars brand and applying it to various other cool things. Remember this? Well, now Star Wars Lego has gone somewhat retro – this clever person has made a rather beautiful version of Space Invaders made entirely from blocky Stormtroopers and other such paraphernalia. Well done.
Tokyo Flash have always had an ability to produce watches that are a perfect equilibrium between design & geek. The Tokyo Flash Cross Town Traffic is no exception. I personally am not a watch-wearer, but am often tempted by shiny time keepers that I think will make my chubby arm look a little more appealing. Even more appealing is the fact that people will actually have to ask you if they want to know the time. Imagine that. You are on the bus or tube and someone ACTUALLY engages in conversation. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get eye contact. Whatever. It is the year 2010 after all, and most people use their mobile phones as a watch. Anyway – onto the specs -
“Navigating Traffic will become your forte once you’ve mastered the rules of the road. Take a look at the maps below and trust your instincts. Hours 1-12 are the city streets in blue, 5 minute intervals are shown along the subway line in orange and single minutes 1-4 are the highway out of town in green. After touching the button, lights showing the current time will flash for a seven seconds to direct you.”
Displays the time
Stainless steel case & strap
USB rechargeable: connect to your computer with cable provided
Our JennaWoot is a Geordie lass of much distinction, but when it comes to iPhone security, she’s come a little unstuck. Due to various reasons (none of them involving alcohol) she has now managed to lose three iPhones. The insurance people have been a little slow in sending a new one out, so in the meantime Jenna has been forced to make a new style of multimedia phone:
You might not be au fait with current trends in the rapidly advancing world of toilet innovation, but it seems that a minor revolution is taking place. This week, the first Toto Toilets are going on sale in the UK. Previously available (and monstrously successful) in Asia and the US, they’re basically the Rolls Royce of, err, going to the loo. As this video ably explains, the technology is pretty impressive:
But come on – it’s just a toilet, right? I mean (and I don’t want to go into too much detail here), going to the toilet is a pretty straight-forward process. Cleanliness is certainly an issue, but this is just nuts. Is it really worth paying over £2000 for a bog that gets the bowl a little bit cleaner than squirting some bleach around the rim? And who needs to be able to immediately flush the toilet again after you’ve flushed it once? Actually, don’t answer that… Also, what a self-important video! It’s a toilet, not a time machine. Although that’s an avenue worth exploring.
There are advantages to a nice toilet, yes, but as soon as you put another novelty item in the bathroom the wow-factor immediately disappears. We’re thinking, of course, of the Glow In The Dark Loo Roll here. Click here to learn more about the bogs anyway.
So – would you pay over £2000 for one of these bathroom behemoths?
Reading this news story over at the BBC makes for quite a panicky Monday morning’s reading, that’s for sure. In essence, it says that robot technology, such as it is at the moment, could potentially be very dangerous to humans if we were to allow machines to help us around the house. Some German science people conducted some experiments designed to test ‘safety limits’ on a robot arm only to discover that, unsurprisingly, it could still inflict serious injury when equipped with knives and other stabbing weapons.
Now, the article doesn’t really go into enough detail at this point. They’ve said that the victims of this controlled robot arm attack were a silicone lump, a dead pig and, rather alarmingly, the arm of a human volunteer. We assume they were already long-gone…
Still, all this combined with having watched the rather rubbish ‘I, Robot’ on Friday night makes me wonder exactly what robots will be like in the future. Furthermore, it made me wonder which films have successfully (more than ‘I, Robot’, anyway) made convincing attempts at depicting what the logical extrapolation of a robot arm cutting through a dead pig would be. One thing’s for sure – while the plot of ‘I, Robot’ is entertaining enough, having a zillion poorly rendered robots jump onto Will Smith’s moving car from 50 feet away and run alongside it in an attempt to kill him while he coolly shouts things like “now I’m maaaad!” certainly isn’t. God I hate ‘I, Robot’…
Anyway, off the top of my head, I’ve come up with the following better examples of realistic robots that might chop your arm off in years to come:
Replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner:
ED-209 in Robocop (minus the blood… and the hilarious final line: “Someone wanna call a paramedic?”):
And finally, the great Woody Allen gets some tailoring advice:
Does it get any cuter than this? We’re guessing not – just look at these adorable little harbingers of inter-planetary warfare and sketchy mysticism!
They come via the exceptional talents of Lucy Ravenscar (whose blog you can find here), and if ever there were a rival to these little cuties, it’s this band of crocheted characters. If you visit her blog there are some more pictures to have a look at, some of which are even cuter than these. I bet she gets inundated with requests from children of the 70s to make them for their kids. Heck, you don’t even need kids to enjoy these, look:
New Boffin on the Block Min-Kyu Choi has won the highest accolade a this year’s Brit Insurance Design Awards (do you think that sometimes they just call them The Brit Awards to try and make themselves sound cooler? I do).
Anyway, Choi has cleverly managed to design a plug that will not cause intense pain if you step on it upturned. Which is a tremendous bonus. Speaking of plug-based injuries, I’ve got a scar above my left eye from when I bent down to unplug something and smacked my head on the corner of a table. I was about 6. I’ve hated plugs ever since. Can’t trust ‘em.
Anyway, as this video shows, it really is a miniature marvel:
Naturally, this is the most annoying, facepalm-inducing inventions in the world because we didn’t think of it. Damn. See the full story (featuring Janet Street Porter!) at the Beeb, here.
If caricatures unearth memories of traipsing through picturesque tourist traps while batty chaps in berets attempt to make you sit down while thy scratch an insulting impression of you into a pad and charge you as much as your ticket home, then prepare to be amazed. (True fact: when I was tramping around Montmartre, one such artist attempted to accost me by saying “oh go on, I’ll do it for free!” – probably should’ve taken him up on that one.)
The splendidly-named Anthony Geoffroy (now there’s a portmanteau we can get on board with) appears to be possessive of a very unique talent – his celebrity caricatures are radiant, occasionally brutal and never less than captivating – have a look for yourselves:
Visit Geoffroy’s website here for more caricatures and other such cleverness. Via Robot vs Badger.
