Thanksgiving dinner might be over for another year, but you’ve got a fridge full of leftovers that says friends and family will be stopping by for another meal today. And if you’re worried your famous pumpkin pie isn’t going to be enough to impress them, Richard Wiseman is back with another collection of super simple party stunts that are sure to leave people amazed and bewildered—even if they’re not drunk.
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Are all clocks created equal? The answer is definitely not, but I would assume that for the most of us, we would happily settle for a simple digital or analog clock that sits on our desk, hang on the living room wall, or simply refer to the wristwatch that we wear all the time. How about adding more functions to your everyday timepiece? This is what the £29.99 Click Cube Clocks is all about, as it will arrive in black and walnut shades from early next month onward to make it a candidate for your Christmas shopping list.
For starters, the Click Cube Clocks would be able to let you tell the time at a glance, unlike those Tokyoflash watches that require you to perform some sort of mental calculation before arriving at the exact minute. Not only that, the Click Cube Clocks do more than just tell the time, as they are also able to show the temperature and date. Teenagers and sleep lovers will be pleased to know that a snooze function has also been thrown into the mix to accompany the alarm, letting you sleep in a little bit longer, while the lack of wires translate to you being able to place it just about anywhere you like without the risk of tripping over. The magic of the Click Cube Clock lies in the fact that the time will be displayed at the snap of your fingers, or when you tap the bedside table it is on gently.
[ Click Cube Clocks tell the time in a fun way copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
I never played Pokémon growing up, but my son loved the cards for a long time. It seemed I couldn’t walk around the house without stepping on a card or Pokémon toy of some sort. One of the things that he tried to explain to me a few times was how exactly the Pokémon changed over time. A new set of Pokémon cards has turned up that shows how the kids and their families evolve alongside their Pokémon companions.
The first of the cards shows a little boy with his parents and a Tepig. The next card in the series show the boy a bit older with parents and a little sister in the picture with the Tepig evolved to a Pignite.
The final card in the series show the Tepig is now a full-grown Emboar, the boy grown up and married with kid of his own and the little sister grown up along with older parents. The cards also show the new stats for the Pokémon as it grows.
The cards launched in Japan as part of the EX Battle Boost expansion.
So what have we learned from this? Pokémon will surely outlive us all.
[via Kotaku via Nerd Approved]
Careening through the air 30,000 feet above the ground can be a brutal experience. To help us cope, airlines have evolved some pretty sophisticated on-demand entertainment in the form of games, movies, internet, and the occasional backrub. Here’s a look at some of the ambitious ideas that got us there, the failures along the way, and concepts we might see in the future.
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We’ve seen single-pixel cameras, and now MIT researchers have figured out how to create clear images of dimly-lit objects using single photons — in 3D, no less. The technique doesn’t involve any fancy new hardware, either, as the team worked with a standard photon detector that fired low-intensity visible laser light pulses. The magic happens from the algorithms they developed instead, which can pick out variations in the time it takes for individual photons to bounce off of subjects. After the software separated the noise (as shown above) the result was a high-res image created with about a million photons that would have required several hundred trillion with, say, a smartphone camera. That’ll open up new possibilities for low-energy surveying, for instance, or even spy cameras that could virtually see in the dark — because no laser research project is complete with a sinister-sounding military application.
Filed under: Cameras, Science, Alt
Source: Nature
If you thought low-light photography was coming on in leaps and bounds, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This new camera, developed by researchers at MIT, can capture ultra-sharp images of objects even when they’re illuminated by just a handful of photons.
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Janus gives interactive fabric a whole new meaning. Not only is it strong and versatile, but it also comes with integrated heating or lighting capabilities. It sounds like something from the future, and it probably is, but here’s to hoping someone can actually turn it into a reality.
Janus is a concept desibn for a textile that could be integrated into a variety of base materials, such as fabrics, leather, or film. After the material is decided, a lighting or heating system can be applied before using the textile to create the intended product.
So far, three products have been designed with the special features of Janus in mind: an umbrella with an integrated lighting system, bulb-less light that uses the material’s lighting properties to provide illumination, and a wheelchair with integrated heating in its seat.
The lighting or heating system is basically sandwiched in between a layer of polyurethane and polyester. For example, for the umbrella, the system is described as follows:
In the rain, the city seems to be darker and gloomier than usual. Janus Fabric senses the sounds on the street and expresses various light patterns in response.
Futuristic? Yes. Impossible? We’re hoping it isn’t.
Janus Fabric is a Red Dot Design Award 2013 winner and was designed by Kim Hyemin, Kim Minki, and Lee Jisu.
Stepping on snails is nasty—feeling the distinctive crack-and-squelch beneath your foot is all sorts of ugh-ack-yuck-ew. Dutch artist, designer, and scientific researcher Lieske Schreuder found a way to make the experience less visceral but arguably more disgusting, by creating tiles composed of terrestrial mollusc turds.
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There’s an iconic scientific image which depicts evolution, and it suggests that we went from monkey to man in six easy steps. The only problem is, that’s kinda bull.
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In Europe Volvo has some rather interesting cars, but in the US we get mostly boring cars that typically focus on safety rather than performance. A new Volvo vehicle is coming to the US that will bring with it impressive performance and a wagon body with lots of space inside. In the UK, the Volvo […]
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