Hasta La Gadget!

Dustin Evans’ Tesseract case replica may not have the power to destroy worlds or foretell the future, but it can open portals to other realms. Aside from a glowing cube, the case also has a 7″ LCD monitor and a Raspberry Pi running the popular media player XBMC through Raspbian.

Dustin also wrote an Android app to control the LEDs on the case. He also uses his Android phone to send video to the case with the help of AllCast. Dustin also added audio and video outputs to the replica. You’ll see him connect it to a projector in the video below.

Assemble a browser and head to Dustin’s blog for more on his project.

[via Hack A Day]

Before its Diablo III art contest, DeviantART also held a competition for another major video game – Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. The contest called for the art community’s members to show their own take on the heroine Lightning. The entries were judged by none other than Square Enix’ artist, designer and director Tetsuya Nomura.

The contest was held last month, from February 11 to February 20. Out of the 4,655 submissions, Nomura – known for his character designs for Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, X and XIII and the Kingdom Hearts series – chose three grand prize winners.

Below is Nicolas Barge’s winning piece, of which Nomura said, “At first glance it looks like a CG, and it has a level of quality that makes it look like it was captured as a screenshot.  While there were many heroic costumes for Lightning, I was drawn to the femininity of this costume and her hairstyle.”

Nomura was also impressed by Randis Albion’s piece, saying, “It’s wonderful as an illustration, but in addition to that, the artist drew in both the front and back views, so I felt the artist’s clear intent when they created this piece. The red and blue color scheme was very beautiful, too.”

Marga Donaire’s submission is one of my favorites among all of the entries, and it sounded like Nomura felt the same way too: “With one look I was hooked. The costume itself is sophisticated, and it’s also very well done as an illustration. The background that reminded me of the Japanese flag (Hinomaru) matched well with the piece and was beautiful.  As an artist, when I look at different works of art, I think to myself “If it were up to me, I would do it differently,” but that thought didn’t cross my mind once when I saw this picture.”

As if earning praise from such an accomplished artist wasn’t enough, Nicolas, Randis and Marga also won an original sketch from Tetsuya Nomura, a custom Xbox 360 and controller, $1000, a keychain, a shirt, and copies of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. They were also featured on the front page of deviantART. Congrats guys! Switch to your browser costume and head to deviantART to check out all of the entries.

Phil Harlow wanted an easy way for him and his roommates to split the bill for their kegerator’s beer keg refills. So they all decided that he’ll just pay for it. Just kidding. Phil is working on a facial recognition system for their kegerator that will keep a tab for them.

Phil’s setup is powered by a Raspberry Pi. It uses two flow sensors to detect if the tap is turned on, at which point a camera will activate to examine the user’s face. A touchscreen monitor displays relevant details, including the user’s name, the type and amount of beer poured and its equivalent cost. Phil and his buddies can also scroll through the kegerator’s history to see their tabs.

Now all it needs is a towel, some interesting stories and a plate of nuts. Head to Phil’s blog for more on his hack.

[via Hack A Day]

We’ve actually seen a baby in a Power Loader costume before, but it doesn’t get old. There’s something very creepy and unsettling about seeing a baby in control of a multi-ton machine capable of crushing an Alien Queen like a bug.

This one was built by Carsten Riewe for a Karneval Parade in Germany and it’s a dead ringer for the Caterpillar P5000 exoskeleton power loader from Aliens. But instead of Ripley, his 13-month-old daughter is the one driving this thing. Hopefully she isn’t a temperamental child and won’t destroy the whole town or anything because she didn’t get the toy she wanted. Nah. Don’t worry, her dad is behind her as the real driver.

The costume is a nice piece of work, and took about 100 hours to build. The arms and legs are full moveable and the top-light and LED are powered by a 12 Volt battery pack stored in the backpack. The on/off switch is in the left arm. There is also a Bluetooth boombox in the backpack to play mechanical robot sound effects or music.

[via Uproxx via Neatorama]

H.R. Giger’s creations in the Alien universe are some of the most awesome, iconic and creepy designs in the history of moviemaking. Now you can own your very own Space Jockey, just like the one in the original Alien.

Artist Dave Tootill says he’s been working on this amazing 1/8th scale model for about 900 hours, spread out over over two years. Tootill made the Space Jockey sculpture using DAS modeling clay, plastic sheets, rods, tubes, dowels, a model skull, and other bits and bobs.

Once the sculpting was complete, Dave handpainted it – much like H.R. Giger did himself when dressing the set for the original film.

It’s currently for sale over on Etsy for just under $9,000(USD), but due to its size, Dave will only ship it to a buyer in the United Kingdom.

You can read all about the build and the effort that went into this incredible creation over on his Space Jockey website.