Hasta La Gadget!

Microcontrollers and other electronics components have been getting smaller and cheaper. A company called Ynvisible proves that these parts can be made much thinner as well. The company recently launched a Kickstarter fundraiser for Printoo, a set of modular electronics that are paper-thin and flexible.

Ynvisible partnered with other electronics manufacturers to create an open source Arduino-compatible platform. The company has skinny versions of everything from a microcontroller board to a battery.

Aside from finalizing the design of its flexible boards and lining up suppliers, it looks like the company has finished much of the work even before they set up the fundraiser.

Pledge at least $45 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Printoo kit as a reward; higher pledges have more robust kits as rewards.

[via Gigaom]

This amazing contraption you see here is a time machine. Before you get too excited, you should know that it doesn’t actually work, but that doesn’t make the feat any less awesome. That’s because it’s actually an incredibly detailed scale model of a fictitious time machine, created by a professional film and TV model maker.

This one-of-a-kind model took Steve Howarth over 1500 hours during a two year period to build, and it looks amazing. It’s made from perspex and styrene, and set onto a formica MDF base. The thing is loaded up with tiny LEDs to illuminate the scene, and even has sound effects and speakers built in.

The model is currently for sale over on Etsy, with an asking price just north of $17,000(USD).While that may sound like a lot, I think the guy who built this deserves more than $11 an hour for his time and materials. Plus, the lucky buyer will get film rights for a story which goes along with the time machine.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker stands out among other Zelda games for its distinctive art style, an anime-infused aesthetic that made Link as cute as a button. If you want to stare at him all day, get this Nendoroid Link action figure.

Good Smile Company’s action figure comes with equally tiny replicas of the Hero’s Sword, Hero’s Shield, Heart Container and the Wind Waker itself. It also comes with four heads, each with a different expression: smiling, nervous, serious and angry.

Lock on to your browser and head to Good Smile’s online shop to pre-order the action figure. It costs ¥4,000 (~$39 USD) and will be released this August.

[via GeekTyrant]

Braille helps visually impaired people read, but there is a lot of printed material that is never converted to that writing system. Blind people also miss out on using mobile devices because obviously they can’t feel the text on screen. MIT’s Fluid Interfaces Group attempted to address this issue with its FingerReader prototype.

FingerReader is a ring that reads printed text out loud using a small camera and complementary software that analyzes text and reads it aloud. The ring also has vibration motors that are used to guide the wearer. The ring vibrates when the user veers off the line being scanned or when the user has reached the end of the line. FingerReader can also be used to translate text, making it doubly useful.

Of course it’s far from perfect and is just a research prototype at this point, but its inventors are not ruling out the possibility of developing FingerReader as an actual product. Head to the Fluid Interfaces Group’s website or read their FingerReader paper (pdf) for more info.

[via BGR]

Here’s cosplayer Nona Neon with her badass Gipsy Danger costume. As you can see Nona adapted the hunky form of Pacific Rim’s lead mecha to suit her body. She made the suit out of EVA foam plus various household objects, including a strainer for the chest piece.

Nona said she based the EVA foam parts on papercraft templates posted by members of the prop maker community The 405th Infantry Division, modifying them as needed. She also made a replica of Gipsy Danger’s chain sword. It took her a total of six months, a lot of trial and error, and about $175 (USD) to finish the costume.

Link with your partner and pilot your browser to Nona’s Facebook page for more on her cosplay.

[via Fashionably Geek]