Hasta La Gadget!

One of my all-time favorite films is The Princess Bride. I once got into a fist fight with a kid back in the day who said it was a girls’ movie. I’ve watched the movie more times than I can count and my eight-year-old daughter likes it so much she named her chihuahua Buttercup. If you’re a fan of the movie too, you’ll love this Kickstarter project that is already met its funding goal with 29 days to go.

The project is seeking to make a deck of The Princess Bride playing cards. The people behind the project are keeping most of the artwork for the deck of cards to themselves. The cards we have seen have Wesley as the King. The designers promise every card will be based on the movie.

The deck will also have custom jokers and a special magic finish that allows the cards to handle smoothly and last longer than cheaper cards. The deck will also include a unique gaff card designed to be used for card tricks. The project is seeking $10,000 and has raised over $34,000 so far with 29 days to go. A pledge of $15 or more will get you a single deck of cards with delivery estimated for July 2014.

Google has added some new features to Glass in the latest software update for its experimental face-based computing device. There’s a new video player with simple tap to start/pause, swipe to fast forward and rewind commands, and new voice commands for posting an update or taking a note that uses Path or Evernote glassware by default if you have them installed.

Google has chosen these partners based on opportunity it seems, and promises that there will be more supported Glassware apps that can use these and other new default voice actions in time. So presumably, once Facebook offers a Glass app that does more than just photo sharing, you’ll be able to select that as the default option for posted updates, though it isn’t exactly clear how things will work beyond Path and Evernote just yet.

Google also added a new Volume control card in settings, and made it possible to check your timeline and use other features of Glass while on an active video call. This mutes your camera and closes down your POV video feed, until you return the call to the foreground.

Also new are contextual voice commands while navigating for hands free operation, voice captioning for photos and videos and the ability to add hashtags to both as well, voice commands that are better at recognizing strings of things at once, better SMS support that shows you messages sent from your phone as well as Glass, and some new Google Now cards. The new cards include reservations drawn from your Gmail, nearby movie showtimes with posters, public alerts and the ability to send birthday messages for birthday reminder cards.

Once again, Google has dropped a whole slew of new features in a Glass update, and it really does look like it’s moving forward with making this a more generally usable product. All the updates so far have focused on features that will either make the experience of using Glass more natural, or make Glass more feature-rich for everyday activities. Whether or not that’s going to result in a product that normal people actually want to wear on their heads remains to be seen.

If you still like print photography and frequently send friends and family snapshots, then you might want to get a Stampede. It’s basically a large, pre-inked rubber stamp that transforms your photographs into postcards instantly.

There’s just something different about sending and receiving an actual photo in the mail, rather than just checking it out on a computer screen or a mobile device. All you have to do is grab a photograph, ink the Stampede, and stamp it onto the back of the photograph. It’ll instantly be stamped with all the stuff that postcards are printed with: address lines, the divider, a space for your handwritten message, and of course, the box where you’re supposed to affix the stamp.

Stampede is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $50(USD) will get you one of your own.

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