Hasta La Gadget!

One of the hassles of playing tabletop games is that pieces are often moved out of their place or sometimes even off the table. It’s a minor inconvenience at best and a game-stalling dilemma at worst, as you try to figure out which piece should be at which position. That’s the problem that BFR Games wants to solve with GripMat.

As its name implies, GripMat is made of a material designed to create a enough friction to prevent pieces from accidentally sliding about. It’s waterproof and retains its form even after you roll it up or crumple it. It’s also great to roll dice on. It muffles the sound that dice make and quickly stops them in their tracks. What I don’t know is if GripMat makes it easier or harder to pick up paper-thin items like cards.

As shown in the video, GripMat comes in a variety of designs; the ones in the gallery below are just a few of them. You can also customize your order further with tile or hex grid overlays.

Pledge at least $25 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a GripMat as a reward. It also comes in different sizes; naturally the larger ones are available at higher pledge tiers.

Earlier this year we learned about Twinkind, a 3D printing shop that makes personalized figurines. Its products are highly detailed, but it has two drawbacks: the figurines are expensive and you have to go to Germany to be scanned. A similar service called Shapify.me has none of those drawbacks, although it requires you to have a Kinect.

Before Shapify.me can make your figurine, you have to scan yourself using a Kinect and a Mac or a PC running Shapify’s software. Assuming you can hold your pose, the process will only take a few minutes, after which the software will generate your 3D model. You can of course re-do the scan if you like.

If you’re satisfied, send your model online through the software and fill-up a form on Shapify.me’s website to place your order. The company will then print a 1/20th scale figurine and deliver it to you for a flat fee of $59 (USD). You can also specify if you want a monochrome or a full-color figurine.

Based on the images, it seems like Shapify.me’s figurines are not as detailed as the ones made by Twinkind or other shops with dedicated 3D scanners. On the other hand, these are way cheaper (well, if you already have a Kinect!) and more convenient. As of this writing Shapify.me caters to residents of the US, Canada and Europe. Check out Shapify.me’s website to learn more.

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is from Joel, who has one eye on our archives and another on his wallet. If you’re looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“It’s been a while since you had a Best Laptop under $500 question. I’d be curious to know what all of the Engadget readers would suggest?”

It certainly has, Joel, so let’s throw this open to the bounty of real-world testers that we have in the Engadget community. If you’ve spent $500 on a laptop that you love, share the details in the comments section below.

Filed under: Laptops

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Gamers, get into the spirit of the holidays with these tiny but detailed ornaments that look like controllers from video game consoles of yore. There’s an Atari 2600 joystick, a Sega Genesis gamepad, a NES gamepad and a PlayStation controller. There’s a part of me that can’t accept that the PlayStation is a “classic” now.

Here’s a merrier shot of the controllers:

You can order the ornaments from ThinkGeek. $20(USD) gets you a pack containing all four controller designs. Depending on how big your Christmas tree is, you might need to get dozens of these because they’re only about 3″ to 4″ wide.

[via Nerd Approved]

One of last year’s most successful Kickstarter-funded projects was the MaKey MaKey, a device that allowed you to input keyboard commands to a computer using everyday objects. A new USB device called the Verve is similar to the MaKey MaKey, but it’s more versatile. Using a variety of sensors, the Verve lets you trigger mouse and keyboard input using real-world actions or events.

The Verve consists of a central console and seven types of sensors that plug into the console. It also has a companion program that has both Windows and OS X versions. The program is used to map the input from a sensor to a mouse or keyboard key, as well as to set the threshold – i.e. the intensity of the input – to which the mapped key will be triggered. For instance, you can use attach the motion sensor to a sword and make your videogame character attack when you swing the sword. Or you can leave the motion sensor by your cubicle and make your computer show your desktop when someone passes by. Because you’re not hiding anything there.

Pledge at least $99 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Verve kit as a reward. The kit will come with one of each sensor along with all the cables you need. I’m a bit conflicted with the potential of the Verve. On one hand, the variety of sensors means it encourages a creative and diverse array of input options. On the other hand, the one-to-one correspondence of a sensor to a key makes it quite cumbersome to setup anything beyond a simple command.

The MaKey MaKey is so easy to use because it gave you several inputs just by plugging in one board. The Verve gives you seven sensors, but each sensor can only be mapped to one key. What modern software uses just one key? From what I understand it also does not support key combinations (e.g. ctrl+X). And what if you want to use more than one unit of a particular sensor? It’s amazing how cheap and user-friendly sensors have become, but I’m not sure if the Verve will be a legitimately useful product or a mere curio.

[via DVICE]