Hasta La Gadget!

I’m a sucker for the warm orange glow of Nixie tubes. There’s just something just so retro-modern about the way they look – all I can think of is the technology in the movie Brazil. I just stumbled across a really cool Nixie tube clock which accents the tubes with modern LEDs, adding even more to the look.

This six-digit Nixie clock has a RGB LEDs under the base of each Nixie vacuum tube, allowing it to change accent colors on demand. Just press the buttons in the included wireless remote to select your color, and the LEDs will adjust to your liking. The remote works like many other color-changing LEDs, letting you fade colors as well. Just keep in mind that the Nixie tubes will always have their distinct orange glow to them.

The clock offers 12/24-hour modes, the ability to change the digit cross-fade, and it can also display to date and work as an alarm clock. The whole thing looks really awesome when illuminated, using some of the best looking Nixie tubes I’ve seen as well.

Unfortunately, all of these good looks don’t come cheap. The Nixie/LED clock retails for $599.99(USD) over on eBay. That said, there’s a cheaper version that comes with smaller Nixie tubes that I don’t think look quite as cool – but it sells for just $199.00.

Despite the fact that I’ve played through both Portal games from start to finish a couple of times now, they’re still some of my favorites of all time. Between the tricky puzzles and gleefully dark sense of humor, what’s not to love? Since it might be a while before Portal 3 is even announced, I need a way to watch the hours tick by as I wait. This should do the trick.

This cool Portal-inspired clock by Celebutante may not be official Valve merch, but that doesn’t make it any less nifty hanging on your wall. It features a single image which pretty much sums up Portal – the iconic infographic guy flinging eternally through a set of vertically-opposed portals, ever increasing in speed.

This 11.8″ wide printed vinyl-on-acrylic clock keeps things simple, but that’s fine by me. It gets the point across just fine, looks cool, and sells for just $13.99(USD). Head on over to Etsy to order yours now. You monster.

It may not look like much, but this digital clock is actually the most depressing and horrifying timepiece I have seen. Made by artist Tom Schofield, the clock doesn’t tell the time. Instead it’s a visualization of the Doomsday Clock, a metric of global disaster made by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Tom calls his creation the Neurotic Armaggedon Indicator. It’s neurotic because the clock’s other half is a server that constantly checks the home page of The Bulletin to find out the status of the Doomsday Clock. In truth, the Doomsday Clock is only adjusted every couple of years or so based on input from scientists and other authoritative sources.

Originally founded by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin tracks the dangers posed by man-made technologies – like nuclear power – as well as environmental factors like climate change. The closer it is to midnight, the closer we are to wiping all of humanity. Yep, we’re at 11:55 p.m.

I hope they never come out with a personalized version of the Doomsday Clock.

[via Popular Science via The Presurfer]

While some of the other apps that I’ve come across recently promise to wake you up in different ways, this one strips away all unnecessary functions and goes down to the bare essentials of what an alarm should be. It will wake you up and it’s nicely designed. It doesn’t go much beyond this – and that’s a good thing.

The Rise app for iOS is simple, but some thought went into designing it. To set the alarm, you just drag your finger across the screen to select the time. Once set, the app has a progressive alarm, meaning that it will increase in volume if you don’t do anything about it. A simple swipe across the screen will shut the alarm off. You can also snooze your alarm by shaking your iPhone, which is good because when I’m groggy with sleep, shaking my phone is about the only thing I can do. It comes with a nice variety of alarm sounds, and you can also have it wake you with your favorite track from iTunes.

Rise is available in the iTunes App store for $1.99(USD).

Gov.UK Product Manager Richard J. Pope hacked an old clock and turned it into an odd sort of barometer. But instead of measuring and displaying the pressure, Richard’s device tells him if it’s better to take the train or ride his bike to work.

Although it would make Richard’s life a bit more exciting if the Bicycle Barometer dictated his mornings on a whim, Richard chose the safe route and hooked it up to look for three pieces of data. Using a webapp, the device looks at the latest weather forecast, the status of the train line that Richard takes to work and the status of the station where he waits for the train. The device itself is powered by a Nanode microprocessor along with a servo to move the clock hand.

Head to Richard’s blog for more on his hack. I wonder if Richard could fill out the scale with other modes of transportation, like walking, taking a cab, or swimming (if the weather ever gets that bad).

[via PSFK via Freshness]