Hasta La Gadget!

If you know someone who refuses to type on anything but a typewriter despite being born in the mid-90s, that person will love the latest camera from the crazy folks at Superheadz. The Japanese company’s Sun & Cloud camera can be charged via USB, but it also has a solar panel and even a hand-crank to juice it up. It’s always ready to go. Your friend’s food, cat and latte foam that vaguely resembles his beard don’t stand a chance.

The Sun & Cloud has a 3MP CMOS sensor and an LED flash in front, an LCD screen and button controls at the back and the solar panel up top. From the looks of it, it seems like the hand crank folds neatly into the camera’s case. The camera can also record video and uses micro SD and micro SDHC cards for storage. Finally, what’s a hipster camera without some filters? The Sun & Cloud’s 15 built-in filters has your bicycle-loving behind covered. Judging from the sample shots below, they range from My Recommended Daily Allowance of Sadness Black & White to The Past Was Brighter Than The Future Washed Out.

You can order the Sun & Cloud camera from AC Gears for $199 (USD). But if you want to be extra hip you should buy it straight from Superheadz itself. Seriously though it could be a fun first camera for kids.

[via Freshness]

Over the years, we’ve seen some really bizarre USB gadgets turn up. We’ve seen plenty of lights, flash drives, and all manner of other devices. We’ve even had little USB powered dogs designed to hump away at your USB port. ThinkGeek has what might be one of the most unnecessary and weird USB gadgets I’ve ever seen.

The product is called the USB Squirming Tentacle, and it does exactly what the name implies. You plug the tentacle into your USB port and it flops around. You can pretend you’re notebook is part Cthulhu if you want.

I can only imagine what would happen if you hooked a bunch up to this:

Honestly, it reminds me more of some sort of alien data sucker gnawing away at your bits and bytes – like a giant leech with suction cups. If you want your own piece of wiggly evil, you can buy one for $14.99 (USD).

Last year we featured SparkFun’s guide for making an electronic dice gauntlet. The instructions are still available online, but if you have more money than electronics know-how, check out this very similar product from ThinkGeek, which was probably inspired by SparkFun’s DIY project.

Just like the DIY gauntlet, this one can also roll a variety of dice when you flick your arm while wearing it. It can simulate a 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, 12-, 20- or 100-sided die and even roll two dice at once.

Aside from being furrier than SparkFun’s gauntlet, this version can also be used as a clock, a stopwatch and a timer.

The downside to this gadget is its price. ThinkGeek is selling it for $70 (USD), which might make it unappealing to all but the high rollers.

YouTuber Hknssn may be missing a few vowels, but that hasn’t kept him from being awesome. He was able to make a LEGO machine that can automatically take a sheet of paper, fold it into a paper plane and then launch it on its own. In other words, Hknssn made a toy that makes its own toys.

The machine is about 59″ long and 16″ wide. As you might have guessed, Hknssn relies heavily on LEGO Mindstorms NXT parts to make the machine work, including two NXT Intelligent Brains, five NXT servo motors, four NXT color sensors and an NXT accelerometer. It also uses five Power Function XL motors and between 6,000 to 7,000 LEGO pieces. Check it out in action in the video below, which Hknssn hiked up to about three times the normal speed.

Hknssn shared the parts list of the machine on YouTube and a shot of its 3D model on ImageShack, but it seems he didn’t make a guide for building one. He’s probably working on a LEGO machine that can do that for him.

[via BuzzFeed]

ThinkGeek has released what may be the only arcade cabinet that the kids of tomorrow will be able to touch. He’s called Tomo, an Arcadean – an anthropomorphic arcade cabinet – that should please kids while making their elders weep for the old days. Why he doesn’t have a coin sidekick is beyond me.

Tomo not only has a joystick, a button and even a power cord, he also makes retro arcade sound effects when you shake him. Thankfully you can remove his sound box if the nostalgia becomes too much for you.

You can order Tomo from ThinkGeek for $13 (USD). The folks at the geek store are implying that they may make more Arcadeans if Tomo sells well. Never mind ThinkGeek, we know you’ll just replace Tomo with Consoleans before long. Don’t rub it in.

[via it8bit]