Hasta La Gadget!

I’ve seen some unusual lamps in my time, but I have to say this is the first time I’ve ever seen a lamp that’s designed to look like a dollop of poo. Yep, in this world of crazy, crowdsourced ideas, we officially have they quirkiest product to turn up on Quirky yet.

Designed by Diana Dumitrescu, the POOP lamp lets forth a lovely ambient glow from its soft and creamy pile. The USB-powered poo is made from a soft foam material which allows the warm glow from inside shine through. At this point, it looks like the POOP lamp will come in a somewhat unnatural orange color – unless you happen to eat a lot of carrots. Diana says it could be easily produced in other colors too. Just don’t make one in green, or with lumpy bits. Heck, if you made a white one, it would just look like whipped cream.

Besides looking like Japanese anime dookie, it’s actually a pretty clever lamp design, with a USB rechargeable battery and cool-burning, eco-friendly LED light source inside. Plus, it’s packed in a lovely can simply marked as “POOPINACAN.” How could you go wrong?

If you’re ready to put a steaming pile of poop on your desk, then head over to Quirky now and show your support for the project.

Speakers now come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, so it’s quite a feat when someone announces that they’ve developed a speaker that no one else has thought to make before (except maybe these guys). That’s the position Fujifilm currently finds themselves in with their Beat diaphragm speakers.

The Beat Diaphragm is a portable speaker technology made up of ultra-flexible materials. It’s so flexible, in fact, that you can curl and roll it up when you’re done using it. At Tokyo’s nano tech 2013 tradeshow, Fujifilm also showed off the speakers in a variety of form factors, including shiny flat panels, and even in a Japanese folding fan.

The speaker is constructed with a soft polymer on the surface, which makes the rolling-up action possible. However, when sounds from 20Hz to 20kHz are coursed through the speaker, the material hardens. Additionally, the sound is provided by piezoelectric ceramics.

The potential for this is huge, although the technology has yet to find its way into any actual products you can buy.

[Tech-On! via Engadget via Dvice]

I look forward to the day where I can 3D print pretty much anything I need, from cell phone cases to watches to spare body parts. Many small items can already be 3D printed on the cheap, thanks to the advent of the personal 3D printer. This watch was 3D printed, which makes me imagine all of the stuff that people will be able to make reality on their own desktops.

The Shifted Watch was created by Austrian designer Paul Kweton. Its translucent case highlights the latest in rapid prototyping technologies. The watch is wrapped in laser sintered nylon plastic, and it’s supposed to express a random, futile, deconstructive design aesthetic. I’m not sure about all of that, but it sure looks interesting.

While the watch mechanism itself clearly wasn’t 3D printed, I’m sure that some day you’ll be able to render complex mechanisms using the technology.

I wonder when I’ll be able to 3D print digital watches in my home office.

[via designboom]

We’re seeing more and more cameras that can take – or at least put together – 360º panoramic images. This prototype made by Ricoh is another example. It has two fisheye lenses that can each cover 180º. The camera will automatically combine the images from each half to create a full 360º image.

But the camera itself is just one part of Ricoh’s project. After it processes an image, the camera will upload it to a mobile device using Wi-Fi, so users can immediately view and play with the picture.

We’re gonna need a bigger picture frame.

[via DigInfo.TV via Akihabaranews]

Just a few days ago, we told you that Brian Reynolds, Zynga‘s chief game designer is stepping down from his post after almost four years at the company. At the time, it wasn’t clear what Reynolds planned on doing next, but the man has spoken, and while he’s still not 100% sure what he’s going to do, starting up a small game studio is likely in the cards.

In a guest post on VentureBeat, Reynolds discusses the good times that he’s had at Zynga, and reflects on the past at Big Huge Games, as well as co-founding Firaxis Games alongside Sid Meier. However, while we was grateful for the time spent at these studios, Reynolds says he ready to “shift into a different gear,” and is thinking about starting his own small game studio.

Reynolds says that this would give him the power to do things that he wasn’t able to do at Zynga or other past jobs. He says he misses “getting to write code personally and make fun with [his] own hands.” He even says he misses the days of “day-to-day panics of being somewhere small and new and vulnerable, and the excitement of owning a small company.”

Reynolds notes that he wants to take risks and do stuff that might not be up to snuff for a publicly-traded company like Zynga. Thus, Reynolds says that “starting a little studio with a few wingmen…is likely to be on the menu.” As far as what he plans to do at this studio, should he start it up, he notes that mobile strategy games are a big interest for him.

[via VentureBeat]

Image via Flickr

Zynga chief game designer likely to start own game studio is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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