Put aside those depressing thoughts that your job actually needs a way to organize staples with this tiny cityscape snowglobe that’s an adorable way to store your office supplies. It’s certainly no Swingline, but the $20 Staple City includes a compact stapler and a base that turns your extra stacks of staples into tiny skyscrapers. [Animi Causa] More »
I’ve always been somewhat perplexed by users having more than one tablet. Still, I have to say that a smaller tablet, perhaps an inch or two smaller than the iPad Mini, could be handy to tote around daily. The oddly-spelled Qooq tablet doesn’t fit that particular bill, instead being designed specifically for kitchen use.
Made in France, the Qooq tablet was designed for cooks, so it’s splash-proof, heat and humidity resistant, and has a retractable support that serves as a stand. If you use it with greasy hands, don’t worry, because the grease can be easily cleaned off with a damp cloth. It’s got a 10.1-inch screen, an ARM Cortex A9 processor, 8GB of memory, built-in Wi-Fi, and a customized interface that has a meal planner, browser, and built-in virtual cookbook. It can also be used for surfing the Internet, viewing videos or images and listening to music.
This all sounds pretty cool. However, I’m sure that anyone with an inexpensive tablet could duplicate these functions with a waterproof case and the right cooking apps, which will probably add up to less than the Qooq’s $399(USD) retail price. But if you’re looking for a stylish gadget, dedicated to kitchen use, you should definitely check out the Qooq.
[via Uncrate]
This charming little roof tile is designed to encourage bird populations in urban areas—but its charm lies in the way it makes the most of an often-neglected space. More »
If you feel like most movies that come out are cookie cutter versions of movies that already came out, you’re not alone. Sometimes Hollywood doesn’t even try to change anything. Just take a look at the latest movie poster design cliche: the lone-standing hero looking at destruction/buildings/destroyed buildings with his back turned to us. More »
While I haven’t been around naval mines much, I have to say that this does look like a naval weapon of some kind. Thankfully, it’s not. It’s actually an intelligently-designed task light.
The Striker Magnetic LED Light Mine Professional is about the size of a baseball, and has 11 neodymium magnets on the spikes. Each of these will let you attach the light to a variety of surfaces. In the middle are 12 Lumen Tech LEDs that provide plenty of light, using one of four different modes. There’s a low-power spotlight, high-power floodlight, a red light for nighttime visibility and a high-visibility signal beacon.
It sounds like it’s something quite useful to have in your Bug-out bag, in case of the upcoming zombie apocalypse. The Striker Light Mine Professional sell for about $18(USD) each over on Amazon.
[via Uncrate]
Anyone who’s ever writhed in pain after crushing a Lego block underfoot will appreciate Australian-based Luxford St.’s take on the classic Ottoman. Crafted from recycled pool table felt and stuffed with sturdy polyurethane foam, the footrest is a perfect 20:1 scale version of a size four Lego block and is perfect for putting your feet up. Or building life-sized forts. More »
It doesn’t matter what unspeakable acts or atrocities they grew up to commit, at one point all mad scientists—from Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. No—started life as adorable infants. But what turns an innocent toddler into an adult with a penchant for world domination? This set of mad scientist-themed alphabet blocks might be one cause. More »
Hovercrafts have the distinct advantage of being just as comfortable on water as they are on land, but usually at the cost of a pretty ugly and utilitarian design. So the engineers at Mercier-Jones decided to take a crack at designing a hovercraft that was as lustworthy as a sports car, and from the looks of it they more than succeeded. More »
A group of scientists and engineers from the University of Zürich’s Artificial Intelligence Lab has unveiled a robot called Roboy. While their intentions are good, this creepy-looking robot reminds me of an adolescent, hydrocephalic, Terminator sent back in time to destroy mankind. But that’s not what it’s designed for – the team working on the project hope that it might be a sort of blueprint for human service robots.
Eventually, the robot will be covered with a soft skin and make it more comfortable for humans to touch and look at. The design uses a series of mechanical actuators to allow the robot to move around freely combined with artificial tendons. The use of these artificial tendons allows the robot to mimic human movement.
The designers of the robot say that it is still in the construction phase. So far, the team has completed the robot’s torso, leg development, a CAD model of the entire robot, and other tasks. In the middle of December, the team announced that the robot had its face and could move its arms. To finance the completion of Roboy, the researchers and engineers have taken the unique approach of selling ad space on the robot’s body.
[via Phys.org]
Well another year is over, and it was loaded with triumph and tragedy as usual. But as usual, humankind persevered – at least when it came to their gadgets and geekery.
All tolled, we published over 3,700 posts this year, bringing our total since we launched in 2006 up to over 14,200 posts. And that’s just one of our two sites! We know that not all of you visit Technabob every day (we wish you would – so why not subscribe to our RSS Feed?), so in case you missed any of our biggest stories, here are the 30 most popular articles we posted in 2012…
As you can see, there’s a pretty good variety of stuff, ranging from gadgets and video games, to geeky costumes, to the funny and just downright weird on the list. There’s also a typically large volume of Apple tech, and an atypically large amount of Assassin’s Creed stuff. Guess you guys couldn’t get your fill of Connor/Ratonhnhaké:ton this year.
Technabob continues to grow thanks to you guys. We ended the year with over 8.2 million unique visitors, and just over 15 million pages viewed on the site during 2012. And since we launched in 2006, we’ve had over 30 million unique visitors and 54 million pageviews. The mind boggles.
Thanks for another great year! Be sure to stop back by in 2013 for all sorts of cool stuff.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
