Hasta La Gadget!

With the Halloween just around the creepy corner, DIY guru Nathan decided to turn his pumpkin into a video game machine that can play Tetris. Illustrating the details of his project, Nathan explained that he originally wanted to shape pumpkins into Tetris pieces as they grew, then stack them together for Halloween. Realizing the short time he had, he opted to create a pumpkin that can play the classic game of Tetris on it instead. Nathan used 140 amber LEDs, a pair of LED Matrix “backpacks”, and a short handle joystick from SparkFun as its controller.

He then created the LED matrix, soldered short wires into a daisy chain, poked holes into a foam-core board for the LEDs, and did the coding for the game. Nathan had to poke holes once again, this time, into the pumpkin using a drill bit and cut squares outside the holes to make it look more realistic. As for the ingenious joystick, he drilled a hole into the stem and inserted a shaft to act as a controller. If you’ve got lots of time to waste over the weekend, you can follow his DIY project here.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Tetris Heat Change Mug , Tetris lights: add color to your room,

Every house needs lamps, and every lamp needs a home. A pretty sound statement, but I bet you’ll be surprised to hear that someone took this statement literally. Hence, the House-Lamp came to be.

What more can I say that the pictures don’t? Designed by Lauren Daley, House-Lamps are basically lamps shaped like houses. They also come optional task lights beside them to provide light, but they can stand alone as an accent piece too.

House-Lamps playfully draw on classic house forms and integrate the warmth of light to create a lamp like no other. Seeing a House-Lamp can remind one of homes once dwelled in, fond memories shared, and dreams to come.

House-Lamps are currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $250(USD) will get you one of the lighted houses, and $275 will get you the version with the task lamp. Or if you just like the houses and want to support the project, a $25 pledge will get you an (unlighted) wooden kit that you can assemble yourself.

I just got a cool new laptop yesterday, and as much as I love how insanely thin and lightweight the thing is, I do find that its two USB ports aren’t enough. While there are plenty of add-on USB hubs out there, I have to say that I particularly like the playful and minimal style of the Lonely City USB hub.

Designer David Weeks’ little USB city envisions an abandoned town, filled with nondescript white buidings and devoid of people – and just a handful of  blue lights glowing in a few lonely windows. That said, you can always embellish your scene with your own action figures to liven up the little city and its four USB 2.0 ports.

Personally, I think I’d add some tiny zombie action figures and recreate downtown Atlanta from season one of The Walking Dead.

You can grab the Lonely City USB hub over on Amazon for just $19.99(USD).

In the ever-shrinking world of tech, for a company to release a jumbo-sized variant of a product is something of a novelty. Jawbone’s Big Jambox has taken a few courses of steroids, with natty design language and 15-plus hours of battery life. We were certainly fans of the unit, although its audio can get a bit on the shaky side when you turn it up to 11, but that was just in the confines of our review. What’s it been like to use this thing on a regular basis for the last six months? We’re asking you to place yourselves in the stylish shoes of designer Yves Behar and tell us what you’d have done differently.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video

How would you change Jawbone’s Big Jambox? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Set the mood for a romantic evening by dimming the lights. And if this particular dimmer switch had its way, then it’s going to stay dark and dim for good.

That’s only if you want to keep it smiling, though.

This switch is by designer Danny Taylor, who wanted to use it to teach kids about the concept of using energy responsibly. When the lights are on, the switch’s face indicates a sad face. Turn the lights all the way down, and the switch is smiling again.

I’m not sure if this is the smartest or most effective way to get kids to stop wasting energy, but it’s definitely a neat idea and an interesting concept. What say you?

[via Inhabitat via Gizmodo]