Hasta La Gadget!

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t park my butt anywhere near this thing. It may be fake, but you never know when something is going to come alive through magic and kill you with its razor-sharp choppers. It’s just good to be cautious.

Anyway, if we had more benches like this, I’m sure that we would find that shark bench related injuries are all too common. Even if you just scraped your head on a tooth. This particular shark bench is on display at a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand.

I don’t know if they’re playing the Jaws music or not, but they really should. It’s the only safe way to know that you are in imminent danger of a shark attack. It’s a cool feature for a shopping mall though. Imagine if you could climb down into it’s belly for a nap. Though I think they’d have to rescue a lot of scared kids if they allowed that.

[via Obvious Winner]

Rolls-Royce has just revealed the world’s first jet engine to be made entirely out of LEGO bricks. They revealed the model, made out of 152,455 standard LEGO bricks, at the Farnborough Airshow. The engine is a half-size replica with moving parts of the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 turbofan jet engine, which powers the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: LEGO Portal set could become a reality, Lego-inspired bridge in Germany looks fascinating,

I think electric vehicles are interesting enough, but they have a lot of practical limitations that keep most drivers from considering them. Probably the biggest issues are driving range and the time it takes to charge the batteries. Faster battery charging and higher capacity batteries are one way to get around this particular limitation. However, what may be the best way to get people buying an EV is to develop a system that charges the vehicle as it drives down the road.

A group of Japanese researchers are showing off a system that has the potential to do just that. The researchers have invented a wireless charging system that is able to transmit electricity from a charging plate under 4 inches of concrete directly through the tires of the car and into the vehicle batteries.

In the demonstration, the researchers are transmitting enough power through concrete blocks and into the car’s tires to make a light bulb glow. Naturally, we would need an infrastructure that had charging plates under the nation’s roadways to make this work, but not having to stop to charge your car would certainly make owning and driving an EV a more appealing proposition.

[via Phys.org]

The Booth lounger is a good way to say “I don’t want to talk to you but I kindly invite you to stare at me.” With a removable hood, you can send the memo that although you don’t want to be bothered, you still welcome attention and intrigue. More »

On numerous occasions, the game console market has been declared “dead” or “dying” over the years, and there have definitely been some duds and challenges with the market – especially the cost of developing and distributing games. A new upstart console aims to enter living rooms taking advantage of the Android platform to ease the development and remove risks for game creators, and to help democratize living room gaming.

The Android 4.0 based OUYA is the brainchild of gaming executive Julie Uhrman along with industrial designer Yyes Behar. It’s quite a spiffy looking little box, and includes a slick matching controller to go with. Under the hood of the OUYA is a Tegra3 quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal flash storage, HDMI output (up to 1080p), 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE 4.0, and a USB 2.0 port, which I’m assuming can be used for either controllers or additional storage.

The console will support games using a free-to-play model, which will include games which are completely free, playable demos, as well as games with purchasable upgrades and other DLC. Game developers are encouraged to submit apps to the marketplace, cutting down on distribution barriers, and they’re even encouraging hackers to do what they can with the console. They even want you to root your console and come up with your own innovations. Wow.

Best thing about the OUYA is that it costs just $99 (USD). You can get in on the pre-order action over at Kickstarter now. Assuming they hit their $950,000 goal by August 9th, the OUYA will go into production, and start shipping around March 2013. Given the fact that they’re already over the $600,000 mark with nearly 5000 consoles ordered, there’s little doubt the OUYA will hit its funding goal.