Hasta La Gadget!

These Star Wars car seat covers will give you another excuse to play the Imperial March on your car stereo. Now you can turn your car into a poster child for the Dark Side of the Force. These officially-licensed car accessories are covers for bucket seats featuring either Darth Vader or a Stormtrooper.

You can also add matching floor mats. Once your car is decked out you can then search the roadways for rebel scum, or you know, just drive around feeling really cool now that your ride is geeked out.

The seat covers are $19.99(USD) each, while the floor mats are $14.99 (rear utility)  to $39.99 (front/pair). Mix and match them however you want. Vader and some Stormtroopers always go well together.

I really love having Philips Hue lights in my house. If I could, I’d do the whole house, but for now, I’ve only got my media room/arcade/mancave and my foyer done up with the colorful remote-controlled LED bulbs. However, one thing that has always been a bit lacking with Hue is the standard control app. It’s pretty limiting – it doesn’t do light animations or even acknowledge the concept of different rooms in your house. A little app has recently surfaced which adds both of these capabilities to Hue bulbs.

Goldee is a third-party app which has been made possible by Philips release of an SDK and API for Hue. The application’s primary purpose is to add dynamic looks to Hue which go beyond the static scenes enabled by other applications.

To use Goldee, simply add your bulbs and rooms to the app the first time you start up, then tap on the room and the scene you want to run. With the app’s built-in scenes, you can gradually watch the colors in your room shift to set one of ten moods. Each scene has been composed by a professional lighting designer and it shows.

My personal favorites are the pinky/orange hues of Night in Paris and the blue and green tones Aurora Glow. When you first fire up the app, you get the first eight scenes for free.

Sharing Goldee on social media opens up the ninth scene, while providing a review gets you the tenth. This is a clever take on downloadable content – instead of charging money for these unlockables.

As you can see from the video below, Goldee’s color sequences change very gradually – this isn’t a disco app. Goldee provides soothing and relaxing scenes which you can live with while you sit in a room and read a book, listen to music or throw a dinner party.

Goldee also offers a wake mode which can wake you up to its Sunrise scene, though without any Hue bulbs in my bedroom, I didn’t test this feature. You can apply scenes to multiple rooms simultaneously, a pretty slick trick that no other Hue control app does as far as I know. While the initial 10 scenes are all pretty good looking if you’ve got enough bulbs, Goldee promises a library of additional scenes you can run in the not-too-distant future.

A couple of quick notes about Goldee you should be aware of: 1) the app needs to be running – and in the foreground – to work; 2) there’s no way at this time to make your own custom scenes. I’m hoping that these are addressed in future releases – especially now that iOS7 allows true background applications.

You can download Goldee from the iTunes App Store for free.

Apple has finally announced the iPad Air (aka iPad 5) and the iPad Mini retina, and as expected, the blogosphere is completely abuzz about it.

I think it’s exciting news, but ever since I made the switch from iOS to Android, I find myself anticipating what Google comes up with more than Apple. (No offense to any Apple fanboys and fangirls, it’s just a personal preference.)

Google has been mum about the next version of their smartphone, which people are dubbing as the Nexus 5, but rumors are already flying about the device, and some people say it’s going to be a phablet, which is a cross between a tablet and a phone.

Jumping on the bandwagon is designer Jo Enaje with her concept design for the next-generation Nexus. She envisions the next Nexus as having thinner screen edges compared to its predecessor and having more colors available in its line. It reminds me of Apple’s iPhone 5C somewhat with all the colors, and personally, I don’t think colorful is Google’s style but I could be wrong.

As you can see, Jo keeps the bezels to a minimum, making the design as fuss-free and simplistic as possible, just as Google has done with its Nexus smartphones in the past. The designs are just a mock-up, of course, but already it’s getting a lot of people excited (including yours truly), especially since the rumored announcement date for the actual device is this October 30th.

Concept aside, the Nexus 5′s purported service manual was leaked earlier this month, which specifies its UMTS/GSM/CDMA/LTE compatibility. Its wide range of connectivity features mean that it’s best to take out a contract that offers 3G, 4G, or high-speed Wi-Fi, but they don’t have to be pricey plans, since telcos are always offering deals to entice you to switch networks.

Other alleged specs include a 4.95-inch 1080p display, an 8MP rear camera, a 1.3MP front camera,wireless charging, Slimport connectivity, a microSIM slot, NFC, and Bluetooth 3.0.

What do you think about Jo’s concept for the Nexus 5?

[via Android Headlines]

So you know how you’re cooking, and then you realize that you’ve got way too much (or way too little) of the ingredients you need to prepare the number of servings you had in mind? It’s annoying, not to mention potentially disastrous, if you happen to be cooking for some important people (like your in-laws, perhaps.)

There to save the day is Sharp’s Chop-Syc interactive digital cutting board.

It was the winning design submitted by Siobhán Andrews to Sharp Labs’ #GetItDownOnPaper competition. As the winner, Andrews got the rare opportunity to see her design turn into a reality after her two-month internship at Sharp.

Chop-Syc lets users check out recipes on the board itself as they cut and prepare ingredients. It has measurement tools and diagrams that will guide the user on how much of an uncooked ingredient is needed for a particular portion. Aside from that, Chop-Syc also has a built-in scale that can be used to weigh ingredients, so it’s basically an all-around multi-purpose device.

Chop-Syc remains a prototype for now, but who knows? You might be able to actually buy it one day.

[via The Verge via Dvice]

In a corner of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, on a factory floor that resembles an oversized assembly line, workers are building entire apartments in days. Most New Yorkers might not realize it, but the tallest prefab building in the country—and maybe the world—is currently taking shape not far from where they live. Gizmodo recently got a chance to visit the space and watch it come together.

Read more…