Still without meal plans for Valentine’s Day? This year, forgo the pricey restaurant and invite that special someone over for a byte.
Because let’s face it: To a geek, nothing says “I love you” like a multi-course tech-themed feast. I’ve even done the legwork for you and taken the liberty of putting together a menu. See my suggested list of “Valentine’s Day specials” after the jump.
Did you know that 33 percent* of people said they would prefer to send an SMS when asking someone out for the first time? Yes, it’s a geeky, geeky world we live in, but thankfully, there are some geeky ladies out there just waiting for that text…
OK, so the text might be a bad idea, but these Valentine’s gifts will surely woo your tech-savvy babe. Check out Part Two of Gearlog’s Valentine’s Day gifts for geeky gals, but make sure to peruse Part One for ten other Valentine’s Day ideas.
Heart Meter Shirts (above)
So, you know how in video games, if your heart meter reaches zero, you die? Buy one of the 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirts for you and one for your girlfriend. During regular activity, only two and a half pixelated hearts will light up, but when you’re in hugging distance of your honey and she’s wearing her shirt too, the hearts on both shirts will light up until you “have full health.” Yes, the shirt is extremely cheesy, but if your girl is a fan of Zelda, she’ll appreciate it. $24.99 from ThinkGeek.com.
More geeky gal gifts after the jump!
Ever wish your desktop looked a little more out-of-this-world? Here’s a DIY case mod that will launch your PC into space.
Project Asteroid started out as a wholly unremarkable Yeong Yang A-101 microATX case. Stripped of its “unscrewable parts,” re-clad in Styrofoam, Claycrete, and paint, and outfitted with alien-green accents, it now looks truly extraterrestrial.
Ready to send your boring-by-comparison case to the moon? Visit Mashie Design to view detailed step-by-step process shots and a full how-to.
[via Unplgged]
I know this might surprise some of you, but there are women in the world who like things done a certain way–in a nerdy way, to be more specific. For example, they prefer their marriage proposals to arrive via a video game, or at least tangentially related to video games. That’s right, geeks aren’t just guys–there are lady geeks, too.
So what do you give your geeky girlfriend for Valentine’s Day? Check out Gearlog’s gifts that only a truly geekified gal will appreciate. And make sure to check back for Part Two of our geeky Valentine’s Roundup!
The iBuzz (above)
Treat your love to some pleasure–set to the sound stylings of Barry White or Al Green, of course. Plug your MP3 player into the iBuzz Two, and the toy delivers music-activated vibrations with four pulsing patterns and 11 vibrating speeds. You can plug the two provided bullets into the iBuzz Two, or you can plug in any sex toy that has a mini-jack plug. It’s £19.99 (about $30 in the US).
More after the jump.
We’re pretty used to amazing special effects — even the phone in your pocket can likely produce some pretty fancy 3D graphics. But despite this, there is a rather surprising feeling of childlike wonder whenever we view real 3D images. For many of us, the first experience was with the Viewmaster, a plastic toy which contained a disk of tiny photographic slides.
These would present two slightly different views of the same scene, taken a few inches apart, approximately the distance between our eyes. Because these images are presented separately to each eye, a 3D effect is produced.
And that’s exactly what is happening in this Wired video, featuring artist Carl Pisaturo of the nerd-robot studio Area 2881. Pisaturo’s devices are beautifully intricate, comprising a couple of 35mm film SLRs (remember those?) clamped to a stand. But what a stand. The camera bodies slide in tandem on a spacing bar and everything is designed to keep things in sync, from the three position click-stop zooms to the single shutter-trigger which fires both cameras simultaneously.
And that’s before we get to the viewers. The 35mm slides are huge compared to those in a Viewmaster, and the viewing devices reflect that. The engineering is precise, but what gets us is the look of these things — somewhere between steampunk and a kid’s toy playset. Beautiful.
How to Shoot (and View) 3-D Photos [Wired Video]
We don’t really know where to begin. LaserPup involves shooting a laser at a dog over the internet, nothing more, nothing less, but somehow it transcends traditionally pointless moddery and becomes something so much greater. Maybe it’s because you shoot a dog with a laser over the internet. LaserPup is a ceiling-mounted laser and webcam whose beam can be directed around the floor with an iPhone-friendly browser-based interface. There’s switch for turning on and off the lights, and when the laser is activated or deactivated it makes a sound to alert the dog that it’s time to get shot at by lasers. In the future, there was a nuclear war… video is after the break.
Continue reading LaserPup trains for battle with Laser Cats
Filed under: Household
LaserPup trains for battle with Laser Cats originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember DHRECK, the modder who modded a Wiimote by covering it in hemp and calling it a day? Well, he’s back, and this time he’s made one that’s slightly smaller than the original. That’s right: not totally teeny, or miniaturized (it’s not lethal, either) — just somewhat smaller than an actual, unmodified ‘mote. He’s made some other minor cosmetic changes to it as well, and the results are attractive. Check the gallery of fantastic photos after the break.
[Thanks, John]
Gallery: Dhreck Wiimote Mod
Filed under: Gaming
Wiimote modded with terrifically minor results originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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[Via Slashgear]
Continue reading D.I.Y. motion-controlled MP3 player doesn’t need your fancy touch screen
Filed under: Portable Audio
D.I.Y. motion-controlled MP3 player doesn’t need your fancy touch screen originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Open source programming platform Arduino has spawned thousands of enthusiastic DIY-gadget heads.
The Arduino board, with its "Made in Italy" tag, features a microcontroller that can be programmed for a number of projects using a custom programming language and development environment. It’s useful for simple robotics and electronics projects that need a little more intelligence than you can get with a handful of resistors and capacitors from Radio Shack — which is why it has become an underground hit among true gadget enthusiasts.
Now Hack N Mod has scoured the web to find the top 40 Arduino projects. The list includes projects to make a robot that will avoid walls, a twittering plant, a miniature pocket piano, a Segway-like robot and an interactive gaming controller–all using Arduino. Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson’s make-your-own unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or spyplane gets the second spot on the list.
The list of the 40 projects comes with instructions on how to get started on each. Now there’s no excuse to hang out in the garage and just drink beer on the weekends. Its time to get tinkering.
See also:
Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?
Photo: Arduino Keyboard (Collin Mel/Flickr)
This clunky little workaround will let you shoot video with the Nikon D700. In fact, it will work for any camera which can pump a live video stream into a computer. It has nothing to do with the rather nice, and rather higher definition hack we covered earlier today, but it will let you at least play with the great lenses and shallow depth of field afforded by DSLR videography.
This hack uses three ingredients. First, a camera with a live view function, which lets you see a real-time stream on the camera’s screen. Every single compact camera does this, and more and more DSLRs provide the feature. Second, a way to get the feed from the camera to the computer. I used a trial version of Nikon’s Camera Control 2, a truly awful piece of non-intuitive software that just manages to get the job done. Third is a way to capture the video displayed on the screen. For this I used iShowU HD Pro, a screencasting application for the Mac.
First, connect the camera via USB cable and fire up Nikon Capture (or software of choice). At bottom right you see the button marked "Lv", or Live View. Click this and the camera will start sending a low quality video feed to the computer (you can click to make the picture bigger):
Next, fire up your video capture application, in this case iShowU. If you can, set it to capture only the part of the screen you actually want, otherwise you’ll have to take the video file into an editor to crop it later:
Once done, hit return and start the recording. Anything you now do with the camera is being recorded. Here’s the result. It’s pretty poor, and because I’m using the trial version there’s an overlay watermark from iShowU. But you get the idea.
The quality is severely limited by the refresh rate of the incoming video feed, although the D700 has an HDMI out port, so this could be used to get a much better stream. What is interesting is that you can see just how useless live view is even for still capture — the focusing takes forever in any mode.
As an exercise, this is fun, but ultimately the quality is too poor for anything — on a Mac it would be better to just use the iSight camera to shoot. Still, if you have the camera, the trial software is free so go and try it out.
Product page [iShowU]
Product page [Nikon Capture]
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.
