We’ve followed the $10.8 billion East Side Access project, which will extend the Long Island Railroad from Queens to Grand Central, all year. But now that the tunnels have been blasted, new machines are arriving—and they’re just as cool as the tunnel borers.
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The largest ever census of dust in the local Universe has been carried out by the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory—and the results are huge and beautiful.
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It seems I can’t go more than a couple of days without finding another wacky Japanese gadget that seems to solve no real problem. Here’s another crazy product from the island nation. This robotic ball that works like a rolling dust mop.
While most of us would resort to using a vacuum cleaner or maybe a Swiffer to perform the task of sweeping up dust bunnies, the folks who designed the Mocoro rolling mop ball opted for something decidedly more whimsical.
Just release the Mocoro on your hardwood, tile or vinyl floors, and it’ll roll around collecting dust for about 15 minutes. Once it’s done, it’ll sing a little song to let you know its work is complete. It seems like a great idea until you realize that you have to wash it off between cleanings. The point is moot though, as your dog will probably use it as a chew toy before long anyhow.
Normally available only in Japan for ¥3,980 (~$40 USD), the folks over at White Rabbit Express should be able to help you get your hands on one.
Called the "silent epidemic," a little-known fungal disease called valley fever has become ten times more common in the past decade. Its fungal spores are being spread by dust storms in the American Southwest. Exactly why valley fever suddenly increased has nagged at public health officials, but a piece in The New Yorker suggests something quite prosaic is partially responsible—construction.
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As a kid who grew up on Lazer Tag and the Killer, the idea of a compact, always-on live action RPG is very compelling. Dustcloud fits that bill.
Created by a designer named Howard Hunt, the game uses small, gun-shaped “Dusters” that have LEDs that register hits and damage taken. You can use your Duster in street to secretly hit other players and because it uses RF signals there you simply need to be in line of sight rather than aim directly at a small target. The guns use Bluetooth LE to communicate with your phone and notify you of hit statistics and the whereabouts of other players. You can play offline with friends or join in on a massive, world-wide networked game.
We tried the game at CES and found it to be quite fun. While it takes some set-up – Hunt himself initialized the guns up for us – he expects things to get easier with time.
The team, which includes Ota Fejfar and Hunt, is looking for $100,000. They’ve raised $17,000 on Kickstarter so far and offer a number of packages including a single gun kit for $55 or a dual gun kit for $90. The “aftermarket” proposition is actually kind of interesting: if you want to play online with players around the world (a prospect that would assume massive market saturation), you can buy bullets (called speks) for 5 cents each. You store your speks on your smartphone and when someone shoots you they gather up your speks. This would presumably encourage you not to die so much.
When we played the game in a dark parking lot at CES we had an absolute blast. Once you understand how the guns operate and how to hit other players it becomes easier to have a bit of fun. It also makes you a bit winded, which is always a good thing. Dustcloud sits firmly in the tradition of laser games of yore and that, I think, is a good thing.
When it comes to planetary accessories, we’ve got our moon, but lovely as it is, it doesn’t hold a candle to some of the flashier bits of flair out there. I’m talking about rings. Here’s where they come from.
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Oh, how I love wacky Japanese gadgets. And how I hate cleaning. So when Francesco over at Hobby Media[IT] tipped me off to these Japanese cleaning robots, I was just about in heaven.
These inexpensive robots from Kyosho don’t aim to be as sophisticated as something like a Roomba or Wall-E, but then they don’t cost hundreds of dollars either. The Sugoi remote control vehicles come in two versions – one that’s a dust mop, and the other is a trash bin on wheels. Both can be driven around using an included RF remote control, so you can clean without getting your lazy behind up off the couch. In case you need a visual explanation, check them out in the video below:
What’s not to like? I can imagine sitting on the sofa during the big game, and with a push of the button, in pops my R/C garbage can, ready to receive my empties. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to get these in time to clean up my mess after this year’s Super Bowl, since they’re currently only for sale in Japan.
You can find the garbage can here, and the dust mop here. They each sell for ¥2079 (~$21 USD), and you can try and see if someone like White Rabbit Express can import them for you. While you’re at it, you might want to pick up one of these.
[via Hobby Media]
There have been rumors knocking around that suggest Nikon’s great D600 DSLR suffers from excessive sensor dust. This time-lapse goes a long way in proving them true. More »
I know a lot of people like to throw on a lot of trinkets and flair and pizazz on your phone but would people really use this crystal dust plug? It’s a little cubic zirconia diamond that plugs into your phone’s headphone jack to add some bling and presumably protect the interior of your headphone jack. More »
This is what happens when a (gigantic) dust devil forms over reddish orange soil and the light is just right: a red dust devil so vivid and tall that it looks like a cartoon. I wonder if the Tasmanian Devil is inside. More »
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