If you’ve ever held a little kid’s hands while they stood and your feet and walked along with you, then you already understand the inspiration behind Debby Elnatan’s Upsee—a harness that allows special needs children to finally walk with the help of an adult.
     |
Firefly is one of those classic TV shows that was sadly canceled way too soon. If you are a fan of the series and a fan of fresh, tasty cookies, check this out. ThinkGeek has a set of four Firefly Cookie Cutters.
The series of four cookie cutters goes for $19.99(USD) and includes Mal’s pistol, Jayne’s hat, a browncoat patch, and of course Serenity itself. These are sure to make you the hit of your next cosplay party.
ThinkGeek warns that the cookie cutters work best with a dough recipe that doesn’t rise when cooked. If your dough rises, all the lines that the cutters stamp into the dough will disappear, you would end up with a blob of dough that doesn’t look like what you want – or maybe it’ll turn out looking like a Reaver.
The first Firefly action figures are here and it’s a good news/bad news type of situation. The good news is that they exist, the bad news is that they kind of suck.
They’re part of Funko’s ReAction line, which is a throwback to classic Kenner action figures, with somewhat oversized heads. Unfortunately, I don’t think they got details right on these, though I think Zoe looks the best. You can get Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Wash and Kaylee, and each comes with matching accessories.
Kaylee comes with a wrench, Jayne has two big guns, and Wash has dinosaurs. Don’t worry though, Funko is also releasing a more realistic 6-inch Firefly figure line very soon. What do you guys think?
[via io9 via Nerd Approved]
There are a lot of adults that collect action figures from various sci-fi movies and TV shows. One of the most beloved science fiction series to hit TV, and not last long, was Firefly. Fox killed the show after only a handful of episodes leaving a lot of geeks angry to this day.
Firefly has been off the air nearly a decade now, but fans are still hardcore about the show. If you’re one of them, news has surfaced that Funko will be making a line of action figures from the show.
They plan on making big head Firefly Pop! figures, retro style Re-Action figures as well as their more detailed, fully-articulated Legacy series. The company will also to be making Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Arrested Development action figures too.
The Firefly Pop! and Re-Action figures are expected in Spring 2014, while the Legacy figures should hit in late 2014.
[via io9]
Garrett Finney used to work for NASA designing living spaces on the International Space Station. So naturally he is a smart guy. You have to be to work for NASA. In 2009, he left to build lightweight campers. So what kind of camper does a former NASA designer build? The awesome kind. After a few years and a few models, he came up with the FireFly.
The camper fits into the bed of a truck or onto the back of a small trailer. Built primarily from aluminum and EPS foam, it weighs just 600 pounds, so light vehicles can haul it pretty easily. The interior is small of course, but how much does one person need? You can put your gear beneath the beds, which fold up to provide you with sitting benches and tables.
It comes with optional lander legs too, although I see them as a must unless you’re going to leave it in the back of your pickup truck. It even has a nice little window so you can look at your surroundings. Check out more images of FireFly here. I can’t wait to see what other designs he comes up with.
You can’t take the sky from me. But if you have a spare CD-Rom drive you can try to make a miniature Serenity ship like this one from Daniel Shankalonian, but it wouldn’t turn out nearly as good I’m sure.
He built this little ship using parts from a CD-ROM Drive and bits of an old Dell computer. I love all of the little details. These are handmade, so they take about a week to complete and the design might vary slightly based on the parts available, but I really like what I see here.
Daniel has many other cool recycled items in his shop, including that cool Batman Tumbler made from old PlayStation 2s.
Now this is something that you do not see every day – the FireFly is a recumbent tricycle which comes with its very own dome that has LED lighting within, ensuring that you remain nice and dry even when it rains cats and dogs on the outside. Of course, with this thingamajic covering you, will vehicles be able to see you as most drivers would most probably not be too familiar with the sight of a FireFly on the roads. Good to know that GeoSpace Studio’s designers have thought of that for the FireFly, too, where they have outfitted it with an LED-lit dome to keep you visible.
TRON fans will most probably fall for this, and the FireFly could very well end up as one of the safest pedal-powered vehicles in the market. The shell of the FireFly will tilt forward, allowing you to remain seated and shielded the biting cold, rain, or snow. At the bottom segment, colored LEDs will cover it, while a transparent dome at the top grants you ample visibility. A pair of headlights in front also ensure you will be able to get around at night without missing a beat. Too bad there are no plans to commercialize the FireFly just yet.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: ORIGOSafe Hopes To Make Our Roads Safer, Parrot Asteroid Mini Picks Up FCC Approval, 
Scientists who evidently spend too much time with fireflies have managed to put all that bug-watching to good use: developing brighter LEDs. One problem with that tech is that a lot of the light gets reflected back into the device due to the way photons travel through LED materials, causing them to lose efficiency. But researchers from the University of Namur in Belgium noticed that the misshapen abdominal scales on fireflies act to prevent reflection, letting more light from the luminous insect’s “lantern” shine out. Scientists in Canada took it a step further by doping standard gallium-nitride LEDs with a similar material, and found that light transmission increased by 55 percent. They claimed that such a process could be done to “nearly every commercially available LED,” which could one day bring insect-inspired energy savings to commercial products.
Source: MIT Technology Review
CES is slowly coming to an end, but we’ve heard of a lot of new LEDs coming out this year from multiple manufacturers. LEDs look incredible, but they can look even more incredible thanks to fireflies.
A study was conducted by the University of Namur in Belgium that took a look at how exactly fireflies create their light in order to modify existing LEDs to run more efficiently. During the study, they identified a pattern in the scales of the Photuris firefly that boosted the amount of light that is created in its lantern, which is an organ located on its abdomen used to attract females. The way the Photuris firefly has its scales were in such a way, that it was able to produce more light from its lantern.
Scientists studied the scales of the Photuris and attempted to mimic it by using a laser to etch a profile similar to the scales on the Photuris onto an LED bulb. The result of the test allowed the LED bulb to emit approximately 55 percent more light than it had before.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: HoverCam Document Scanner Updated At CES, Tethercell Gives You Power Over Any AA Battery-Powered Device Via Smartphone,
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.
