Hasta La Gadget!

These days, when someone says “wearable gadget” they’re most likely talking about something worn on the wrist or on the eyes. But if you don’t see a need for a tiny display, the Xowi voice badge might be the wearable gadget for you. Like most smartwatches, Xowi connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth, giving you a virtual assistant that’s all ears all the time.

Because it doesn’t have a screen, Xowi relies mainly on voice commands and replies to queries with synthesized speech. It has a few buttons, but mostly you’ll need to talk to the badge if you want to get anything done. In exchange you get a very portable device that you can wear not just on your person but pretty much anywhere, while leaving your hands, wrists and eyes free.

Xowi’s inventors claim that their mobile app works with iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone. The app will have dozens of connected services when it launches, but apparently it will be easy for developers to add more and even sell those add-ons.

Pledge at least $149 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Xowi badge as a reward. I’m still not sold on voice commands, but I can see the appeal of Xowi. Then again, I think that when Google Glass arrives and hits a competitive price, all these devices that need to be tethered to smartphones are going to bite the dust.

Thanks to Tom Hiddleston’s crisp portrayal, Marvel’s Loki has quickly a popular character, a beneficiary of the world’s bizarre fascination with anti-heroes and villains. Like the Joker, Darth Vader and the other bad guys we love, the god of lies and mischief has a memorable and awesome costume.

Now you can adorn yourself in his image and show the world where your values lie with Mad Engine’s officially licensed hoodie .

You can buy the hoodie on Amazon for about $60 (USD). One customer said that the horns are a bit heavy and might pull the hood down over your eyes somewhat. How fitting.

[via 7 Gadgets]

Hobby Inside is a South Korean professional LEGO building crew. They make multi-layered and very detailed LEGO dioramas for display. While most of their work depict cities and landscapes, they also have a handful of dioramas that feature monsters and mechas duking it out on a wrecked city, like this unmistakable nod to Pacific Rim:

I’ve also included Hobby Inside’s two other robot versus kaiju pieces in the gallery below. One features a Mothra lookalike – Hobby Inside calls it Mothle – while the other has a Godzilla lookalike called Legora and a giant robot called Insider-V (perhaps a mix of Gundam and Combattler-V?).

What I really love about Hobby Inside’s dioramas is how they use LEGO to represent motion and objects that I would never have imagined could be depicted with LEGO. Things like the vapor trail behind the Jaeger’s missiles, Mothle’s web, Legora’s flame and smoke rings and the exhaust coming out of Insider-V’s rocket fist.

If you want to see more of these dioramas, Hobby Inside has detailed breakdowns on its website. The site is in Korean, but it’s worth checking out just for the pictures.

[via OliveSeon & Hobby Inside via io9]

The first Mega Man game celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, while its sequel is still “only” 24 years old. But it was Mega Man 2 that catapulted the Blue Bomber and his franchise to fame, and is widely considered to be one of the best videogames of all time. So I don’t think anyone would ridicule NES modders Platinum Fungi and Custom NES Guy for paying tribute to the legendary platformer one year in advance.

Platinum Fungi made the cutout backlit design, which features the eight Robot Masters from Mega Man 2, while Custom NES Guy did the slick paint job.

Cool Man. I’m not sure if Platinum Fungi is selling this particular console. You can hire him and Custom NES Guy for custom NES builds though, so maybe they’ll make another one for you.

You can buy an unofficial life-sized replica of the treasure chests from The Legend of Zelda. It turns out there’s also an official replica of said treasure chest, except it fits in the palm of your hand. The musical treasure chest will be included in the collector’s edition of the upcoming Nintendo 3DS game The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

The treasure chest can store up to five 3DS cartridges.

It emits the classic melodic fanfare when you open it, as demonstrated by The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma and Nintendo President Satoru Iwata in the Vine video below (be sure to turn on the sound)…

I’m not sure if the collector’s edition will be released globally, but it’s available for pre-order in the UK via Game, in Spain via Game as well and in Australia via EBGames. Aside from the chest, the limited edition bundle will also come with a poster and a Nintendo eShop download code for the Game Boy classic The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.

[via Destructoid & Nintendo Life ]