Igor Chak’s Donkey Kong wall shelf is one of the best game-themed furniture I’ve ever come across, but I bet it will be very expensive if it ever becomes a real product. If you’re as strapped for coins as I am, don’t worry. You can still have the barrels stage on your wall thanks to Nintendo and Blik.
You can order the wall decal from Blik’s website for $65 (USD). They’re not that cheap either, but at least they’re officially licensed and reusable.
[via ThisIsWhyImBroke]
Because I grew up with video games, pixel art looks great to me whether it’s made of paint, thread or LEGO. But nothing makes pixel art pop more than its original medium: light. Case in point, this nifty interactive picture frame that is simply called PIXEL.
Invented by Al Linke, PIXEL is an LED display that shows pixel art images or animations. The default build of the PIXEL consists of a frame with 1,024 LEDs arranged in a 32 x 32 matrix, so it’s been designed to scale images or animations to 32 x 32. Linke partnered with several pixel artists to make art especially for PIXEL. They come in the form of free Android apps that you can use to beam the images or animations via Bluetooth. Yep, there’s currently no iOS app, which is unfortunate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes soon.
PIXEL can also be used as a mirror when the LEDs are turned off. It also has a proximity sensor, which programmers can use to toggle or change the animation automatically.
You can reserve a ready-made PIXEL by pledging at least $229 on Kickstarter. PIXEL has been a huge success on the fundraising site. It’s already earned nearly $25,000 (USD) in pledges as of this writing, way more than the $8,000 target and with 48 days more to go.
Linke is also selling a parts kit with only 512 LEDs for the much lower price of $99, but Linke admits that the existing art was made only for the 1,024 LED version. Fortunately you can just create your own art and then send it to PIXEL via an Android device. Or you can just mount a CRT TV on your wall.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
The love team of Rémy LeBeau and Anna Marie…Something was one of the most popular couples in mainstream comics, partly because for a long time, Rogue’s power meant they couldn’t make physical contact without Gambit turning into the world’s most charming vegetable. How romantic. How frustrating. How weird. If you’re in a similarly intense relationship, then these tees are for you, mon ami.
I have to admit, Gambit’s shiny and muscular armor looks really silly without his trademark trench coat. But I’d take this T-shirt over a Cyclops one any day, because Cyke is a jerk in the current Marvel world. You can order the Gambit and Rogue T-shirts at ThinkGeek for $20-$22 (USD) each.
[via Fashionably Geek]
Even though they’re much more awesome than conventional printers, 3D printers still need “ink”, or what is known as filament. While this can come in many forms – sand, chocolate, living cells – most projects require plastic filament. There are many companies that sell filament, but wouldn’t it be awesome if you could just make your own?
That’s the idea behind Tyler McNaney’s invention, the Filabot. According to Wired, Tyler got the idea to make Filabot because he wanted to dive into 3D printing but didn’t have a lot of money to buy filament. What the Filabot does is reduce the process of making filament into a small, personal scale. It melts various types of plastic – including commonly used ones such as PET, HDPE and ABS – extrudes or forces the molten plastic through nozzles and flattens them to the users’ desired diameter using rollers. This way you can turn plastic bottles, packaging and even old or failed 3D printed objects into filament.
Tyler already raised $32,330 (USD) from a recent Kickstarter campaign, where he sold Filabots for as low as $350 (USD) each. For now you can sign up for an email notification on the Filabot website to know when you can turn your little brother’s LEGO into a 3D printed turd. Just kidding. It’s inevitable though.
[Filabot via Gajitz via Reddit]
The prophesied Mayan apocalypse didn’t happen. Mostly because there was no such prophecy. But on the off chance that it did happen, Flickr user Matt Armstrong aka monsterbrick made these post-apocalyptic war horses out of LEGO. The fact that he was able to make them even though he could be dead makes them even more impressive.
Matt made nine horses for hell’s babies to play with, each of them with a design in accordance to their name:
Ride to Matt’s Flickr page for more pictures. These should be Easter Egg items in the next Darksiders.
[via Ian Brooks]
Redditor yoshiwars wanted a portable gaming machine but he didn’t want to spend a fortune on a high-end laptop. So he stuffed a desktop computer’s parts into a briefcase. Looking at it, you wouldn’t mistake it for anything else. But I think the mouse pad balances out the junkyard chic.
Inside the briefcase is a 15″monitor, a Gigabyte motherboard, a Core i5 2500K CPU, 16GB RAM, an XFX Radeon HD 6670 and two solid state drives. One drive has a 30GB capacity and holds yoshiwars’ Windows 7 setup and the other is a 90GB drive that runs Mountain Lion. That’s right; as if a briefcase computer wasn’t impressive enough, yoshiwars also made it a dual-booting Hackintosh.
You know yoshiwars, if all you wanted was to play Uplink, you could’ve gotten an iPad. Seriously though good job. With the mouse pad.
[via Reddit via Computerworld]
Last week we saw mockups featuring taxidermy heads of Star Wars creatures. These AT-ST trophy heads on the other hand are real. Well, they’re not real real, but realer than the Photoshopped images. I’m not saying the images don’t exist, but dammit you know what I mean.
The trophy heads were made by YouTuber Trilda from Star Wars toys that he bought on eBay. He made two AT-ST heads, one from the Battle of Hoth and one from the pivotal battle at Endor.
You can check out larger images of the trophy heads on Trilda’s website (they’re under the Vintage Taxidermy link); head to his YouTube channel for videos. He says in the description of his videos that he’s willing to sell his creations, but I’m not sure if they’re still available and for how much.
[via Obvious Winner]
We’ve seen transparent casemods or rear panels for past versions of the iPhone. Now it’s the iPhone 5′s turn to show off its goods, courtesy of the Translucent Mod Kit from iPhone5Mod, the same aftermarket shop who makes the magnetic keyboard and gamepad for the iPhone 5.
Aside from letting you see what your iPhone is made of, iPhone5mod claims that the kit’s plastic parts are more resistant to scratches and fingerprint smudge compared to the default aluminum rear panel. I’m not sure if it’s tough enough that you won’t need to cover your phone with a protective case though.
You can order the Translucent Mod Kit from iPhone5Mod for $40 (USD). As shown in the video above, the kit comes in seven colors; if you have extra money you can get all the available colors for $169. Keep in mind that the kit only comes with the parts and not the tools needed to actually install it on the iPhone 5, so you’d better know someone who can do it for you before you order the kit.
[via Fancy]
If you’re in the middle of outfitting your geeky man cave or evil lair as the case may be, ThinkGeek has what might be the perfect wall decoration for you. That is assuming you don’t mind coughing up $500 on a geeky piece of wall art. Granted, this thing is a 100% accurate replica of the evil computer HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Let’s be honest, a typical fan of the film isn’t going to drop $499.99 on this replica, you need to be an uber fan. For your $499.99, you get a 100% accurate, life-size replica of HAL 9000. This thing was created from the actual studio blueprints used to create the devices for the film. The recreation is 100% accurate down to using the original studio files for the HAL 9000 label.
ThinkGeek says that the actual HAL 9000 used in the film used a lens that is rare and expensive called a Nikkor fish-eye lens. The replica uses a custom ground remake that even has a sticker with the writing from the NIKKOR lens used in the film so the product is accurate down to the close-up shots. Other than the incredible accuracy, the replica obviously has a red LED eye and it talks.
The replica will cycle through 15 phrases from the films and you can trigger the speech by talking to it. To activate the device you rotate the lens ring and it will shut off within 2 minutes of no activity to save battery power. One of the phrases the replica will say is, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.” Check out the video of the device in action to see more.
[via ThinkGeek]
Life-size HAL 9000 replica is $500 of pure geek nostalgia is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
There are many programs that track the speed and health of your Internet connection; many routers even have this functionality integrated in their admin page. But Zak Kemble wanted a way to check those stats at a glance without logging on anywhere or opening an application, so he made a small network monitor.
Zak used an ATmega328P microprocessor, a 1.8″ LCD, a Bluetooth module and a paper display holder to make the device. It gets its information from a Netgear DG834Gv3 router running OpenWRT. The router runs a shell script that obtains the data – which include upload and download speeds, ping, packet loss and even a clock and an email notifier – and sends it to a serial port. Finally a Bluetooth module attached to the serial port sends the date to the monitor. The monitor also has two display modes – the one pictured above and a simpler graphical display.
Another day, another tinkerer with an awesomely complex solution to a simple problem. Head to Zak’s website for his build guide.
[via Lifehacker]
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.
