Hasta La Gadget!

Both the original NES console and VHS tapes were popular back in the 1980s, so it actually doesn’t seem that unusual to see the two in the same picture together. Though I can honestly say I’ve never seen an NES inside a VHS tape – until now.

The VideoTendo 2000 is a fully-functional gaming console built into a VHS cassette. And while it’s actually an NES clone that’s Etsy seller ShinoBicycle used to achieve the feat, at least it plays physical cartridges. In fact, it’ll play Famicom games as well as PAL and NTSC NES games.

It’s a pretty neat mod, though it looks to me like he had to rip the tape out from the inside of the VHS cassette and stuck images of them in the windows in their place. At least that’s what it looks like to me from the pics. It’s not like you were going to try and cram this into your VCR anyhow, were you?

So bust out your big hair and your Power Glove and head over to Etsy, where you can grab the VideoTendo 2000 for the odd price of $224.94(USD). Remember when buying a movies on VHS cost $89.95? Now the price of the VideoTendo doesn’t seem so bad does it?

Maybe someday, he’ll put an Atari 2600 inside a BetaMax tape.

The Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird is an American classic. How do you make it even more classic? Turn it into a swing and park it in your yard. It beats a swinging tire right? Heck yeah!

YouTube user John D. Lorean took “Blackie,” his old Pontiac Trans Am, and converted it into an actual working swing. His name would imply that he should have used a DeLorean, but hey, those things are expensive and he already had the Trans Am.

It makes an amazing swing since it has comfortable seats, lights and a even built-in stereo. In the video, he presented the swing to Lisa Dalisa as a Christmas present. What a nice guy. That’s one way to get a girl into the back seat.

[via Jalopnik via Neatorama]

If you are looking for some of the coolest guitars ever, look no further than Jamie Ghio Sanches and Mike Braunewell. Togther, the Gibraltar-based artists make some of the sweetest guitars you will ever see. This duo has backgrounds in music and car modding, so it is a great match.

These guitars are completely functional as well as beautiful. Sanches carves the bodies and installs the electronic components. After that, Braunewell paints them up.

Every rock and roll guitarist needs one of these axes in their collection.

I love that dragon model most of all.

You can check out more at their website, Sword Design and over on designboom.

[via Neatorama]

I was going to talk about a pixel art LED display that’s currently raising funds on Kickstarter when I remembered that I already saw something much better: Al Linke’s PIXEL. It turns out he’s also raising funds on Kickstarter for PIXEL V2, an improved version of his display.

Like the original display, PIXEL V2 has 1024 LEDs arranged in a 32×32 matrix. After all, it’s designed to display low-res images and animations so increasing the displays resolution wasn’t necessary. What makes PIXEL V2 much better than its predecessor is that it’s more versatile and customizable, both in terms of software and hardware. For starters, you can now control it with an OS X computer and a Raspberry Pi via USB, in addition to the Android and Windows USB and Bluetooth connectivity that was also present in the original. Unfortunately, it still has no support for iOS though.

Aside from directly sending images to the display via a PC or an Android device, you can also store images on PIXEL V2′s onboard SD card in stand alone mode, after which it will keep displaying images and even animated gifs even if it’s not connected to any computer or mobile device. Another neat feature of PIXEL V2  are its mixed media overlays. As shown in the image below, the overlays allow you to display a drawing on top of the LED display.

PIXEL V2 comes with over 150 samples of pixel art, but as always you can send other images to the display. As shown in the video below, you can even make apps for PIXEL V2. Turn it into a message board, make it display the weather and more. It also has five sensor inputs and optional alcohol and proximity sensors for even more creative applications, although these sensors require an Android device to work.

Pledge at least $260 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a fully assembled PIXEL V2 display. Unassembled kits and partial parts are also available at lower pledges.

Instructables member janw uses an old Televox intercom to call his assistant. But here’s the thing: the intercom is his assistant. He calls her Raspberri, and she’s just a few rads shy of being a Fallout character.

Janw took great pains to preserve the exterior of the intercom and the way that it’s activated. That means that he simply presses the button to “call” Raspberri and speak his command, after which she should respond as if she was on the other end of the line.

Janw used a DPDT switch to rig the intercom’s speaker to a sound card, which in turn is connected to a Raspberry Pi. A USB Wi-Fi adapter allows the computer to go online to search for information. Then he installed Steven Hickson’s voice command software and wrote Python scripts to tell Raspberri how to respond if needed.

Tell your browser to cancel all your meetings and head to Instructables for more on Janw’s hack.

[via Hack A Day]