Hasta La Gadget!

I’m not particularly fond of roaches, but I don’t exactly hate them either. I’d just rather not come face to face with any one of these insects because creepy crawly insects just give me the heebie jeebies. That said, I’m still on the fence when it comes to the RoboRoach project by Backyard Brains.

The RoboRoach kit, which is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, includes the “backpack”, a helmet, a battery, and recording electrodes. You’ll have to be comfortable with handling roaches, because you’ll have to anesthetize them before performing surgery on them to place wires into their antennae.

Once everything’s all set up, then you can begin to control the cyborg roach using your smartphone.

In a nutshell, here’s how the RoboRoach works: When you send a command from your mobile phone, the backpack sends pulses to the antenna, which causes its neurons to fire, such that the roach to think there is a wall on one side. The result? The roach turns!

Attempting to control something alive might have ethical implications, and Backyard Brains has got that covered in their ethical statement. They also explain that the roach doesn’t get shocked or hurt when the RoboRoach is on in their FAQs, so you might want to check that section out if you’re concerned about the well-being of these insects.

A minimum pledge of $100(USD) will get you one of your very own RoboRoach kits. Though you’ll have to spend at least $150 if you want them to include some live cockroaches for you to play with.

[via C|NET]

Earlier this year we heard about the Meta, an augmented reality computer in the shape of a pair of glasses. The company behind the computer took a page from the Oculus Rift team and also launched a Kickstarter for the Meta developer’s kit.

The fundraiser may not be aimed at end users, but it does reveal a bit more about the Meta. In the video below you’ll see that the consumer version of the glasses should be much more compact and much less dorky than the current prototype. The Meta projects its display up to 16 ft. away from the user at 960×540 resolution. Developers will initially use Unity 3D on Windows to write software for the Meta. They’ll be able to make use of the Meta’s gesture, finger and surface tracking as well as its depth and color data.

You’ll need to pledge at least $695(USD) on Kickstarter to get a Meta 1 dev kit as a reward. I’m really intrigued by the possibilities of this device, partly because I’m into card and board games right now. It would be nice to have more interactive board game. And also to not have to clean up the tokens and other pieces after each game.

Some companies come up with great advertising campaigns and slogans, even when their products or services fall short more often than not. You could always call their hotline and make complaints that fall on deaf ears… or you could do so in an unconventional and funny way and send a message to the company at the same time.

How? By going viral with realistic company slogans that describe what these firms are really doing for and to their customers. This probably wasn’t the intention of Redditor Mrguest, but if a company has wronged you, then you might want to try this approach to make them listen to you and your concerns.

Over 16,000 responses were recorded in Mrguest’s thread, and BuzzFeed has logofied the best responses to make it easier for the rest of us to digest.

The Adobe one above happens to be my favorite, and the one for RadioShack is a close second. Check out the rest in the gallery below and see which realistic slogan is the most fitting for its respective company.

[via Laughing Squid]

In the age of mobile devices and Google Maps, will street signs soon become obsolete? Not if they turn into Points. Points is an electronic directional sign that does more than just point to nearby landmarks. It can act as a weatherman, a news ticker, a Twitter feed and more.

Points was invented by Breakfast NY, the same organization behind the Instagram-printing machine. As you’ll see in the video below, Points has a control panel near its base. The panel has buttons that people can use to select what type of information they want to see. Points updates not just its directional arms but also the choices on the control panel. For instance, the choices in the morning will differ from the selections at night to reflect our habits.

Right now Breakfast NY is offering Points units for rent at events. They’re still working on a weatherproof version that can be sold for permanent installation. Head to Breakfast NY’s website to inquire about renting the sign, learn more about what makes Points work and even interact with a Points sign using Twitter.

I think Points is a very cool product, but I think an augmented reality sign would be more useful and practical. You can’t really expect people to form a line behind Points and wait for others to finish faffing about and gawking at the robot sign so they can use the control panel and find out where the nearest restroom is. Or. They might be prompted to do something drastic like, I don’t know, ask another human being for directions. Now imagine if you had a Points app on your Google contact lens or Apple holo-watch. You say Okay Glass Siri simply think of your question, and your device overlays the answer over the sign or over any surface for that matter.

But all this shallow brainstorming and ranting on my part only emphasizes what impresses me most about what Breakfast NY has done: Points looks like it was stolen from a street in the Tron system, but it’s here and it works.

There are a lot of drive-through places, but not many cater to cyclists. Sure, you can still go through the drive through on your bike, but it’s not the best experience in the world to be treated to the exhaust of other vehicles waiting in line – and some places expressly disallow bicyclists at their drive-throughs.

With the goal of providing cyclists with a better coffee experience when they’re on the go, urban authorities in Zurich teamed up with a team of designers to set up the Velokafi.

The Velokafi is essentially a bike-through coffee drive-in that is dedicated to serving cyclists. The highlight is perhaps the wooden tables with slits for the bike wheel that lets people have their coffee without getting off of their bike. To compensate cyclists for getting the word out about the coffee shop, baristas hand out free cups of coffee to cyclists who check in to Velokafi on sites like Facebook and Foursquare.

The Velokafi is part of Zurich’s strategy to improve their transportation infrastructure by 2025. Looks like things are going pretty well so far.

[via Pop Up City]