Hasta La Gadget!

It’s awesome what robots can do these days. They’ve certainly come a long way from the first robots that people put together many, many decades ago.

Case in point? The U.S. Navy’s robot that can dance to PSY’s Gangnam Style and that sporty robot that can play ping pong.

The latest one to join this fray of over-achieving robots is the BFS-Auto book scanner that can flip through and scan 250 pages in sixty seconds. It would take a human with a machine far more longer to be able to achieve the same thing. Using lasers to help identify the curvature of the pages, it’s able to scan at the optimal time, and restore pages to their natural flat state, correcting optical distortion.

The BFS-Auto was created by researchers in Japan in a time when digitizing documents has become common practice for many firms and institutions.

While it’s crazily flipping through the pages, the machine can also capture two high resolution shots of each page at 400 ppi.

[via Buzz Patrol]

Some people turn to ice cream or power-shopping when they’re stressed. Others watch movies, play with their dog, or sleep it out.

Still others find that they relieve their stress best by popping a whole lot of bubble wrap. And helping make bubble wrap more available is this Bubble Wrap Anti-Stress Station by artist fra-biancoshock.

He set up this little installation at a bus stop in Milan where he tacked on sheets of bubble wrap along with a sign that indicated just how many minutes of popping action a person can have with each.

It’s convenient, it’s fun, and it’s one of the simplest way to relieve stress without breaking the bank. Need to quit stress-shopping? Bubble wrap bursting is definitely something you have to try!

[Rebel Art via Design TAXI via Bit Rebels]

If you’re looking for new video game to play on your computer over the long holiday weekend and you’re a fan of first-person shooters, you might want to give PlanetSide 2 a go. The game has launched in North America and Europe and is a massively-multiplayer online shooter that has gamers enlisting in one of three empires. The empires include the Terran Republic, New Conglomerate, or Vanu Sovereignty.

The game promises intense battles using hand-to-hand combat, various weapons, ground vehicles, and air vehicles. The game uses Sony Online Entertainment’s proprietary MMO game engine called ForgeLight. While the game is free to play, players can purchase items and content in-game.

Players can also choose to purchase a subscription at $9.99(USD) per month that gives scalable gains for resources, XP, and passive certification points. Premium members also get priority login access to game servers along with access to new cosmetic items and monthly Station Cash bonuses. The game is available as a digital online download right now for Windows PCs.

The heroes of science. They have changed our world. Did they make it a better place? Sometimes. Not the guys who invented the atomic bomb so much. In general though, these eggheads have bettered our world. It’s time to add them to our toy collections. Even though your G.I. Joes and Star Wars figures will totally kick their butt and take their lunch money.

These conceptual action figures are based on famous physicists, mathematicians, chemists, and other scientists by DeviantARTist datazoid. Sure Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Feynman might make for some pretty boring toys since they only battle with their minds instead of their fists, but so does Professor X. And he’s a badass.

They each took between 40 minutes and 2 hours each to create. They are all based on Star Trek: TNG and Star Trek: DS9 figures (mostly Odo from DS9, and Picard as Dixon Hill from TNG). Then he modified them in Photoshop.

[via Geekologie]

Months after Coca-Cola rolled out their ‘Open Happiness’ vending machines, Pepsi is following suit. They won’t be giving away free bottles of soda for hugs, although you will be able to give people the gift of Pepsi and play a game to score free drinks.

You can buy drinks for yourself or for a friend. To send a gift to someone, all you have to do is punch in the recipient’s email address and name. The machine will then send them a code, which they can key in on the machine to claim. Of course, that assumes your friend is somewhere near one of these machines as well.

The Pepsi vending machine is also programmed with a game that you can play to win 20-ounce beverage bottles for yourself.

Pretty cool vending machine, but I prefer Coca-Cola’s because, really, what can beat getting free Coke for a hug? What do you think?

The PepsiCo Interactive Vending Machine dispenses Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist Natural, Aquafina and Lipton Green Tea, and can be found at Columbiana Centre (Columbia, SC), Clackamas Town Center (Happy Valley, OR), Oglethorpe Mall (Savannah, GA), Oakwood Mall (Eau Claire, WI) and Park City Center (Lancaster, PA).

[via PopSop via NewLaunches]