Hasta La Gadget!

Dexter Industries makes a Raspberry Pi add-on called BrickPi, which connects the ultra cheap computer to LEGO’s NXT Mindstorms parts. To show off what you can do with its kit, they made a robot that reads eBooks aloud.

The BrickPi Reader was designed to read from the Kindle app on the Nexus 7 tablet. Aside from a Raspberry Pi and LEGO, the BrickPi Reader also has a Raspberry Pi camera. The camera takes a picture of an eReader’s screen. The Raspberry Pi then uses an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program to extract text from the picture. A Text-to-Speech engine reads the extracted text aloud. Finally, its Mindstorms arm taps on the Nexus 7′s screen to turn the eBook’s page. When you think about it, it’s basically a Rube Goldberg machine.

But don’t say goodbye to Audible just yet. Not only does it take the BrickPi Reader a few minutes to convert a single page, its “voice” is also horrible. Maybe it’s soothing to baby robots.

I love how they show a guy wanting to read an eBook while driving, as if their finished contraption could be used in a vehicle. Still, who would’ve thought LEGO could read?

[Dexter Industries via Make:]

If you have ever watched Game of Thrones on HBO, you’re probably familiar with Daenerys Targaryen,  Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi herself, played by Emilia Clarke. Word is that she will next be playing a pivotal roll in one of the coolest sci-fi movie franchises ever, Terminator.

Clarke will reportedly be playing Sarah Connor. The choice of Clarke for the part makes sense considering that Terminator: Genesis is being directed by Alan Taylor, who is heavily involved with Game of Thrones. According to IMDB, the role of John Connor will be played by Jason Clarke (Brotherhood, Zero Dark Thirty) with Arnold returning to the franchise.

This is particularly interesting to me since Lena Headey played Sarah Connor on the short lived, underrated Fox series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, since Headey plays Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. I wonder if Arnold will play the Terminator in the new film, he’s a bit old and not as ripped as he was in the 80′s. Why not keep it in the Game of Thrones Family and get Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo to be the Terminator?

[via Nerd Approved]

Flyonix specializes in aerial video and photography. The studio recently put their knowledge of drones for a geeky pursuit. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, Flyonix set out to build and fly a life-size TARDIS. And they succeeded. Somewhat.

Flyonix built a custom rig with 12 propellers. Judging from their brief making-of videos – which you can watch here and here – they made the TARDIS model itself out of styrofoam. With everything in place, all that was left was to let her fly…

Oh, the humanity! Unfortunately it seems like her chameleon circuit wasn’t the only thing that needed fixing. According to Metro, a battery shortage was responsible for the crash. If you’re an aspiring Time Lord, you can see more in-progress photos of Flyonix’ ill-fated TARDIS on the studio’s Facebook page.

[via Likecool & Metro]

Some people are so rich, that it seems like they have everything. Others may have just enough in terms of finances, but they can be so happy and content with life, that it would still seem like they have everything they need.

What can you get for those people this Christmas? What gift would they want, when they can either buy it easily themselves, or when they have no want for anything else because they’re perfectly content with what they already have?

The Gift of Nothing might be appropriate for those people. It’s basically a round, plastic sphere that has nothing inside. In short, it is the gift of nothing.

It was probably created as a gag gift (imagine how a kid would react if they got this!) But if you’re giving it to one of the two types of people described above, here’s an idea: give them the gift of laughter with this present, and add a little something you made (be it a poem, a letter, or a drawing) with a special message that will warm their hearts for sure.

[via The Green Head]

Few things in all of geekdom hold as much promise and wonder as a geek with lots of time and lots of LEGO bricks. A couple LEGO builders named Alice Finch and David Frank teamed up to create a massive LEGO recreation of Rivendell from the Tolkien universe of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The creation is massive and uses over 200,000 bricks in its design.

The builders performed research by carefully watching The Fellowship of the Ring in an attempt to put the entire city of Rivendell together. They say that research was required because it was hard to tell what scenes in the film happened where.

The massive finished model is intricate and beautiful with structures that sprout out of the rocks and lush greenery. Its builders say that one of the most challenging parts was getting the buildings into the landscape. They did the landscape first and added the buildings later.

The finished product is an awesome sight, and you can check out many more detailed images on their project’s Flickr page.

[via Brothers Brick]