Hasta La Gadget!

The highest-rated television show on TV right now is AMC’s The Walking Dead. It’s a fantastic show and easily my favorite on television right now. If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, you’ll be glad to hear that AMC has already renewed the show for fifth season coming in 2014. Not that it’s a surprise to anyone – I suspect the show will be renewed for many years to come.

AMC also announced that the current executive producer of The Walking Dead, Scott M. Gimple, will also return in the same position for the show’s fifth season.

“We are very happy to make what has to be one of the most anti-climactic renewal announcements ever: The Walking Dead is renewed for a fifth season,” AMC president Charlie Collier said Tuesday. “This is a show that has erased traditional distinctions between cable and broadcast. Its expanding base of passionate fans has grown every season, most recently – and most notably – with the season-four premiere earlier this month, which broke viewership records for the series and became the biggest nonsports telecast in cable history. On behalf of the incredible team on both sides of the camera, thank you to the fans and here’s to more Dead.”

I mentioned not long ago that there would be a The Walking Dead companion series coming in 2015. Details on that show are still unclear, but we do know that it will follow a different set of survivors. Whether there will be any cross over with the current cast is yet to be known.

[via Hollywood Reporter]

The flying R/C quadcopter ghost made by Alton Porter is so awesome that it’s almost cruel to the people who might come across it this Halloween. It was built with the intention of freaking out trick-or-treaters, which I’m sure it will be able to do.

Alton’s robotic ghost has glowing eyes embedded into it for that extra creepy factor. Imagine the sheer terror of trick-or-treaters when they notice this thing hovering towards them after pressing Alton’s doorbell.

If you have a quadcopter of your own, then you might want to take a cue from Alton and dress yours up in ghostly garb, too, so you can hand out your own scares when the trick-or-treaters come a-knocking.

[via Motherboard via Geekologie]

While Apple definitely made it easier to access the calculator in iOS7, you still might find yourself without a way to do math on your smartphone. Maybe the battery ran out, or maybe you’ve found a way to make the Calculator app crash. Either way, you need a “Plan B” for your maths. I present the solution to this challenging equation – the Abacus iPhone case.

This 3D printed case designed by Joaquin Baldwin provides a fully-functional abacus on the back of your iPhone, letting you work math problems without even slightly draining your battery. And as an added bonus, you’ll get tiny Apple logos in place of traditional abacus beads.

The Abacus case is available in iPhone 5/5S and 4/4S variants over on Shapeways for $24(USD). While I’ll have to dust off my abacus-using skills, I guess it beats using Chisanbop.

Last year we saw a concept for a pair of glasses that applies Instagram’s filters through its lenses. Bruno Ribeiro took a more literal approach with his Real Life Instagram series, taking not just Instagram’s filters but its entire interface into the real world.

But the thing that makes Real Life Instagram so effective is its acknowledgement of the app users’ tastes. Bruno frames random objects – oftentimes just portions of them – with his cardboard interface, pre-liked and pre-hashtagged.

Here’s the money shot:

Instagramception. Ah, the failure of freedom. When you give everyone the ability to express themselves, you’ll quickly realize that most of us don’t have anything worthwhile to say. But I’d still take that over silence any day.

[Real Life Instagram via Design Milk]

Spitballs are annoying, but they’re a part of life, especially in grade school. If you have a kid who’s being tormented by these nasty balls of paper and spit or know someone with a kid who’s in a spitty predicament, then you might want to look into Wads.

Wads is basically a pen with a spitball launcher on the other end. Spitball battles aside, this thing could actually result in hours of fun for kids and introduce them early on to speed, acceleration, and trajectories. (Ahem: a spitball is launched at an angle of 45° to the horizontal and it falls 3 meters away at the same level…)

Wads was created by Ash Gilpin, who has been obsessed with the idea of creating a spitwad launched ever since he was a wee little kid.

Ash explains: “We think kids will love it. Although, schools will probably ban it. But hey, we’d take the PR.” I kind of agree.

Ash has plans to expand the Wads empire to include an interactive game (aptly called Wadboard) down the line. If you like what he’s doing and want one Wads pen of your own, then make a pledge of at least $10(USD) on their Kickstarter page.

[via C|NET]