Hasta La Gadget!

Of all the movies I watched this summer one of the most surprising was Pacific Rim. I went to see this movie mostly because my son wanted to go check it out, and it turned out to be a fantastic movie. The first creature we see the giant robots in the movie fighting is something called a Knifehead.

It looks like a cross between a swordfish and shark with four arms and legs to me. Now, an enterprising geek has taken a bunch of LEGO bricks to construct his own LEGO Kaiju – and the result is quite impressive. I’m always amazed by the high-quality LEGO recreations that builders are able to make without any sort of instructions.

The builder of this awesome creature is OliveSeon, who unfortunately gives no details on exactly how this massive work of geek art was created. It’s hard to tell exactly how large this LEGO beast is, but I’m betting some glue was used to hold the finished creation together. How else could it stand up to a beatdown by a Jaeger?

[via Brothers-Brick]

About three years ago, I talked about Table Connect, a 58″ touchscreen display that mirrors the screen of an iPhone. Or not. It turns out that the display we saw in the video wasn’t even a prototype; the “demo video” we saw was made using special effects. But now the same people behind that viral video claim they can make a real device.

Now called TableConnect – the lack of a space tells you they’re serious this time – is more or less the same idea, except now the final product will supposedly work with both iOS and Android devices. As with the fake product, you’ll be able to navigate and control your mobile device from the screen itself. The table can even be propped in an upright position to mimic the portrait mode of mobile devices.

TableConnect is expected to have an edge-to-edge 1080p LED touchscreen and come in two sizes: 60″ and 32″. It will also have several “Smart Areas” – i.e. home buttons on every corner and orientation buttons on the edges.

TableConnect will also supposedly support Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and HDMI connectivity, although this part is confusing because the prototype shown in the video below connects to an iPhone 4 using a 30-pin cable. TableConnect will also require a jailbroken iOS device, although the final product will supposedly come with a “pre-configured” iPhone or iPad. There’s currently no word on exactly which Android devices it will work with.

TableConnect is currently asking for money on Indiegogo to help with the development of the final product. Unlike most fundraising projects you cannot get a TableConnect as a reward, but even if they did offer one, most of us won’t be able to afford it anyway. The projected final cost for the 60″ version is a jaw-dropping €25,000 (~$33,000 USD) while the 32″ version will cost €15,000 (~$20,000 USD). There goes my dream of playing epic sessions of Spaceteam.

[via TableConnect]

A few months ago I talked about a Kickstarter project called the LightUp, an electronics kit for kids and newbies. Instead of wires or solder, LightUp uses magnets to connect the modules together. It turns out that there’s already a very similar product out on the market. It’s called littleBits, and it already has a growing number of modules and a healthy community.

Like LightUp, littleBits uses color-coded modules that easily snap together using magnets. Each module also has screen-printed labels that identify its parts. Unlike LightUp, littleBits uses the polarity of magnets to prevent you from sticking a module to another module the wrong way.

The modules are separated into four types: power, input, output and wire. The first three are self-explanatory, while the wire module is used to extend or branch out your circuit. Each type has multiple variants. For instance, there’s a USB and a coin battery power module, a button and a light sensor input module, an LED and a DC motor output module and more.

Head to littleBits’ online shop to order a kit. The base kit costs $99 (USD) and comes with 10 modules. You can also buy more modules separately.

Check out the littleBits website and their YouTube channel to see what customers have built with the kits.

[via Make:]

For some reason, My Little Pony reminds me of the Powerpuff Girls. It’s probably because of their usage of bright colors or the fact that their larger-than-life fanbase includes unusual members, most notably grown-up men who probably aren’t who the shows’ producers were targeting.

But there they are and here we all are. Male fans of My Little Pony are so great in number that they’ve come to be collectively known as bronies. You know, bros who love ponies.

Never being one to let something slip past them, College Humor picked up on this to come up with a new range of fictitious but oh-so-amusing line of dolls, aptly called My Little Brony. They even put together a commercial featuring the fake dolls, just for the heck of it…

LOLs aside, what do you think?

[via Jezebel via Incredible Things]

You can convey a lot of things through touch. You can give a sympathetic hug, a joyous high-five or an angry punch. But Disney Research Pittsburgh came up with an interactive installation that can transmit sound using the human body. The sound will then be heard when a carrier touches someone’s ears. This means you can transmit a verbal message through touch.

The researchers call their invention Ishin-denshin, after a Japanese idiom that describes “unspoken mutual understanding.” Ishin-denshin consists of a microphone connected to a computer’s sound card. There’s also a thin piece of wire connected to the microphone’s cable and wrapped around its metallic casing. The microphone is set to start recording when it receives sound with an amplitude above a preset threshold, presumably so it won’t record ambient noise.  The recorded loop is sent to the computer, which converts the sound into a high voltage but low current electric signal and sends it to the thin piece of wire. The signal is then transferred to the person holding the mic, who can then pass it on to someone else via touch. The signal can be passed to multiple people before it’s directed to someone’s ear.

I wonder if it’s possible to make a visual version of the Ishin-denshin.

[via Disney Research & New Scientist via NOTCOT]