Hasta La Gadget!

A few months ago we saw an awesome tie with a built-in equalizer. Bill Porter is working on a more interactive necktie: one that plays Tetris. Bill made it to trump his usual geeky teaching attire, a lab coat with lots of LEDs on it. Even in its unfinished state I think we can all agree that the Tetris Tie is much better than the lab coat.

The tie is made of a DigiSpark microcontroller, 80 RGB LEDs and two Li-ion batteries in a custom 3D-printed housing. Bill originally used the batteries for his wedding suit. Don’t be afraid of clicking that link; it’s much better than the lab coat.

All in all Bill only spent four hours and about $50(USD) to make the tie, but as I said, it’s still unfinished. Right now the tie only displays random movements. I’m pretty sure he’s also going to trim the cardboard overlay or perhaps get rid of it altogether. Bill is also planning on adding A.I. that can actually play the game as well as a Bluetooth module so that it can be played using a smartphone as a controller.

[via Bill Porter via inStash]

With the Ford Atlas Concept vehicle, the company delivers a showcase of technologies and capabilities that’ll be ready for the next generation of on and off-road drivers. We’ve gotten the opportunity to get up close and personal with the Ford Atlas Concept this week, having a peek at its interior as well as its striking

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Bicycle riders in New York now have a new weapon in the commuting wars. The CitiBike Smart Helmet will show you the way to the nearest CitiBike docking station. That’s pretty handy. Maybe I should say heady. It is a helmet after all.

The Carrera foldable helmet used for this project is embedded with LED strip lights, a FLORA accelerometer, a compass and a FLORA GPS system. All of this is used to guide the rider to the nearest bike docking station in the city, using blinking lights in the periphery of the rider’s vision to show them the way. The colorful LEDs on top serve no purpose other than to provide a cool light show, though.

That should save people a lot of time and effort. This project comes from Tyler and Justin Cooper, who have provided all the instructions to make your own CitiBike Smart Helmet if you are inclined. Pretty neat.

[Adafruit via Damn Geeky]

All right, this is one for those who are not experiencing winter right now (sorry folks in the southern hemisphere!), where you get to have some good old fashioned family fun in the garden with the $49.99 LED Ladder Toss. This is an updated version of the classic outdoor family game, as it now comes with a twist as you can tell by the name of the device.

Each time you successfully manage to toss one of those red or blue bolas, they will be lit from within via glow sticks, and not only that, to add to the fun, each rung of the scoring ladder too will not miss out on the glowing action, thanks to the light emanating from energy efficient LED lights. Individual ladder rungs will be lit via a different color, where green is meant for the top scoring bar, blue for the middle one, and if you hit red, well at least that is better than nothing although it is the lowest scoring bar.

Each purchase will come with a couple of LED Ladders, three pairs of glow bolas accompanied by an equal number of glow sticks, and a carrying bag. The entire shebang requires a dozen AAA batteries to to run, so you might want to settle for rechargeable batteries in the long run.
[ LED Ladder Toss copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

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.