You want your house to be lit up brighter than Clark Griswold’s in Christmas Vacation. But you’ve got problems to solve, beyond just the aesthetic challenge. How can you make sure you don’t take a three-story dive off a slippery eave. And how much power are a few thousand feet of lights gonna require? More »
Whoever made that awesome Portal Christmas tree should get these officially licensed Companion Cube string lights. Hopefully they won’t short and burn your house down. Because I’m sure they remember what you did.
The 10′ cord comes with 10 Companion Cube lights. You can buy multiple strings to make a longer chain of loving inanimate objects.
You can order the Portal Companion Cube String Lights from ThinkGeek for $25 (USD). Tiny test subjects may or may not be included.
[via Nerd Approved]
Jetbeam’s Digital Display series of flashlights incorporate a simple screen that provides more accurate info on the torch’s current mode and remaning battery life—at least compared to just a color-changing LED. A ‘9’ means the battery is at full capacity while a ‘0’ means it’s time for new batteries. More »
Realizing that lots of people pretend they’re holding a deadly weapon when wielding a flashlight, the makers of the Dogstar designed it to look like a handheld cannon straight out of a sci-fi epic. The beam is even turned on using a trigger instead of a button, so you can pretend those harmless photons it emits are a deadly spray of ammunition. More »
Mirrors can be for so much more than just gawking at your slack-jawed mug first thing in the morning. They can, for example, be used to give the illusion that towering designs made of light reach out past you, to an indeterminable vanishing point seemingly so distant as to be infinitely far. That second one is what Carsten Nicolai is into. More »
We’ve featured a number of awesome geeky wall decals and posters, but if you want to see something new everyday you might want to help Wallbrights become a real product. It’s a modular stick-on multicolored lighting solution that can be controlled via an app.
The concept involves small strips or hexagons that house diffused LEDs. The modules are attached to each other via male and female connectors. The idea is to piece together as many modules as you want, with one module close to a power outlet so you can connect it to its power adapter, which also serves as a Bluetooth receiver. You can then toggle the lights on or off or change their colors using an app from a Bluetooth-enabled mobile device.
Quirky is currently conducting a survey to determine the marketability of Wallbrights. I think it’s a really cool concept, although it would be better if they could also be used to display pictures or messages.
This year I acted as an embedded reporter at Burning Man, a place of extreme temperatures, high winds, and white-out dust storms. The ultra-fine alkaline dust is hell on gear—so it’d seem like a good place to test some rugged stuff out, right? More »
Light painting is something that’s almost always impressive to me—ooh! look at the lights!—but this is just off the charts. The Found Collective teamed up with Marshmallow Laser Feast used a gigantic plasma TV on a track to create 3D imagery. It’s like 3D light printing. More »
While some wouldn’t necessarily associate Ikea with eco-friendliness given that its business revolves around plywood, the furniture chain has just staked out a clearer position as a green pioneer. It’s phasing out sales of all lighting that isn’t LED-based by 2016, making it the first major home furnishing shop with a US presence to entirely banish less efficient illumination. Ikea also wants to take advantage of its economies of scale with the “lowest price on the market” for LEDs, which could shake up an industry where anything beyond incandescent technology usually carries a premium. We’ll still have some time to wait for the full switch, but the company at least plans to practice what it preaches by replacing over a million store lights with LEDs — so those of us with no light replacement plans can still feel as green as the Beddinge Håvet we’re taking home.
[Image credit: Rainchill, Wikipedia]
Filed under: Household
Ikea to sell only LED-based lighting by 2016, wants to be greener than your sofa bed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There’s no more iconic symbol of geekdom than Doctor Who’s TARDIS. You could pretty much make anything into a TARDIS, and it’ll not only be cool, but everyone will know exactly what you’re into. So the next time you throw an outdoor party – or just want to decorate your house – pick up a set of these TARDIS string lights, and proudly fly your geek flag.
Each set of TARDIS lights comes with ten tiny TARDISes (TARDi?) strung together on a 9-foot-long cord. And just like most holiday lights, you can plug multiple strings into each other to make a longer one. I wonder if you could shrink yourself and step inside one of the miniature TARDi, if there’d be a set of time and space controls inside.
Doctor Who fans (or blue police box fans) can grab a string of these TARDIS lights over at ThinkGeek for $19.99(USD). Grab ‘em now if you want to be sure to have them decorate your holiday tree this year. One ThinkGeek commenter even suggested a Weeping Angel tree-topper to go with.
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