Thanko’s USB Mask Shields You from Pollen, Makes You Look Like a Beekeeper

When pollen flies through the air, allergies run wild. Good (or bad?) thing there’s Thanko’s big yellow mask to shield you from pollen (and social interaction!)

USB Pollen Mask 620x568It looks like Thanko means business when it comes to its pollen mask. At first glance, it resembles those protective masks that beekeepers wear. While it won’t protect your from bees, it will keep the pollen out. And while it looks stuffy, the wearer is kept cool and comfortable thanks to its built-in USB-powered fan, which has two settings you can choose from.

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The Thanko USB Pollen Mask sells for ¥3,980 (~$38 USD). Dignity sold separately.

[via New Launches]

Borderlands Masks Are Perfect for Gamer Geek Halloween Costumes

If you’re a procrastinator like me you probably haven’t even thought about what you’re going to dress up as for Halloween yet. Don’t fear, there are still plenty of cool costumes out there that you won’t be embarrassed to wear to a Halloween party. ThinkGeek has some cool Borderlands masks that will make you look like a character from one of the coolest video games franchises around.

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Two different masks are available including the iconic psycho bandit or Handsome Jack. Both masks are made of latex. The masks are held on the face using an elastic band. The Psycho Bandit also has elastic over the top of the head to help keep it in place.

Both masks are available right now for $29.99(USD). The mask is all you get, so you’ll have to come up with the rest of the costume on your own. If you go with the Psycho Bandit, you’ll probably need a bald wig, some LED eyeballs, a buzz-axe prop and six-pack abs to complete the look. On the other hand, all you need for Handsome Jack is a dapper hairdo and a suit.

Breaking Bald: Hyper-Realistic Walter White Mask

Looking for a one of a kind Breaking Bad collectible? How about this incredibly realistic Walter White mask that was once worn by Bryan Cranston? This mask first showed up when Bryan Cranston wore it at the 2013 Comic-Con and walked among the unsuspecting crowd. He then revealed the disguise on stage at the Breaking Bad panel.

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Then later it showed up on all of the talk shows, even Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where Fallon wore the mask and interviewed Bryan Cranston as Walter White. At one point musician/actor Common put on the mask too. The mask was signed by Cranston and returned to the artist after that. Now you can own one and do whatever you want with it.

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It’s great for Halloween, making your own fan movies, scaring people, or just staring in the mirror telling yourself that you are the one who knocks. The eBay auction ends tonight and right now it is at a whopping $41,300.00(USD).

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Detailed Batman Cowl Replica: Will the Real Adam West Please Stand up?

There’s cosplay and then there’s COSPLAY. If you’re serious about your costuming, and you’re into Batman, then you’ll want to start pinching your pennies now. Unless that is, you’re Bruce Wayne – then you can already afford to buy this stitch-perfect Batman cowl based on the one that Adam West wore in the 1960s TV series.

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Each cowl is handmade by Williams Studio 2, and is as accurate as anything I’ve ever seen. It’s made from custom dyed Lastex, with a fiberglass shell, paint, foam, leather, and snaps to hold it in place. The pattern for this mask was made using a show-original cowl as a reference, and even the color of the eyebrow paint was Pantone-matched to the original.

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Apparently, this thing is so perfect that Adam West himself owns one of these replicas. If you’d like one for yourself, you’re going to need to pony up $1,500(USD), but that’s chump change to Gotham’s number one billionaire, right? While you’re on a spending binge, why not grab an Adam West head to go with it?

Custom Optimus Prime Mask: Steampunks in Disguise

This awesome Optimus Prime steampunk mask is an amazing piece of art. You can wear it or just put it on a shelf. If you do wear it, it has a voice changer built in. This means awesome adult playtime coolness and fun. This mask makes Optimus a robot in disguise, who is in disguise again, with a steampunk makeover.
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It may have started out as one of these cheap toy masks, but it’s pretty special now. I love the antiqued finish, and the bolt and rivet details are super nice.

Etsy seller CaptainBayley says that this mask is being offered for a limited time only. It is just $143.13(USD). That’s not a lot to ask, especially since this means that you can finally start that Steampunk Transformers movie you’ve been meaning to make.

Facewaver Exercise Mask Makes You Look Like a Real Horror Show

Does your face look saggy and sallow? Do your facial muscles feel strained, even when you make the simplest of facial expressions? It probably lacks exercise and one way you could get it is with the Facewaver Exercise Mask.

Facewaver Exercise Mask

It looks like a ski mask, only it doesn’t cover your entire head. Its product page claims that it “gently stretches the skin and muscles in several directions, improving and increasing blood circulation to the surface of your face.” All you have to do is put it on and make different faces for five minutes a day.

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This is another strange facial-exercise-related contraption available for import from Japan Trend Shop, who previously brought us the Hana Tsun Nose Straightener, the Eye Slack Haruka, the Rhythm Slim Chin Exerciser, and the Face Slimmer Mouthpiece.

No guarantees if the facial mask will work, but I guarantee you will scare a child or two when you’re making faces with this pink mask on your face. It sells for $60 (USD). That may sound expensive, but the expressions on the faces of others who see you wearing this will be priceless.

[via Laughing Squid]

Eidos Masks: Giving Humans Superpowers (of perception)

Eidos Sensory Amplification Mask

The Eidos masks are really, really cool.

New toys like Google Glass are neat, but augmented reality (AR) has been around forever. Going back to WWII-era active gun sights, forward to the heads-up displays of modern aircraft & automobiles, to smartphone apps that overlay directions, traffic conditions, restaurant reviews, or, through facial recognition, the name of an acquaintance or colleague; throughout the basic concept and implementation of AR has remained fundamentally unchanged.

The same could be said for virtual reality (VR), with one caveat: for practical purposes, it doesn’t really like, you know, exist. In 1992, when Lawnmower Man came out and hundreds of computer scientists died in tragic eye-rolling incidents, VR and enthusiasm for it pretty much crawled into the sci-fi/fantasy corner where it’s spent most of the last 20 years. VR is an endlessly fascinating concept, and it’s endlessly unavailable (though the Oculus Rift shows promise).

The novel and intriguing Eidos project, consisting of a pair of prototype sensory enhancement masks developed by students at the Royal College of Art in London, has very simply but cleverly shoehorned together both AR & VR into an indirect, yet direct augmentation of analog perception.

Basically, the system is digitally processing analog reality and then feeding it back to the user’s organic sight & sound receivers in real time – which is neither discretely AR nor VR, but kinda simultaneously both.

Potential applications abound, so have a watch below, and the admittedly convoluted explanation above should make sense:

Via MashableEidos Home

Akihabara News Contributor Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com.

 

Eidos Sensory Augmentation Device Concepts: Anti-ADHD

We already have devices that augment two our sight and hearing. But a group of Innovation Design Engineering students at the Royal College of Art built a couple of devices that provide a new level of augmentation. One is a headset that applies special effects to what you’re seeing in real time, while the other one is a mask that works like noise canceling headphones. No Typhoon explosives though.

eidos sensory augmentation devices by tim bouckley et al

Tim Bouckley, Millie Clive-Smith, Mi Eun Kim and Yuta Sugawara call their project Eidos. The idea is not just to help us focus on sights or sounds that we consider important, but also to provide totally new ways of seeing and hearing.

The headset for example can apply a long-exposure effect on moving objects – a bit like seeing in four dimensions. The mask on the other hand not only blocks out all sound except for the one you want to hear, it broadcasts the sound through your inner ear. The students claim that this makes it seem like the sound is being sent directly inside your head – a bit like being a schizophrenic.

Obviously the devices in their current state are silly and impractical – the cool use cases shown in the video are all hypothetical and conceptual. Still, wouldn’t be amazing if future sunglasses and hearing aids had these capabilities? I mean I didn’t ask for these, but when they arrive I can see old man Bert buying Eidoses. Eidii. Eidoes. Edeese. Eidosia.

[via Dezeen via Walyou]

These Masks Can Give You Superhuman Hearing, Sight

These Masks Can Give You Superhuman Hearing, Sight

The idea of having superhuman powers is one I’m sure many of you can relate to as being able to fly, superhuman strength and invisibility are some of the powers you’ll probably want to have. But a group of students at the Royal College of Art in London created a set of masks that offer as close as an experience to having superhuman powers as you’ll probably get in your lifetime.

The two masks that were developed cover certain portions of the wearer’s face, the first one being worn over the ears, mouth and nose, while the other is worn over the eyes. The first prototype uses a directional microphone that makes it possible to hear isolated sounds within an environment filled with ambient noise. The second mask uses a camera to capture video to then send it to a computer which can apply a number of effects in real-time, which the wearer can then view. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: TitanArm Exoskeleton Can Help Its Wearer Lift Heavy Stuff, Google+ Hangouts get live captions,

    

Creepy Baby Masks Turn Adults into Big Babies

If you think that there’s no way baby masks would be anything but adorable, then think again.

That’s what I thought before I saw these masks by artist Landon Meier of Hyperflesh. And now that I’ve seen them, let me just say that they’re creepy as heck – even creepier than those scary clown masks that have haunted your nightmares ever since you were a kid.

Lifelike Baby Mask

I think the creep factor is brought about by the fact that the masks are designed to fit adults. That means they’re huge and, when worn, will turn anyone into a big, lumbering baby. The expressions don’t help either. Meier created three based on a baby’s common expressions: happy, crying, and disgusted. Suffice it to say, they all still look extremely creepy. There’s no other word for it.

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They’re pretty expensive, too. Each mask is priced at $350(USD) and they can be bought over at Hyperflesh.

[via This is Why I’m Broke via Incredible Things]