Hasta La Gadget!

OK, I’ll admit it. I’m sort of obsessed with Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. I just can’t get enough of the sweeping wind patterns that are prevalent in this piece of incredible art. This is one of the reasons why I’m always happy to find recreations, tributes, and reinterpretations of one of Van Gogh’s most beautiful pieces. Noah Gibbs, also known as ~SirNosh, is behind this amazing homage to The Starry Night.

It depicts what would happen if van Gogh had a bad case of Pac-Man fever. The result of his homage is pretty cool, and I like all of the details he incorporated into it – especially the swirling ghost-clouds in the middle. This should definitely be made available as prints, laptop vinyl decals, and iPhone cases. I think he’d sell quite a few.

I just hope that Noah didn’t cut off his own ear to make this.

[via DeviantArt]

Lovin’ the bold look of those new Nikes? If you’re up to date on the athletic shoe scene, you may notice that sneaker designs can give way long before your soles do. A new decaling technique could enable you to “erase” labels and other artworks overnight without a trace, however, letting you change up your wardrobe without shelling out more cash. A prototype device, called Shader Printer, uses a laser to heat (at 50 degrees Celsius, 120 degrees Fahrenheit) a surface coated with a bi-stable color-changing material. When the laser reaches the “ink,” it creates a visible design, that can then be removed by leaving the object in a -10 degree Celsius (14 degree Fahrenheit) freezer overnight. The laser and freezer simply apply standard heat and cold, so you could theoretically add and remove designs using any source.

For the purposes of a SIGGRAPH demo, the team, which includes members from the Japan Science and Technology Agency and MIT, used a hair dryer to apply heat to a coated plastic doll in only a few seconds — that source doesn’t exactly offer the precision of a laser, but it works much more quickly. Then, they sprayed the surface with -50-degree Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit) compressed air, which burned off the rather sloppy pattern in a flash. There were much more attractive prints on hand as well, including an iPhone cover and a sneaker with the SIGGRAPH logo, along with a similar plastic doll with clearly defined eyes. We also had a chance to peek at the custom laser rig, which currently takes about 10 minutes to apply a small design, but could be much quicker in the future with a higher-powered laser on board. The hair dryer / canned air combo offers a much more efficient way of demoing the tech, however, as you’ll see in our hands-on video after the break.

Continue reading Shader Printer uses heat-sensitive ‘paint’ that can be erased with low temperatures (hands-on video)

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

Shader Printer uses heat-sensitive ‘paint’ that can be erased with low temperatures (hands-on video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  SIGGRAPH  | Email this | Comments

We’re always talking about stuff made out of LEGO around here, and while I’ve even seen furniture and vehicles made from LEGO bricks, I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve seen a load-bearing bridge that uses LEGO.

Gotcha! What you’re looking at here is a clever painted LEGO brick illusion by graffiti artist MEGX, recently done on the underside of a concrete bridge in the town of Wuppertal, Germany.

If you happen to stop by Wuppertal (I just like saying that), you can see the LEGO bridge along Schwesterstraße, though I’m hot sure exactly where along the street it appears.

[via Whudat]