Hasta La Gadget!

The Death Star is an evil place. Bad things happen there all the time. Whether it’s the extermination of an entire planet, or just the obliteration of its own crew, it’s not exactly a happy place to work. But it turns out that the Death Star has a heart.

Well, it’s not really a heart, but it’s a heart necklace. Artist Monique Pasco of OneKraftyB (Hmmm, I wonder what the “B” stands for) made this Death Star heart necklace from heat-cured plastic, and as you can see from the picture, it’s just a little bigger than a Quarter. The heart shape definitely makes the Death Star look a little less imposing for sure – perhaps less likely to draw suspicion from passing spaceships and nearby planets. Maybe if Vader had built the original in the shape of a heart, he would have gotten away with it.

So if you’ve got a soft spot in your heart for the Death Star, you can buy this one over on Etsy for just $10(USD) – that’s way less than an actual Death Star – or an actual heart for that matter.

Self-healing surfaces are theoretically the perfect solutions to easily worn-out gadgets, but our dreams come crashing down as soon as deliberate contact is involved; as existing materials don’t conduct electricity, they can’t be used in capacitive touchscreens and other very logical places. If Stanford University’s research into a new plastic polymer bears fruit, though, our scratched-up phones and tablets are more likely to become distant memories. The material can heal within minutes of cuts through fast-forming hydrogen bonds, rivaling some of its peers, but also includes nanoscopic nickel particles that keep a current flowing and even respond to flexing or pressure. The material is uniquely built for the real world, too, with resilience against multiple wounds and normal temperatures. While the polymer’s most obvious use would be for mobile devices whose entire surface areas can survive the keys in our pockets, Stanford also imagines wires that fix themselves and prosthetic limbs whose skin detects when it’s bent out of shape. As long as we can accept that possible commercialization is years away, there’s hope that we eventually won’t have to handle our technology with kid gloves to keep it looking pretty.

Filed under: Science, Alt

Stanford self-healing plastic responds to touch, keeps prosthetics and touchscreens in one piece originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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…no, not that Alien Queen, just the pixelated 8-bit type appears on these fun, officially-licensed Space Invaders playing cards.

Designed by Pieter Woudt, these playing cards have a cool perforated design which lets you see through them, without being able to see the rank or suit of the card from the back. They’re actually even waterproof, so you can take them in the pool if you think you’ll be safer from the alien invasion in the water.

Each of the face cards features a different alien design, and the Joker is most definitely that little bugger of an invader who’s the last one left on the screen and races at you at what seems like 1000mph.

They’re available over on Amazon for about $9(USD) a deck.

If the urge to create a robot petting zoo of your own hasn’t subsided since Maker Faire, 3D Systems’ new Cubify toy robots might help fill that void in your droid-loving heart. The 3D-printed bots may not boast electronic innards, but their LEGO-like swappable parts allow for some Frankenstein-inspired customization. Ready-made robots start at $4.99, while 3D source files ring up at 99 cents apiece, in case you’d rather extrude them using your own Cube hardware. Yearning to make a personal automaton army entirely of your own design? The company’s new beginner-friendly CAD tool, Cubify Invent, should help you craft that unique plastic platoon.

Continue reading Cubify’s 3D-printed toy robots take cues from Lego, sport interchangeable parts

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

Cubify’s 3D-printed toy robots take cues from Lego, sport interchangeable parts originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, more and more furniture is made using plastic-based materials, which burns drastically faster than the interior decor of yore, sucking all the oxygen out of a room at a faster clip, and making it harder to evacuate people. It’s a serious problem that’s making firefighters completely reconsider how they put fires out. More »