Hasta La Gadget!

You know how forensic artists are. They can’t pass up an opportunity to take a skull and see what it looked like when it was alive. They might even be curious to see what the skull-shaped bottle of Crystal Head Vodka looked like, had it been living. Forensic artist Nigel Cockerton was just this curious.

So he got a bottle of Crystal Head Vodka and went to work, wondering just what that laughing face would look like covered with muscle, eyes, and skin.

The results are kind of what you would expect. It looks like a drunk guy laughing his ass off.

So now you have a face to think about when you are drinking straight from this bottle. As you drink, you are going to look more and more like this guy too.

[Facebook via cheezburger via Neatorama]

There’s nothing sadder than a fat dog. It’s bad enough that we American’s need to stuff our faces until we all look like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune, but it’s even worse that we fatten our animals too. This dog treadmill will help you keep your dog from being a big slob, while you sit by and watch while snacking on your Cheetos.

It is specially designed for canines to get the exercise they need at a comfortable pace. Get your dog in shape even if you have a busy schedule. This piece of doggy exercise equipment is only $1,159.97(USD) from Amazon.

Dogs were not meant to be fat, so it’s time to liberate your lab from the lard.

[via This Is Why I’m broke]

Some people live on in the memories of others, even when they pass on, because of the life they’ve led and the differences that they’ve made on the lives of others. Others may be forgotten, while still others will live on as avatars in the online realm.

The latter is made possible by Eterni.me, a start-up brought about by MIT’s Entrepreneurship Development Program.

It’s essentially a service that learns and creates an online personality for the departed, based on their old chat logs, emails, photos, and social network interactions. A blurb on the site explains:

Eterni.me collects almost everything that you create during your lifetime, and processes this huge amount of information using complex Artificial Intelligence algorithms. Then it generates a virtual YOU, an avatar that emulates your personality and can interact with, and offer information and advice to, your family and friends after you pass away. It’s like a Skype chat from the past.

Marius Ursache, the startup’s Chief Executive, revealed that over 1,300 registrations were received in a span of 24 hours, so there’s certainly an interest in from people interested in being preserved as an electronic avatar.

To say that it is both unusual and creepy is an understatement. You can check out Eterni.me here.

[via Kotaku Australia via C|NET]

We’ve featured a couple of unusual keyboard and mouse hybrid devices, but so far it looks like people like their devices just as they are – separate and not looking like devices you’d use to pilot an alien spaceship. I wonder if Solid Art Labs’ King’s Assembly will fare any better. At the very least it’s the least weird-looking of the bunch.

The King’s Assembly is a pair of devices (a left and a right “hand”) that each have an optical laser sensor, 35 keys with Cherry mechanical keyboard switches (30 in front and 5 near the thumb rest) and an analog joystick. Because you only get 70 keys at most, one of the keys can be set to serve as a modifier. Hold that down and you can access the secondary function of the other keys, giving you a total of 139 key mappings. Speaking of which, each device will have a preset key mapping, but you’ll be able to create new mapping profiles as well.

Each hand can serve as a mouse and keyboard on its own. But if you have both hands you’ll need to link them using the included interconnect cable if you want to use them in tandem. Once they’re linked, your computer will only see one mouse and one keyboard instead of two of each peripheral. Also, each hand has its own USB cable, but when they’re linked you only need to connect one of their USB cables to your computer. This means you can connect a pair of hands to two computers at once.

How will the two mice act as one? The King’s Assembly’s built-in Atmel microcontroller will average the input from the hands’ optical sensors and send that as one signal to your computer. That may sound weird, but we’re used to using just one of our hands to move our mice anyway, so that shouldn’t be a big problem. You’ll also be able to tweak the sensitivity of each hand’s sensor separately or even disable a hand’s mouse input altogether.

Finally, the joysticks will be useful in playing video games, but you can also use them as scroll wheels.

Pledge at least $110 (USD) on Kickstarter to get one King’s Assembly hand as a reward; pledge at least $200 and you get a pair. I think I’m good with my low-tech keyboard and mouse for work and daily use, but I can see myself using these for gaming.

[via Geeky Gadgets]

Can you tell the time based on scent alone? People encounter different smells throughout the day. From the smell of freshly-brewed coffee to car exhaust or printer toner, it’s all in a day’s work for some.

Hardware designer and physical computing lecturer Aisen Caro Chacin stripped away the specifics and went with common and general smells for her concept watch called Scent Rhythm.

The wristwatch is unusual in the sense that it does away with hour and minute hands in favor of a four-chambered timepiece that emits distinct smells at certain times of day to indicate the current time – or rather, the current time period.

The watch is attuned to a person’s circadian rhythm, or internal body clock, which regulates the 24-hour cycle of the body’s biological processes. Correspondingly, the watch keeps track of time in four segments of six hours each, and triggers the related scent emitter. From 6 am to midday, or the rise period, the Scent Rhythm emits whiffs of coffee with caffeine.

Scent Rhythm isn’t for sale, although design files and its parts list are available on Aisen’s website, in case you want to find out more about its inner workings and how it was made.

[via Dvice]