Hasta La Gadget!

It’s more the little sad to many fans of space travel in the US that the space shuttle program has been retired. Right now American astronauts have no way to reach the International Space Station or leave Earth other than catching a ride with astronauts from other countries on their spacecraft. Another depressing final milestone in the shuttle program has been met this week with the last multiple shuttle shuffle of the program.

The space shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour met nose-to-nose briefly for the final time for photos as they were moved between the vehicle assembly building and orbiter processing facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Atlantis was moved for the final time to be transformed from a flight-ready shuttle to a display to be put into a museum.

Presumably, the transformation has to do with removing any potentially hazardous materials from the shuttle. Atlantis should be delivered to the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex where it will spend the remainder of its days starting this November 2. Endeavour will end up at the California Science Center once it’s made museum-ready.

[via CollectSpace]

Chairs are more than just pieces of furniture. At times, they can also be random yet awesome pieces of artwork, like the Enginering Temporality chair by Design Academy graduate Tuomas Markunpoika Tolvanen.

Tolvanen got the inspiration to do his project after witnessing his grandmother’s declining health due to Alzheimer’s. The project is actually a tribute to human fragility, and from the looks of it, Tolvanen was able to get that point across very well.

Perhaps the process to get the chair looking like that is even more striking than its final appearance.

So here’s what Tolvanen did: he cut up some tubular steel into rings and then joined them back together to form a semi-covering over the chair. And then he burned the entire thing. He says:

My pursuit was to give an object a memory, create tension and stage a play between the perfect, anonymous mass produced structural material and the imperfect of human being. The shell that is left caresses the vanished object, the memory of it, referring to the past.

It looks pretty awesome, doesn’t it? In addition to the chair, Tolvanen also created a cabinet, using similar techniques.

[via Design Boom via Chair Blog]

Back in late July, we talked a bit about the ChargeCard for the iPhone. The device is a credit card-sized charger that allows you to connect your iPhone to your computer USB port for charging and synchronization. That’s all fine and good if you use an iPhone, but if you’re on Android or another device the original ChargeCard will do you no good.

The developers behind the iPhone version have now unveiled the promised micro USB version. This version of the ChargeCard works exactly like the original only instead of an iPhone connector on one end it has a small micro USB connector. The USB portion of the micro USB ChargeCard is still flexible just like the iPhone version.

The micro USB ChargeCard comes in white, black, and bird. The bird version is black with white birds printed on the outside. The project only has 11 days to go before it’s funded and already has raised over $136,000, nearly triple the $50,000 goal the developers started with – so there’s no question that it will go into production. If you want one, head over to Kickstarter now, and pledge at least $20(USD) before the fundraising closes.

You’ve tried all sorts of cocktails and added all kinds of fruits, vegetables and tiny umbrellas to your drink. Why not add a shot of technology to the mix? LiteCubes are freezable nontoxic plastic 1″ blocks that light up. This has to be a rave party staple.

Each LiteCube contains an FDA-approved freezable gel. You can use LiteCubes to keep your drinks cool without watering them down. But the star in each cube is the LED. LiteCubes come in single or multicolored variants. You can set the light to glow steadily, flash slowly or at a seizure-inducing pace. You can also turn the LED off, which you should do after ever party. The lithium battery inside is not user-replaceable and is only guaranteed to last up to 12 hours.

You can order LiteCubes from a variety of places. Amazon has a 9-block sampler pack for about $19 (USD), but you can also order from OnlyCubes for $1.45-$1.65 per block or DirectGlow for discounted wholesale purchases.

[via Instash & LiteCubes]

It’s very rare that I print anything out from my digital communications today. I haven’t printed an e-mail in months and the last time I did print was because my insurance company e-mailed me new cards. One of the great things about all the digital communications we have today is we can save paper and be greener. If you’re not the green sort and you prefer to have printed versions of some your digital communications the Berg Little Printer is now available for pre-order.

The small square thermal printer will be on the market within 60 days and you can pre-order it right now for $259 (USD). We talked about this device last November when it first debuted, but the launch day and pricing details were unknown at the time. The software the device runs has been tweaked to allow users to print content and feeds from Google and Foursquare and a variety of other places.

I wonder if the thermal printer paper it uses has to be special ordered or if you can just pick it up at your typical office supply store like adding machine tape. It’s a cute concept, but I think the price is quite expensive for what amounts to a networked thermal printer.