Hasta La Gadget!

Hey look. It’s a pink X-Wing in the forest? What gives? Did Ewoks get a hold of a truckload full of Pepto Bismol and assault this fighter with it? That sounds like those mischievous bastards. They love a good joke/vandalizing stuff. Did Endor have a pride parade? Nope.

This “natural X-wing” was made by Guillaume Renou for an exhibition in France that celebrates nature. Bizarre right?

If teenage girls fought for the rebellion, this is what their ships would look like – along with a fuzzy Hello Kitty plush hanging in the cockpit of course. And this guy would be their leader:

What else can you say about such a pink ship? Sure is pink. Damned Ewoks!

[Tumblr via Neatorama]

A wild spherical camera appears! Actually it’s not the first of its kind that we’ve seen, but unlike the previous device, Serveball’s Squito is being designed for both professional and recreational use. Forget about Instagram or Vine, the cool kids will want to get ball shots! Yeah! No.

According to Serveball’s press release, the current prototype of Squito has three cameras, an inertial measurement unit, a microcontroller and an image processor. As you’ll see in the video below, the prototype can take 360º panoramic pictures and videos. When taking pictures, the Squito can reorient and stitch the images that its cameras take. When shooting a video, the Squito can stabilize the video, but don’t expect a free falling camera to be as steady as one on a tripod. The Squito will also be able to wirelessly send its pictures and videos to PCs and mobile devices.

The tail end of the video featured a version of the Squito with night vision and thermal imaging capabilities. From what I can tell those features will be on a separate variant of the Squito, which Serveball is calling the Darkball. Fold your browser into a ball and throw it to Serveball’s website for more on its cameras.

[via Engadget]

Your teenage child is too big – and cool – for the Kid’s Walker, but you don’t trust her with the Kuratas mech just yet. How are you going to retain your title of World’s Greatest Parent? Simple. With Sagawa Electronics’ Powered Jacket MK3 walking exoskeleton.

There’s only one problem: like the Kuratas, the Powered Jacket is either a promotional tool or an insanely expensive commercial product.

Allegedly, the exoskeleton is over 7ft. tall and weighs a mere 55lb. as it is primarily made of carbon fiber and aluminum. Its arms are controlled simply by moving the corresponding lever, while its legs are strapped to the wearer’s own legs. Apparently its fingers can also be controlled precisely. It also has a transparent canopy to protect the wearer against pedophiles. Now watch its demo video:

That was the best video I’ve in seen my entire life. Science fiction, comedy, drama and horror all in one. You can doubt the extent of Sagawa Electronics’ contribution to robotics, but its contribution to humor is the stuff of legends. As claimed in the video, Sagawa Electronics will supposedly make only five Powered Jacket MK3 units for the foreseeable future, with each one priced at ¥12,500,000 (~$124,000 USD). If that’s how much is needed for them to make another video, then folks I’m telling you that’s a freakin’ bargain.

[via Sagawa Electronics via Laughing Squid]

We’ve already invented a (partially) reusable spacecraft. But the rockets that were used to boost NASA’s space shuttles – and other spacecraft in general – were all designed for one-time use only. That makes space travel wasteful and expensive. That’s why the space transport company SpaceX is working on creating reusable rockets.

Like other rockets, the SpaceX Grasshopper takes off vertically. But instead of returning to Earth as a thousand molten bits when its work is done, the Grasshopper gracefully lands vertically, like a gymnast with a flaming butt. Have you seen one of those? They’re amazing. The video below shows it rising up to a height of 1,066 ft. before landing smoothly on the same launchpad that it came from. SpaceX claims that, thanks to its advanced navigation sensors, it was “directly controlling the vehicle based on new sensor readings, adding a new level of accuracy in sensing the distance between Grasshopper and the ground, enabling a more precise landing.”

Either that or they just played the first half of the video in reverse. Then again, the geniuses at SpaceX literally specialize in rocket science, so uh, rocket science… isn’t rocket science for them. I think I broke an idiom. Anyway, let’s just believe in them and egg them on so that one day a SpaceX rocket can teach me how to parallel park.

[SpaceX via Reddit]

When something particularly bad or painful happens, some people just withdraw and never come out of their cocoons. They can recover slowly or they can get worse and one day decide that they want nothing more than to end it all.

So many of the latter go to the Mapo Bridge in South Korea to do just that. Between the years 2007 and 2012, more than a hundred people jumped from the bridge in attempts to end their lives. They might not have gotten the help they needed previously, but you can at least convince them otherwise at the last minute. That’s what the Seoul City government is trying to do in collaboration with Samsung Life Insurance.

Instead of constructing high fences or a suicide barrier on the bridge, they added interactive handrails that address passersby directly. They’re embedded with motion sensors to detect the presence of anyone near them, so when someone passes by, the handrail lights up with an inspiring quote or message that were written with the help of psychologists and suicide prevention specialists.

A sample message is as follows: “How have you been? Have you eaten? If you need to talk, why don’t you talk to us?” This is then followed by a number for a suicide hotline.

Since launching the project, the Seoul City government claims suicide rates from the Mapo Bridge have dropped 77%. This potential lifesaver is just ingenious, and while it won’t solve the underlying problems of potential jumpers, it could convince them to get the help they need before taking their lives.

[via CRAVE Australia via C|NET]