Hasta La Gadget!

A week ago, we learned about the Mycestro, a pointing device that, despite its unusual form, only has a humble goal: to replace your mouse. The Ego! Smartmouse on the other hand is quite the opposite. It looks like a traditional mouse, but it is much more than that. The question is, do we need a mouse that’s this smart?

Made by Laura Sapiens, the Ego! – no, no, no signore, it’s Ego! Put some life into it! – is a Bluetooth mouse that can be used both on a flat surface as well as on air. You can also use the Ego! to control your HTPC or other Bluetooth media players. It can also be used as a wireless flash drive. It can also be used to as a gesture-based gaming controller. It can also remember and automatically input your passwords for you. It can also vibrate to alert you of an appointment or a new email. If Old Spice were to design a mouse, they’d probably come up with an Ego! Except the Old Spice mouse would have a six-pack.

In order to perform all those tasks, the Ego! runs on Linux, has a 400MHz ARM9 CPU, a flash memory capacity of either 2GB or 4GB, a VGA camera, a touch sensor (in place of a scroll wheel), an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a compass, a vibration motor and an optical mouse sensor. It’s got nothing on my mouse though! My Logitizzech M305,000 is covered in luxurious duct tape and has a special right-click button – 60% of the time, it works every time.

Here’s another look at the non-mouse features of this mouse:

Laura Sapiens is currently raising funds for the Ego! Smartmouse on Kickstarter. Pledge at least £70 (~$106 USD) to get one.

But back to my original question: how many people need a mouse this smart? The gestures for managing windows for example – is that actually faster than just using the mouse the normal way? How often do you need to move a file and yourself as well to another workstation? Will the VGA camera be good for anything else other than that gimmicky pairing method?

I’m not saying the Ego! is a bad mouse. I’m just not that convinced that it should exist. Partly because it’s making my mouse feel bad.

[via Laura Sapiens via Digital Trends]

Designer Alex Merto’s Effing Typeface is so effing unusual that I can’t help but be impressed by his creativity. His font is so overtly pervy that it’s enough to make me cringe at certain letters, but even I have to admit that he does a good job at staying within the confines of his extremely vulgar theme.

The Effing Typeface redefines the alphabet, where each letter doesn’t stand a chance against his determination to dirty them up. A isn’t so adorable now, unless that’s a baby’s bottom (which I don’t think it is.) B could be beautiful, but let’s not go to C, because that’s just plain nasty. And while most of the images are immediately recognizable there are definitely a few that I’m not too familiar with – which is probably a good thing.

Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?), it doesn’t look like the Effing Typeface is available for download or purchase online at this point.

[via TAXI via Incredible Things]

If you’re incredibly rich and happen to be in the market for a bizarre and expensive case for your iPhone 5, Brikk has you covered. The company has just announced its new Haven series of iPhone 5 cases, made from gold or other precious metals.

These artisan-made cases have a minimal design with two halves that slip over the phone for edge and back protection, but they are not made from ordinary materials. These cases can be had in yellow or pink gold in addition to platinum.

These aren’t plated, they’re solid metals and cost somewhere between $11,610-$14,235(USD) each. The versions of the case made from gold have 75g of the precious metal while the platinum version has 100g of metal.

If these cases aren’t ostentatious enough for you, the manufacturer will also produce customized versions encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones.

Those rich enough to afford these cases can rest assured that at least a portion of their money is being put to a decent use. Each case purchased will result in the funding of one metric ton of rice for the world’s hungry. Though if you’ve got the money, you could just skip the case and buy about 30 metric tons of rice for the same amount of money. Or maybe a metric ton of steak and lobster.

Whenever you go on a plane and check your luggage, it always feels like a gamble. You might never see it again or it might be all banged up when you get it back, because we know that luggage gets tossed around a lot on planes.

The Crash Baggage line was created by Venetian designer Francesco Pavia, after observing that new suitcases can easily get beaten up, creating added stress while traveling. This new design is supposed to be a workaround. If your luggage is already beaten up, you never have to worry about it getting damaged.

The hard-shelled plastic luggage already comes with the typical dents caused by frequent use. Over time, any new dents will just add more character. Crash Baggage will be available for purchase April 1st and will come in four sizes – including 2 carry-ons – starting at $135(USD) each.

[via core77]

As we already know LEGO robots can do all sorts of things, both useful and useless. This particular build falls into that latter category – unless you consider solving the completing the silly Tamago Egg app to be a good expense of time and energy.

For those of you unfamiliar with Tamago, it’s a smartphone app that simply involves tapping on the screen in order to crack open a virtual egg and see what’s inside. Oh, did I happen to mention you need to tap it 1 million times? This sounds like a job for a robot!

That’s exactly what LEGO NXT builder Jan Gerritsen created with his motorized Mindstorms NXT contraption, designed with a single purpose – to endlessly tap on the screen of his smartphone so he can finally see what’s inside the egg. Here, check it out:

If that Britney/will.i.am jam has to be stuck in my head, you have to deal with it too. I like how there’s a second iPhone sitting there whose sole purpose is to time the other one.

Anyhow, according to Jan’s math, the generally useless ‘bot will need 37 hours to tap 1 million times, and crack open the Tamago Egg once and for all. It’s not quite done yet, but while we wait, Jan recommends that we drink beer and eat some M&Ms. I couldn’t agree with him more.