Are you sick of lumpy butter on your toast? Leave it to Japan to come up with another gadget you never knew you needed. This infomercial-worthy contraption is – as far as I know – the world’s first butter grater.
Just load up a stick of butter into the Easy Butter grater, and twist it to drizzle out delicate strings of butter, which look kind of like shredded cheese.
The Easy Butter grater sells for ¥2,300 (~$23 USD) over at Metex[JP]. While I love the idea of grated butter, I don’t love the idea of cleaning this thing.
I’ve seen my fair share of incredibly odd devices for computers over the years, but most of the really bizarre stuff is rather cheap. You have to figure that the stranger a device is, the less money it has to cost for people to be interested. That isn’t the case with a company called Shawish that has just unveiled some new USB flash drives that look like mushrooms.
First off, I don’t think there are a lot of mushroom enthusiasts out there that have been sitting around counting the days till they could find a fungus-inspired storage device for their computer. Oh, did I mention that these drives cost up to $32,000 each? Yep, these aren’t any old mushroom-shaped storage devices, they’re made out of precious metal encrusted with real gemstones.
The mushroom flash drives are made from yellow, pink, or white 18 karat gold. They’re also bejeweled with rubies, sapphires, or diamonds. The flash drives themselves have just 32 GB of storage space. You’d think for this price, they’d splurge for a 1TB model at least.
I just don’t see anyone buying one of these for that kind of money. Who knows, maybe there really is someone out there with more money than sense. And who also loves mushrooms.
Residents and tourists in Hong Kong this week were greeted with a very strange sight floating in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor. A gigantic rubber duck is currently floating in the harbor. Yes, you read that right a gigantic six-story tall rubber duck is currently invading Hong Kong harbor.
Had the dock surfaced off the coast of Japan, I think we would be on the lookout for Godzilla. The massive 650-inch tall rubber duck was created by a Dutch artist named Florentijn Hofman. It’s unclear exactly why the artist created this gigantic duck.
What is clear is that it’s strange and incredibly popular with kids. Hong Kong is the latest destination for the gigantic duck, it had previously been displayed in Osaka, Sydney, São Paulo, Auckland, and Amsterdam. Rather than actually being made from rubber, as you would expect of a rubber duck, it’s actually a gigantic inflatable.
According to the artist the massive duck had to be deflated due to high winds and big waves in the bay. The massive duck will be anchored in Victoria Harbor for display through June. This is the perfect opportunity for some pranksters to fill the bay with bubble soap.
A couple of years ago we saw a concept for a diabolical alarm clock. The idea was that a desperate late sleeper would willingly place a banknote on the clock, knowing that the clock will shred the money if he doesn’t wake up when the alarm goes off. And now the concept has been turned into reality, by a tinkerer named – I am not making this up – Rich Olson.
Rich made the clock using a SparkFun ClockIt and a USB-powered paper shredder. Rich is quite merciless too – the clock waits less than 10 seconds after the preset time before it starts shredding your money:
Note that destroying money is illegal in many countries. So if you’re going to make your own shredding alarm clock, why not tape your pinky finger to it instead? That’ll be way more effective at waking you up. Just kidding.
I love a good amusement park ride as much as the next guy, but even I might have some second thoughts about riding on this unusual double ferris wheel if it ever showed up at my local Six Flags.
Designed by the frequently whimsical, always creative team at Art Lebedev Studios, the Attraktsionus concept would link two ferris wheels together with a single set of cars that can travel between them.
Presumably, some sort of giant belts or cables would drive the cars between the two wheels, thus combining the sensation of riding a ferris wheel with that of a gondala ride. Thanks to the different wheel sizes, the whole thing looks like a giant bicycle chain when viewed from a distance.
I’m doubtful that we’ll ever see this ride turn up at real world amusement parks, but I do think it would be cool to create a whole series of fantastic and impossible rides like this. Oh yeah, there already is…
Being single can suck, especially when all of your friends already have plus one’s. Artist Noortje de Keijzer found a way around this not by joining online dating sites or by going on blind dates, but by knitting her own boyfriend.
Yes, you read that right: she knitted one.
Obviously, she doesn’t have Geppetto’s power, so her knitted boyfriend isn’t alive. But since it’s actually a cushy bodysuit, any guy can wear it and make the suit come alive – or better yet, it can just be filled with stuffing if you’d prefer the strong and silent type.
So far, Noortje has knitted two boyfriends: Arthur, who was born knitted on September 14, 2009, has white skin, dark brown hair and black knickers; while Steve, born knitted on September 27, 2011, has dark brown skin, black hair and beige knickers.
We’ve already seen a furry iPhone 5 case. But if you love plants more than Wookies, a Japanese company called Ag Ltd. has something for you. They’re making what they call the World Parks series, which are iPhone 5 cases that are modeled after grassy parks.
The first World Parks case is modeled after Yoyogi Park, a historic landmark in Tokyo, Japan. Ag Ltd. achieved the grassy look and texture by adhering five different colors of fibers to the case using a process called electrostatic flocking.
The first batch is composed of only 100 units. It will go on sale by the end of this month in Japanese stores for ¥3,980 (~$41 USD). If you don’t get your hands on one, don’t worry – Ag. Ltd. is planning on mass producing succeeding batches, which will be modeled on other famous parks in the world including the world famous Central Park in New York and the Hyde Park in London. I wonder if we’ll be able to tell which case was modeled after which park.
Water bottles are basically banned in most exams I’ve taken, and it’s easy to see why. Students can get so creative at cheating that even a pen itself can be used for that purpose. Case in point? The White Weasel’s editable and printable Aquafina label that lets students create cheat sheets that look like water bottle labels.
The only challenge is finding a printer that can print this stuff on shiny plastic. It’ll look way suspicious if you showed up to the test with a water bottle wrapped in printed paper, don’t you think? Especially if you keep staring at it during the duration of the test. Now that’s a dead giveaway.
But all kidding aside, we don’t condone cheating in any way, so if you do have a test coming up, get off the Internet and crack those books open. Your future self will thank you for it.
Japan is home to all sorts of weird and wonderful items, and why stop now? While I’ve enjoyed building models since I was a little kid, I’ve typically stuck to cars, motorcycles, airplanes, and the occasional robot. But in Japan, you can build a model of a fish. But this isn’t just any fish model, no. It’s a model that can be deconstructed into a meal. This is the fish that the guys at iFixit would order if they could.
When it arrives, the foot-long fish model looks like an ordinary Maguro tuna. But pull it apart and you’ll find all of the cuts of fish you might find on your dinner table. Though if you are into eating sushi, I can’t guarantee that these plastic pieces will taste as good as the real deal. The model even ships in a styrofoam container that makes it look like freshly-packed fish, along with a replica of a sushi knife and cutting table.
Not that I was planning on running out and buying one of these, but the ¥29,000 (~$240 USD) price tag has definitely eliminated any such thought that might have entered my mind. Though I do think I’ll have some spicy tuna rolls for lunch today.
I’m sure many of you still dream about owning the so-called “Ultimate FPS Simulator.” If you can wait for a few more months, you just might have one in your home, albeit at a smaller scale. A company called Virtuix is currently working on Omni, an omnidirectional treadmill controller for virtual environments.
The Omni can sense not only when you’re running or walking but also when you’re jumping. It can also emulate crouching movements by bending over. The Omni will supposedly work with all PC games when it’s released, which is certainly a neat plus. Here’s a quick video showing how one moves about on the Omni:
Here’s the Omni being used with Skyrim, with the help of a Kinect for head targeting:
Finally, here’s the Omni with the year’s most anticipated gaming product, the Oculus Rift, comboing to present a new way to play Team Fortress 2:
You can see a couple more videos of the Omni in action on YouTube.
Keep in mind that the Omni isn’t a mechanical treadmill – it’s a passive walking surface on which you wear a pair of special low-friction shoes to walk. The waist support in the middle is designed to keep you from falling over, of course. You can read more about how it works over on their FAQ.
Virtuix is planning to launch a Kickstarter fundraiser later this May or June. The retail price for the Omni may be between $400 to $600 (USD), which isn’t surprising considering what it can do. Mirror’s Edge is about to become a fitness video.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
