Hasta La Gadget!

A new online service called Greeting Games lets you attach a mini-game to a digital greeting card. The hilarious thing about the service? The recipient has to beat the game before he can read your message. Which means you can send Greeting Games to both loved ones and sworn enemies.

The mini-games involve the usual suspects, including match 3, Sudoku, word hunting, mahjong as well as Fruit Ninja clones, just given a different coating. The games are playable over any fairly modern device, including tablets and smartphones.

According to Polygon, aside from the prize message you’ll also be able to “add in-game messages as well as set the difficulty level, customize any attached messages within the card’s email and link their Facebook profile picture to the card.”

Greeting Games is free to use until the end of January. After that you’ll either have to pay an as yet undisclosed amount per card or sign up for a subscription to get discounts and other bonus features, such as “the option to send the same Greeting Game to several people.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a hit, but I think it would be much better if the games were intentionally silly, easy to beat and ripped off game titles and aesthetics for more laughs. Like, there could be a Card of Greeting: Birth Ops 2. As it is I’d rather send an actual game to my loved ones.

[via Polygon]

We’ve seen people use the Oculus Rift to simulate beheadings. BeAnotherLab used the virtual reality headset for something less morbid but no less interesting. The organization’s The Machine to be Another was an “artistic investigation” in which the Rift was used to give participants first person views from actual people.

In one experiment, participants were told to direct the movements of a performer – if they moved their hand, the performer would move their hand as well, if they walked, the performer walked etc. The participant wore an Oculus Rift, through which he or she saw real time footage from a camera mounted on the performer.

The participant could also make the performer pick up objects scattered throughout the experiment area, at which point the performer would say something about the object they picked up. It was like a first-person video game, except you’re controlling an actual person and exploring the real world.

In another experiment, two participants – one male and one female – became each other’s performer. The pair had to synchronize their movements, which is why you can see them being slow and tentative in the video below. The idea was to put the participant in the body of the opposite sex. Note that the video below contains nudity:

Amazing isn’t it? Perhaps studies and experiences like this will be a lot easier to pull off when computer graphics become more life-like. Imagine you’re a browser and head to The Machine to be Another website for more information.

[via The Verge]

Earlier, we showed you a way to use an actual DualShock 4 controller with your jailbroken iOS device. While these are only DualShock 2 controllers, they will plug directly into your smartphone. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarity ends.

These teensy inch-wide PlayStation 2 DualShock 2 controllers are simply designed as decoration for your mobile device, but they are pretty cute and quite detailed. It’s too bad they’re not functional. Though if anyone out there can manage to hack one so it works, I wouldn’t be surprised.

They’re being made by Japan’s Union Creative, and are available for pre-order in sets of six from NCSX for about $27(USD). Buy a set, and share them with five of your closest friends.

Generally speaking, it’s what’s inside a bottle that counts. It could come out of a yak udder just as long as it still tastes like a fine, single-malt Scotch. Still, there’s nothing wrong with a little creative packaging. And booze bottles come in some of the most creative, decadent, and just plain bizarre designs you can imagine.

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Check out this crazy lamp made from an Ewok village toy and apparently dipped in silver, giving it a mirror finish. I don’t know whether to love it or hate it, but it certainly is shiny.

What Battle Droids and the rest of those figures are doing in an Ewok village, I have no idea, but they didn’t make it out safely before they turned to metal. It’s a one of a kind piece, that’s for sure. It comes from Etsy seller 88MilesPerHour.

And you are not just getting a silver Ewok village either. This thing is a fully functional lamp that will make the village blind you when you turn it on.

It is just $399(USD). Tacky? Or awesome?