Jan 26

Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit Teaches You What Xanthan Gum Is

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, science, Tech Toys, Today's Chili
You’ve seen them as ingredients in your favorite foods and sauces: Agar-Agar, Soy Lecithin, Xanthan Gum, but you’ve never really figured out what they are, where they come from, and what they do. With the Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit from ThinkGeek, you have the opportunity to get started with the science behind molecular gastronomy and how you can apply those principles to make tasty eats. 
Molecular gastronomy is the science of understanding the relationships between chemicals used in or created by cooking. Chefs and scientists alike then use that knowledge to tweak their dishes to come up with new and interesting things, like foams that taste like beets or semi-solid bubbles that taste like balsamic vinegar.  
The Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit comes with five sets of additives that each have different properties, the necessary tools to get dirty in the kitchen, and a DVD with recipes and demonstrations so you’re not flying blind when you open the box. It’s available now for $69.99 list price.
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Jan 25

Star Wars Legoland Images Released

Posted in: lego, Star Wars, Tech Toys, Today's Chili

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A couple of weeks back, we told you about Legoland’s plans to open a Star Wars mini-park in its Carlsbad, CA location. The park, set to open on March 31st, will feature seven recreated scenes from the two trilogies and one from the Clone Wars animated film, comprised of 1.5 million blocks.
Well, the folks at Legoland just got permission from LucasArts to give us some more shots of the park in progress–including shots like the above of the Millenium Falcon being transported through the Legoland.
Seems like the shots released thus far are original trilogy only. Check out more images, after the jump.
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Jan 24

Kinect Hack Allows Minecraft Fan to Build Giant Animated Cats

Posted in: Games, kinect, Tech Toys, Today's Chili, video games, videos
There are a lot of people doing really exciting things with Microsoft Kinect – there was a video a few weeks back where some enterprising researchers used Kinect to give you full-body control of your character in World of Warcraft. Nathan Viniconis, however, decided to see if he could use Kinect to play his favorite game: Minecraft. 
It’s not immediately a game you would think could take to motion control: after all, Minecraft is all about mining for blocks and diamonds, punching trees to get wood, and building massive structures to keep yourself safe from the zombies that come out when the sun goes down. Viniconis took the idea a step further though, and used Kinect to control objects in the game, and to make massive animated statues like the ones in the video above. 
Viniconis says on the project’s Web site that he’s still working on it, but he’s not talking about what the next phase of development entails. He’s managed to import data from Kinect and make that data useful to Minecraft, he’s managed to animate the data Kinect sends in the game, and he’s managed to mercilessly tease his cat with a laser pointer. Where could he possibly go from here?
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Jan 19

This Tank is Controlled by iPhone

Posted in: iPhone, Robots, Tech Toys, Today's Chili, Toys

TankBot

If you have some spare cash in your pocket, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, and an affinity for tanks and/or robots, TankBot is a robotic toy that can sit on your desk when not in use, but can storm the front between HR and Sales when you need to reclaim some territory. 
TankBot is controlled through an iOS app, much like the Parrot AR Drone, and uses your iOS device’s accelerometer to roll forward, backwards, or make turns. 
Simply tilt your iPhone forward and TankBot starts moving ahead. Tilt your phone to the left, and TankBot makes a left turn. If you’d rather let TankBot do its own recon, you can set it to autonomous mode and let it go exploring. It’ll avoid obstacles and interact with the people it encounters all by itself. TankBot will be available in June and retail for just under $20. 
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Jan 17

Nanodots Form Large Golden Globe

Posted in: Tech Toys, Today's Chili

Nanodots.jpg

Tiny magnetic balls are everywhere these days, even Hollywood. The founders of Nanodots, Tim Szeto (left) and Denis Saveliev (right) used over 550,000 gold Nanodots to create an enormous replica of the Golden Globe award. Components of the statue were created in Toronto and moved to L.A., where it was completed in a GPK gifting suite at the Golden Globes. The finished piece weighs more than 600 pounds.

For their efforts, Szeto and Saveliev got world record certification. Guinness World Records Limited was on hand to award their work the World’s Largest Magnetic Sculpture. The previous record included only 32,786 magnetic dots.

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Jan 14

Skeleton Key USB Drive Stores 2GB, Won’t Open Locks

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Tech Toys, Today's Chili

Fredflare Skeleton KeyKey-shaped USB drives are fairly popular lately. LaCie’s iamaKey flash drive looks like something that would fit right in on your keychain next to your house or car key, but the Fredflare Skeleton Key takes a more whimsical approach, and looks a little more fun sticking out of one of your computer’s USB ports. 

The Skeleton Key comes in three colors: white, black, and pink, and only one size: 2GB. It’s available now directly from the manufacturer, and retails for $58 USD.
 
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Jan 14

Legoland Goes Star Wars

Posted in: lego, Star Wars, Tech Toys, Today's Chili

StarWars-Lego_falcon.jpg

The force, as they say, is strong with Legoland’s California amusement park. An army of stormtroopers interrupted the park’s annual business results press conference (similar to Darth Vader’s recent crashing of 20th Century Fox’s CES press conference) to announce the launch of a new Star Wars “mini-park” for the Carlsbad location.

The new park features seven scenes from the six Star Wars film and a scene from the Clone Wars animated feature, recreated with 1.5 million Lego bricks on a 1:20 scale. They also feature life size Lego recreations of iconic Star War characters like Darth Vader, R2D2, and Chewbacca.

The California version of the mini-park is set to open on March 31st. Mini-parks will follow in the Billund and Deutschland locations. The scenes were designed by eight Lego model engineers and two animation electricians.

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Jan 13

Turn Your Kid Into a Mermaid

Posted in: Tech Toys, Today's Chili

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Honestly, I’m not really sure what to make of this thing. It looks like it’s actually been around for a while, but I just saw it for the first time today in a catalog. It’s called the Mermaid Swim Fin, from a company called Finis. It’s a pool toy that looks to essentially be one, big single flipper for kids to have them “swimming like a mermaid.”

How safe is it? I don’t know. The company recommends adult supervision–but then, they likely recommend adult supervision is probably recommended for anything that requires a small child to be in a pool.

Thoughts? One thing’s for certain–I wouldn’t go swimming around any tuna nets with this thing strapped to my legs.

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Jan 10

The Nabaztag Gets New Life at CES as The Karotz

Posted in: Robots, Tech Toys, Today's Chili, Toys

KarotzRemember Nabaztag? He’s the adorable digital rabbit that sits on your desk, changes color with the weather, reads your RSS feeds aloud to you, and can even let you know when there’s new e-mail or messages in your inbox waiting for you. 

At CES this year, the makers of Nabaztag unveiled a new sibling for the rabbit called Karotz, which has most of the same features, but this model can communicate directly to other Karotz rabbits elsewhere in the world via phone call. 
Karotz also has an app store so you can add new features to him, and an open API that you can use to develop your own apps. He’s not available just yet, but when he is he’ll set you back $130 list price.
 
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Jan 05

Mimobot’s Awesome Old School Batman Flash Drive

Posted in: Tech Toys, Today's Chili

batman mimobot.jpg

I’m not sure how Mimbot does it–the company may be tapped directly into my brain–but man, I want this thing so bad. The latest flash drive from the company is a limited edition (way to make me want it more) key designed to look like the golden age 1939 dark knight.

The vintage Batman key is limited to 5,000 units, but he’ll soon be joined by Robin, Joker, and Catwoman keys this Februrary, thanks to a deal with DC Comics. The companies also plan to offer a number of other character keys, including Superman, the Flash, and Green Lantern–the latter of which will no doubt get a nice push, thanks to the upcoming movie.

The Batman drive is available now in capacities from 2- to 16GB, through Mimobot’s site and a few select retailers like Kid Robot and the Converse Store.

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