Author: Gabrielle Taylor
Wall of Pong
Why Pong at home when you can Pong anywhere you can zap a laser at a flat surface? Students at Cornell have created laser Pong, where the "ball" is a laser-projected dot and the paddles are motion sensitive with…
Input device for disabled from Actbrise
What you are looking at is not a beer hat, despite the resemblance. It’s actually an input device for the disabled from Actbrise. Turning the head moves the cursor and blowing on the tube works as a mouse click. (Exhaling is a left click, inhaling is a right click.) No word on what happens when you sneeze. [GT]
Actbrise [via Plastic Bamboo
Paypass wristwatch from Garanti Bank
Turkey’s Garanti Bank has teamed up with MasterCard to offer the world’s first watch with a PayPass-enabled credit card built in. Burger King, Starbucks and over 600 other merchant locations in Turkey have signed onto the program which means that customers can pay for items under 15 euros by simply tapping their watches on a special sensor. That means no more fumbling for non-chic things like money or credit cards – in Turkey, at least. [GT]
Garanti Bank Paypass-enabled credit card [via Popgadget]
Breath powered USB charger
Why plug your USB devices into your computer to charge them when you can save that electricity and use your own hot air? Just follow the instructions at Instructables and you too can strap a motor to your chest which should get you some very interesting looks at security checkpoints. As the inventor says, building this requires a wide range of maker skills, so simply being able to breathe may not be enough of a qualification. [GT]
"Sick" robot for medical training has this pain in all the diodes down her left side
Researchers at Gifu University’s Graduate School of Medicine in Japan have developed a robotic patient that can respond verbally to questions about how it feels and move its body in ways that exhibit the symptoms of its ailment. It looks like a human woman and has body parts that can move in accordance with its symptoms. This will help medical students gain experience in diagnosing diseases, and hopefully will encourage them against being such dismissive jackasses. [GT]
Hamster-powered shredder 2: the Hamstering
We told you about the hamster-powered paper shredder last month. Well, now there’s a new, improved version. Thomas Ballhatchet, the inventor, got so much interest that he actually sat down and tried to make a version that is arguably viable, to the degree that home appliances powered by rodents ever are. Probably still not the best way to dispose of unwanted Barclaycards. [GT]
Hamster Shredder [via Core77]
SUBstage100 Subwoofer from Soundmatters
The SUBstage100 Subwoofer from Soundmatters has been designed to have a nice low profile, so you can hide it under the couch or pretty much anywhere, instead of having a huge chunk of magnet lying under your desk and getting full of cat fur because Bester keeps sitting on it. (Insert name of your own cat … there.) It has deep articulate bass and a 200-watt Class D amplifier so you can crank it up and see if the couch explodes. (According to Mythbusters, the couch will not explode.) $399 and available in July. [GT]
EleeNo WebTime Elite
Yet again, TokyoFlash has come out with a beautiful watch that makes telling time pretty much impossible. This one is is easier to interpret than most, though, all you need to do is look at the polyhedron in the center and see where it intersects with the numbers and you know it’s . . . ten-ish? A good watch if you’re trying to become less obsessive about time. Also, it does have a cool butterfly clasp which you can probably fasten without involving sixteen other people, for a change, and nice 4 year battery life. £61.85.[GT]
WebTime Elite [via BoingBoing]
Pay-for-play online video 'will soon become extinct'
A study from Forrester Research says that "the paid video download market in its current evolutionary state will soon become extinct, despite the fast growth and the millions being spent today". While spending last year jumped from $98mil to…
iQ, the iPod docking piano
Have you ever wanted to take a really luscious, beautiful, expensive, finely-tuned piano and make it play, I don't know, My Humps, as if some ghost with the world's worst taste has possessed it? Well, now you can! The…
