Tod E. Kurt, author of the new book Hacking Roomba (which looks great, BTW) has an article on the book’s support site on how to add a Cylon-esque LED light array to your Roomba. The video at the end of the piece is cute.
That’s Not a Flashlight. *THAT’S* a Flashlight.
Pushing the Limits of Rapid Prototyping Tech
More coolness in rapid prototyping news. The Belgian rapid-prototyping firm Materialise has spun off a creative division called MGX whose goal it is to push the envelope of RP and to get artists to explore it as a medium. They recently asked four designers to create something around the theme of “Private.” The piece above, called Detail.MGX, is by Israeli designer Dan Yeffet, and is a lamp built out from his fingerprint. Below is a pen called Download by Ross Lovegrove, which is molded from the negative space of Lovegrove’s hand.
Click here to see the other two creations and more info on the project.
Retro-Futuristic Hovering
You know, we’re all about the personal flight systems here at Street Tech Labs. So, we thought we’d call your attention to this cool little article about some of the early efforts in engineering hovering vehicles in the ’50s and ’60s.
BTW: This piece is from a website I’ve been frequenting recently called Damn Interesting. It’s sort of a Boing Boing-esque directory of wonderful things. I always find stuff here that catches my interest.
How-To: Create Hypermedia Docs for iPod
Did you know that you can use the iPod Notes program to create “interactive” e-docs that can include subfolders, images, and hyperlinks to other text, images, videos, and audio? Tru dat. It’s rudimentary stuff, but it’s doable. This MacDevCenter tutorial shows you how.
Recombinant Moo Cards
Add “Mooarama” to the torturous coinages that are coming out of the Moo Mini Card craze. Artist John Ralston has made Moo Cards of 15 color drawings that can be recombined to make different artworks. You can buy a set for ten bucks.
That’s No 18-Wheeler, That’s an 18,000 Watter
Oh my word, this is absurd (in the most deliriously awesome way)! It’s called “Decotora” (or “Dekotora”) and it’s Japanese, oh… so… very… Japanese. They look like moving Vegas slots crossed with downtown Tokyo AND Time Square. As Avi Abrams says on his site Dark Roasted Blend:
“They might not look very refined in the daylight, but at night they shine in the most inimitable way. If you meet such an embellished apparition on a highway at midnight, it may either scare you off the road, or cause you to start to believe in alien encounters. The amount of chrome on these babies is probably equal to a monthly chrome production of a small African republic. I have to admit I’m still scratching my head after seeing this.”
I Want a “Napster Fabber” for Christmas, Santa!
News of this project, of this site, made me giddy with excitement. When we posted the piece about Draw and Print Furniture earlier this month, I saw it as a glimmer of something wholly 21st century. This project, to create a bottom-up open source boom in desktop fabbing, has a similar resonance. It intersects so many current techno-cultural vectors: the new Maker/DIY movement, open-source software, Web 2.0 publishing, blobjects and blogjects. And the truly revolutionary thing about it is it seems SO doable. Might we be including, say a MAKE Kit to build one of these in our ’07 Gift Guide? Maybe ’08?
[Via Make]
Review of Panasonic PV-GS300 MiniDV Camera
My latest piece on the FM Holiday Gadget Guide is a review of the Panasonic PV-GS300 MiniDV Camcorder, a 3CCD camera that offers some killer prosumer features on a vanilla consumer’s budget.
CyberSanta Says H0H0H0
Well my wire-headed friends, CyberSanta’s databits arrived in our mainframe last night, so you know what that means: the holidaze have officially arrived here at Street Tech Labs.
Besides tapping the kegs of eggnog and making our Robosapiens do gladiatorial combat with turkey drumsticks and cream pies, this blessed event signals the posting of our annual Street Tech Gift Guide. Here’s Part 1 of our suggestions for sucks-less giving, lots of bench-tested hardware and other recommended gadgets, cool kits n’ toys that you’ll be thrilled to give (maybe even to yourself).
So Happy Holidays from all your Cyborganic, Meatbot, and Mechanoid pals at Street Tech Labs.