A Cool Gadget

Let me set one thing straight here. The guys who designed this furniture clearly had no inspiration from any 1980s dot-munching arcade game. Nor does the name “Pouf-Man” have any similarity to the name “Pac-Man”. It’s all on the up-and-up, you see.

Nope, there’s nothing even remotely reminiscent of Pac-Man going on in QAYOT’s Pouf-Man designer seating collection. It’s just a strange coincidence that it has a similar name, that’s all.

I mean really, Pac-Man gobbled power pills and munched on ROUND dots. Nowhere in the original game do I remember any power squares or chewy cubes, do you? And Pac-Man was yellow, not black, white, brown or red, no?

As long as you’re not with the Namco legal division, head on over to the QAYOT website and check out the entire collection.

[Hometone via CribCandy via Inspire me, now!]

Check out these great drink coasters, based on those ubiquitous iPhone menu icons.

Created by the guys over at Brazil’s Meninos design (the same guys who make these awesome hard drives), these icon coasters are a great gift for any iPhone addict. All your favorite applications are there, from Maps to Calculator, from iPod to Settings. Ah, Settings.

Each coaster measures 85mm square (about 3.34″) and is made from sturdy MDF plywood, then wrapped with a premium vinyl decal and durable varnish to protect the design. A thin rubber layer on the bottom keeps the coasters from slipping around.

Sets of 16 coasters retail for $60 USD over at the Meninos online shop. Personally, I’m looking forward to when they open up the Coaster App Store.

Love Dr. Who? Then have I got a shoe for you! A Dalek shoe, to be true. Yup, that’s a pair of handpainted Daleks gracing those black sneakers.

These shoes are no one-note craft, though. In addition to the Dalek painting on the front, you’ve also got “EXTERMINATE” written on the back. Ergo, no matter what direction you’re facing, your shoes will be shown to be more unique than anyone else’s.

These were created by kelly_bear, who originally envisioned a Dalek on one shoe and a Cyberman on the other shoe, so that her shoes could reenact an epic battle at a moment’s notice. Upon realizing it was too hard to paint a Cyberman she decided to go double-Dalek instead.

You’ve gotta love the choice of pink argyle to soften up the evilness.

[via Craft:]

I used to think that today’s handheld gaming systems were small enough. But now that I’ve seen these tiny little Nintendo DS Lite and Sony PSP doppelgangers, I’m wondering if playable consoles could get even smaller someday.

While you can’t really play any games on these mini versions of today’s popular portable consoles, they do look cool dangling from your keychain, mobile phone, or a backpack. Or, if you’re feeling really whimsical, just hang one right from your PSP or DS.

And just like their fullsize counterparts, the mini PSP doesn’t really do much but sit there and look cool, while the mini DS Lite is actually something you might use - thanks to a couple of little mirrors in place of screens, and a built-in LED flashlight.

The PSP is available in red, white and black versions, while the DS Lite gets all Good and Plenty on your ass with its black, white and pink color scheme.

Brando carries both the DS Lite and PSP versions for $6 bucks a piece. Now if only Sony or Nintendo could figure out a way to make these playable, I might buy one.

Conner over at SlipperyBrick just tipped me off to his latest creation, and it’s quite a doozy. Combining two of my favorite pastimes, Guitar Hero and the Atari 2600, this new casemod is a real beaut.

Just plug your old Atari 2600 cartridges into the body of this heavily customized Guitar Hero Gibson Les Paul, and you can play all of your favorite 8-bit classics.

The console is wrapped up in a custom cut circuite board motif, and in place of the strum bar, there’s a tiny LCD screen. And so he could actually play the games while holding it like a guitar, Conner embedded the fire button into the neck of the guitar and a small joystick and paddle controller right into the body of the guitar. And since it runs on AA batteries, it’s totally portable.

I’m pretty sure just about any 2600 game out there would be more fun on this thing than E.T., but that’s the only screenshot that I managed to get. Maybe some Pitfall or Kaboom would be better?

It took Conner about 2 months to put together this Frankenstein’s monster of gaming goodness, and it was certainly worth the wait from the look of things. Now all he needs to do is figure out a way get a version of Guitar Hero to run on the Atari 2600.

[via SlipperyBrick]

I was digging around looking for something totally unrelated today, when I came across these nifty color-changing LED lamps from Lumenworks.

Rainbow Star lamps are minimal, modern lighting fixtures, which can be set to any of 7 different colors. You can toggle between solid colors, or set the light to gradually cycle between hues.

Each colorful, low-wattage light source is encased in a glossy, hard acrylic shell, which floats on a durable square metal pedestal. Total height of each fixture is just under 10″.

In addition to the primary light source, each light has a subtle nightlight built into the base, which automatically illuminates whenever the room goes dark.

Each light has a hidden AA battery compartment which lets you run them without being tethered to the wall all the time. A single charge should give you about 4 to 5 hours of run time (using NiMH batteries - longer if you use Lithiums).

So far, I haven’t been able to find these outside of Taiwan, but if you happen to speak the language, or you’re just feeling adventurous, head on over to PCHome and see if you can order a few.

These robotroyshka dolls are one tricky mashup: they combine Russian nesting dolls, crochet, and robots into one deliciously adorable blend.

I spotted these on the crafster forums. The ever-clever RhymeswOrange crocheted them by hand, and each one has a different felty face! My favorite has got to be this guy with Pacman hands who’s working the snazzt sunglasses.

I gotta say, if our robot overlords are as cute as these robotroyshka dolls, I think I can handle it.

You won’t be able to type very fast on these keyboard-inspired ceramic cups, but you will be able to enjoy your favorite beverage in them.

Created by Taiwan’s MOD Design, Reset Cups are larger-than-life versions of the “Ctrl-Alt-Del” keys, typically used to reboot or login to your Windows PC. Each set of three key cups ship with a matching circuit-board embossed tray (which sort of reminds me of TRON for some reason). MOD will be making them in both a white-on-black and black-on-white version, so you can match them with the color of your keyboard.

Other than the fact that MOD showed off the Reset Cups at the recent Maison + Objet design show in Paris, there’s no further information on when or where you’ll be able to buy these yet. I guess for now, you’ll have to settle for pressing the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys on your PC over and over agin.

[via Electric Pig via The Daily Dairy]

The Gakken SX-150 is a little analog synthesizer kit that came packaged in a recent issue of a Japanese DIY science magazine. Now, these funky mini synths have started to show up around the globe, leaving all sorts of interesting beeps, blips and squeals in their wake.

Originally included in an issue of Otonanokagaku (Science for Adults), the compact synth offers up a variety of basic sound adjustments including attack, LFO, pitch, attack, decay and cutoff. A metal stylus provides you with a decent range of expressive control over the sounds produced.

And since the synth lets you plug in an external analog audio source and then modify those waveforms, the sky is the limit for the sounds you can produce. A built-in speaker means the SX-150 can produce totally self-contained audio madness.

A simple search over on YouTube for “SX-150” turns up all kinds of crazy and creative sounds coming from the rudimentary analog synth. Here are a just a few of my favorites…

And with such a simple circuit design, it’s proved to be really easy to hack. Check out some of these creative uses for the SX-150…

The good news is that with a little luck, you can still get your hands on one of these compact audio wonders over on eBay from about $50 to $80 bucks.

[photos via Flickr]

[SX-150 assembly manual]

Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you roll a Katamari down the street with her and roll up the universe into a giant ball?

While I like to think this Katamari wedding cake is filled with tiny buildings, cruise ships, cows and wildly gesticulating little people, it’s actually just lemon cake with strawberry filling. Oh well, it still sounds delicious to me. Besides, those airplanes have a tendency to get stuck in my teeth anyhow.

This amazing Katamari Damacy wedding cake was created by the appropriately named Mike’s Amazing Cakes of Redmond, Washington for the recent wedding of Flickr contributor offwithyourtv.

I wonder what happens if you try and cut into the chewy center of a Katamari? Does the universe explode? Or is it like a piñata, and do all of the items trapped inside come pouring out all of the place?

And if it wasn’t obvious enough that these guys are serious videogame fanatics, they finished off their wedding ceremony with a round of Guitar Hero.

[via Team Teabag]