A Cool Gadget

Looks like Mario has given up his bid for the White House, and officially conceded the race to Super Obama.

Like many among him, Mario is looking for change in the Mushroom Kingdom. No longer will he be led blindly into battle to “bring democracy” to the Koopas, nor will he stand for citizens resorting to eating mysterious mushrooms in lieu of a decent healthcare system. But what really pushed him past the brink was watching the value of his portfolio of gold coins crumble under the leadership of King Bowser.

Remember, next Tuesday to vote early and vote often.

[A big shout out to Gigi over at Roadside Scholar (who also happens to be my lovely wife) for snapping this excellent shot.]

With Halloween just hours away, here’s a great idea for anyone looking for a good last-minute fright.

These blood puddle pillows are just the thing for scaring the crap out of your roommate when they wake up and find you lying there in a pool of red tomorrow morning.

Artist Keetra Dean Dixon made these limited-edition “Great Slumber” pillows a while back, and I don’t think you could get her to make you one before tomorrow. But there’s no reason you can’t run to the fabric store, grab some red velvet, and stitch one together for your Halloween festivities. (Unless of course, you can’t sew, in which case you’re S.O.L.)

[via The Green Head]

This portable entertainment system not only plays movies and music, it plays classic 8-bit Nintendo games.

Featuring an substantive 14-inch LCD screen (1024×768 resolution), the compact DVD system has a built-in NES emulator, and comes with a pair of gamepads so you can satisfy that 8-bit Nintendo craving wherever you go.

The screen can swivel 180 degrees, and when you’re done playing DVDs and NES games, there’s a karaoke mode and a (soon-to-be-obsolete analog) TV tuner on board. The player also has a USB port and SD/MS/MMC card slots, so you can play back your digital media files too.

And if you can’t figure out a way to get your old favorites loaded onto the system, that’s okay, because the player includes a disc with 300 retro games (I’m guessing that the guys at Nintendo had nothing to do with that).

Want one? You better hurry on over to Chinavasion and plunk down your $246.25 before Nintendo’s lawyers find out about this thing.

These candy apple red cylinders started out life innocently enough as a couple of fire extinguishers. But after they ran out of foam, they got a second life as a pair of speakers.

While it may seem like a simple idea, Russian modder Strannik put a tremendous amount of effort into the construction of these tower speakers, which required precision cutting, drilling and welding to pull off such a seamless look.

Check out the complete build log over on TopMods.

Looking for a way to build yourself a functional AT-ST walker? Have I got the perfect robot for you.

The AREXX YT-3000 (aka “YETi Walker”) is a bi-pedal robot which can be programmed using your PC or an remote-controlled via an IR interface. It’s powered by an ATMEGA8 microcontrolller, which can be easily programmed in C to do your bidding.

In its basic configuration, the YETi is a simple walking machine, but can be expanded with additional sensors and modules such as an ultrasonic obstacle detector and an external LED display.

The basic YETi Walker kit is available from TheRobotShop for £69.99 (appx. $114 USD).

This tiny remote-controlled flying machine from Japan is a combination helicopter, UFO and hovering light show.

A pair of soft, brightly colored rotors help to propel the Roboppi (ROBO-P) flyer upwards and produce stable flight.

As it flies through the air, colored LEDs inside the spinning body of the Roboppi blink rapidly, producing a whirlwind of color. Roboppi can fly around for up to 6 minutes at a time on a 25 minute charge.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Of course the pint-size flyer is no match for your cat…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Until recently, the Roboppi was only available in Japan, but thanks to the guys over at the Japan Trend Shop, you can get one flown in pretty much anywhere on the globe for $41 USD + shipping.

The Fragile Future 2 lighting fixture really lives up to its name. You see, each tiny light source is actually framed by the seed pods of a dandelion. Now why is it called the Fragile Future 2? Presumably, because the Fragile Future 1 was just a little TOO breakable.

Created by Lonneke Gordijn of the Dutch outfit known as DesignDrift, the Fragile Future 2 lamp combines the modern, linear look of circuit board traces and LED illumination with the contrasting organic shapes of puffy dandelion heads.

Each one is custom-built and is made from modular pieces, so you can build complex wall fixtures using anywhere from 3 to 50 light modules.

All I can say is that you’d better not sneeze anywhere around this thing.

The Fragile Future 2 is available from Generate LE.

While I’d rather have a lifesize Optimus Prime, I might just have to settle for this R/C robot that can transform itself into a car, truck or tank.

The RCRC Transforming Robot from AOK can go from ‘bot to vehicle with a quick flick of two joysticks on the included remote control.

When in car mode, the remote lets you drive forwards, backwards, left or right. Flip back to upright mode, and the robot can spin left or right.

In all, the RCRC offers four driving modes: robot, truck, sports car, and “hip-hop dance”, whatever that means. The robot has a built-in rechargeable battery, which should give you about 30 minutes of run time per charge. Check out the video below to see the RCRC in action:

Click to view the embedded video clip.

Boy, somebody clearly needs to go back to driver’s ed. Hopefully you can do a better job steering the RCRC than the guy in the video.

You can get one for yourself over at Hammacher Schlemmer for $89.95 USD.

Sure, you can pick up a used Gameboy for about $20 bucks over on eBay these days, but why buy one when you could build one for yourself?

Matt over at Liquidware decided to build an “open source Gameboy” (known as the Gamepack) using off-the-shelf parts, including the modder-friendly Arduino microprocessor. While the Arduino may provide the brains of the operation, the 128×128 TouchShield Stealth color OLED touchscreen is most definitely the soul. Rounding out the build is an Inputshield board, which provides a tiny joystick (complete with rumble) and control buttons as well as a flat Lithium battery pack.

The Gamepack system is now available in kit form so you can build one for yourself. At this point, the Gamepack only runs some rudimentary homebrew demo code, but the hope is that others who grab the kit will contribute more advanced games, or maybe even a Nintendo emulator.

At $249 for the Gamepack kit, you could buy more than 10 used Gameboys. But none of them would be nearly as cool as the one you built yourself.

[Liquidware Antipasto via Boing Boing Gadgets]

This over-the-top wall clock has way more gears than it really needs - but it’ll definitely draw stares from anyone who tries to tell time with it.

Homeloo’s Jumbo Gear Clock has not 2, 3 or even 10 gears. Nope, it’s got an more than 50 gears - each and every one of them exposed on the surface of the clock for everyone to see. Check out the video below to see all the gears in action:

The clock measures in at 16″ in diameter, and it takes 4 D-cell batteries to keep the entire mechanism turning.

The Jumbo Gear Clock is available from Homeloo for $78 USD.