A Cool Gadget

The solar-powered toy monkey is meant to help children “appreciate the power of alternative energy.”  It comes in a kit that customers have to assemble, so it can also be a fun way for you and your kids to bond.

Once you’re done assembling, expose the monkey to sunlight and watch it move. Of course if you set it up on a string then it’s going to be more monkey-like, but if your children are used to conventional portable devices, then they’ll probably be amazed that the monkey can move even without batteries.

I wish there was a whole range of little toys and other trinkets that could be powered by the monkey’s solar cell; that way even if your kids get tired of the monkey, they can still re-attach the solar cell to other toys.

You can get the solar-powered toy monkey at Select Solar for £14.19 (appx. $20.42 USD).

[via 7 Gadgets]

Disney commissioned UK-based sculptors and a group called Morpheus Prototypes to build this wooden sculpture of Wall-E as a gift for Pixar/Disney Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter.

Here’s a closer look:

I don’t know anything about woodworking or sculpting, so I’ll leave it up to you guys to think of how long it could have taken to build this and how much it’s worth.

[via Neatorama]

These pint-sized characters might look similar to other artist-designed vinyl toys, but take another look and you’ll notice that they don’t just look cool hanging out on your desktop, they’re actually functional.

Eran Weinberg’s Headphonies combine the appeal of funky designer vinyl toys with the utility of a portable speaker. Just plug your iPod or other medial player into the back of your Headphonie, and start cranking out the tunes.

Each 3-inch tall character features a unique, artist-created persona (and of course, a pair of tiny headphones). For portability, the mini-speakers have a built-in rechargeable battery that you can juice up with your USB port in about an hour.

Characters include Mad Ape,  Modern Hero, Anarchy, Ninja, Pink Bear, and a pair of nondescript black and white guys.  Since each design is a limited-edition, some styles are already sold out, so you’d better move quick to get the ones you want.

The entire collection can be found over at the Headphonies online shop for $30 (USD) each.

This cool Darth Vader shirt from Junk Food Clothing features the Sith Lord’s helmet , which is drawn using tiny depictions of animals and landscapes, plus a caption written in Star Wars font that says, “JOIN THE GREEN SIDE!”. I made it sound like the drawing sucks but it doesn’t. It’s cool. It’s awesome. It’s way better than having Vader’s face on your shirt.

I think that one of the reasons why this shirt is so cool is because it’s actually from the future: it’s set to be released in March 2009, but you can already pre-order the shirt for $25 over at Star Wars Shop.

[via Fashionably Geek]

We’ve already featured a pillow that can wake you up using light and an alarm clock that has a vibrate option. Here’s a quirky yet functional combination of the two: Vessel’s vibrating alarm clock pillow.

Just set the time on the pillow’s built-in clock and it will wake you - and only you - with a few buzzes. Simple right? It’s cool not only because it won’t wake up anyone else, the vibrating alarm means that deaf people can use it too. The pillow also has a conventional audible alarm option for people who don’t wake up easily. I’m not sure if it’s available outside of Japan though, but it’s for sale at Amazon Japan for ¥5000 ($55 USD).

Another Japanese manufacturer, France Bed, thinks that vibrating pillows can also help people to stop snoring. Their anti-snoring pillow has a built-in audio sensor with three levels of sensitivity that alerts the pillow to vibrate once the snoring starts.

And that’s not all: the anti-snoring pillow also has an audio jack, so if you hook up a recorder to the pillow you can record your snoring and verify that you need an anti-snoring pillow.

Japan Trend Shop is selling the anti-snoring pillow for $420 USD. If your snoring is really bad then maybe you could coax your loved ones to buy it for you, since they’ll benefit from it as well.

[via CScout Japan]

2008: What a year it was. Every year there are a handful of posts that really make readers go wild. But at the same time, not everyone can be expected to read every post on the site (as much as I’d love for you guys to). So while I’m not a big fan of “top whatever” lists, I figure that once a year, I can get away with one.

So without further adieu, here are the top 25 posts (based on overall traffic) on technabob throughout 2008. If you haven’t read all ‘em, you owe it to yourself to click on a few of the links below and check out as many as you can:

1. it’s people. tetris is made out of people!
2. word clock slowly reveals the time with text
3. robot drummer has plenty of rhythm
4. rubiks mirror blocks puzzle bumps out of the cube
5. clock combines digital, analog worlds
6. gamer shirts: cheaper than games, better than plain shirts
7. play any nes game for free in firefox with firenes
8. nes system built into game cartridge
9. ninja bunnies keep your headphone cords in check
10. tomy i-sobot shoots an arrow straight through my heart
11. das keyboard: no letters = faster typing
12. link knit amigurumi: cuter than a bowl full of kittens
13. make your own monster brings your horrible drawings to life
14. miwi game console is nothing like a wii, really.
15. wasp knife will stab your victims then freeze their organs
16. super mario bento boxes make mouths happy
17. classic arcade games excel in spreadsheets
18. the world’s smallest nintendo ds lite
19. bbq grill casemod: now we’re cooking with gas
20. katamari wedding cake: with this ring i thee roll
21. pac-man cupcakes make mouths happy
22. iphone + piano = iano
23. led cube displays 3d images in color
24. computer cases get faces
25. guitar hero: get in my pocket

So there you have it. All told, over 5 million pages were viewed on technabob this year. All I can say is wow. And thanks. We couldn’t do it without you.

Thanks for a great 2008, and I hope to see all of you guys again in 2009.

The ol’ “hero/heroine is about to die, so must seize life” theme is an oft-used one in all forms of literature, and Electronic Arts’ Hachi Koi is adding its own spin to the old saw, except in this Nintendo DS game, instead of seizing life, you’re tasked with seizing girl flesh. Literally.

In Hachi Koi, the young male protagonist learns that he’s going to die in one month–unless he can fall in love and convince one of the title’s hapless, caressable ladies to return his feelings. That other infamous DS girl-touching game (Doki Doki Majo Shinpan, and its sequel) was all about witches and angels, and after that, life and death seems slightly more sane.

So how must you go about molesting romancing these girls? By touching them, of course; you can rub suntan lotion on the girls, or touch them in other ways, as directed, with the stylus and the handheld’s touchscreen.

One thing I can actually praise in this title is the variety of girls. While they all look creepily young (except for their head-sized boobs), there’s at least variety. You’ve got the tomboy, the skinny waif, and even an overweight girl. Uh… girl power? Yay?

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan’s hilarity earned that title a cult following, and it’s likely we’ll see the same for Hachi Koi. Here’s a quick video clip that, while pretty safe for work, manages to still be just a little creepy, probably thanks to the music Eric Caoili added for the YouTube video.

Unsurprisingly, Hachi Koi is currently slated for release in Japan only, but interested importers can look for it next spring.

[Anoop via Tiny Cartridge]

This robot kit from Japan lets you build your own ball shaped robot that can pull off all sorts of wild and crazy moves as it gyrates around your floor.

While the Tornader robot from Elekit can drive slowly around the floor like most remote-controlled vehicles, the real fun starts when you set the Tornader into one of its insane spin modes.

Once the ‘bot builds up sufficient speed, it’ll fly around in a wild orbit that’s reminiscent of an out-of-control breakdancer who drank a few too many Red Bulls before hitting the dance mat. Check out this video clip of the Tornader in action and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

The 5-inch diameter robot kit takes about an hour to put together, but from the looks of the video, is well worth the effort. Each Tornader ships with a multi-channel infrared remote, which lets you operate up to four of them in the same room at the same time for complete robotic chaos. And each robot has a customizeable space on the side where you can place one of a variety of colorful printed patterns that’ll have your head spinning when the Tornader hits maximum speed.

While the Tornader is officially only available in Japan, the guys at Japan Trend Shop have started to sell them worldwide for $121 (USD). Of course, if you happen to live in Japan, you can get yourself a much better deal, since the Tornader retails there for just ¥3990 (appx. $44 USD).

It’s not only Internet/text shorthand, with its LOLs and OMGs, that’s everywhere; it seems lots of tech-based and inspired memes are creeping out into the world at large, including in graffiti and other urban art forms. Forget the old tags — meet the new tags, the tags rooted in HTML and lolcats.

Not all of the designs in WebUrbanist’s excellent collection are traditional graffiti; some of the artwork is “reverse graffiti.” Instead of painting or otherwise marking a surface, the artist carefully cleans the areas that need to be lighter for the design. There are usually plenty of places in our cities for the intrepid young artist to practice that form.

[via WebUrbanist]

This keyboard is perfect for people who don’t have a lot of space on their desk. Verbatim’s speaker keyboard integrates a pair of speakers into the keyboard’s top edge. The keyboard also has dedicated audio controls and a backlight.

I don’t think that the built-in speakers can match the quality of stand alone speakers. First of all, everything in the keyboard is powered via USB so unless we get an actual hands-on review of this thing, I’m going to assume that the sound coming from the speakers won’t be that loud or rich.

Also, Verbatim doesn’t even have specs for the speakers on the product’s page; if this thing really sounds great for its size then Verbatim would be stupid not to flaunt the speakers. So for people who need audio on a cramped set-up, this one may simply be a choice between having so-so audio or no audio at all.

You can get the speaker keyboard for $71.24 over at Buy.com.

[via Everything USB]