Voelker, a German designer, says the robot is still in the prototype phase, but from the look of things it already has the Christmas tree and house routines down pat.

The prevailing "lightdrawing" technique for humans—waving a LED key chain around in the air like a madman—is not the easiest to master; at best you get a nice halo over your head, at worst you get a big ugly mess of light. But Voelker's Lightdrawer putters along, cool as a cucumber:

Robot Drawing with Light from Nils Völker on Vimeo.

Using a robot might not be the most fun way to paint a long exposure Christmas tree, but at least this way people will be able to tell it's a Christmas tree when you show them the picture. [Nils Voelker via Designboom]

Dozens of LEDs sprinkled across this dress concept light up, and actually blink faster when the microprocessor and carbon dioxide detection unit (hidden in the dress bustle, I presume) recognizes pollution in the air. No, they don't make underwear versions, though I'm sure some of the men reading this could do with their "air pollution" being monitored. [Diffus via The Coolist]

Thankfully LG didn't compromise on diagonal size, with this prototype coming in at 42-inches. It's LED-backlit, with a 120Hz processor (for the US market, anyway) and apparently only weighs 4 kilograms.

Please excuse me while I fall over in shock. [I4U]

Designed by Elizabeth Fuller for the NYU's ITP Winter Show, the Life Dress is fully programmable, meaning that you can step out to your fancy parties with the pattern or message of your choice writ large by the LEDs embedded in your clothing. The unlit squares are also a bit translucent, which in the right (or wrong) places could send the strongest message of all. [ITP Winter Show]

Says designer Burak Kaynak, the 'can was conjoured up after seeing all the Share buttons that populate the Internet these days. Why not apply it trash? And so he did:

Sharing content on social networking sites is as simple as stepping on a foot pedal to open the lid and toss your trash. Share//Trash Can is a smart step-on trash can which includes a LED - live counter that counts the amount of steps that are stepped on the foot pedal.

I guess in the end I really don't see the point. Is it to shame you into wasting less, in this particular trashcan, so that you'll just go down the hall and use the next one? [Burak Kaynak - Thanks, Camila]

The only problem is that, at 13-foot in diameter and 5.25-feet high, I doubt it will fit anywhere in our apartment. The XXXLamp uses three white light sources, but you can order it with RGB LED sources to achieve any color you want at any time with a remote controller, like the much smaller Philips Livingcolors Lamp. Oh prettiness. [Eden Design via Dezeen]

If you want to make your own, all you'll need are some Star Trek Pez heads, a Deluxe LED Menorah Kit, and a healthy disregard for tradition. In keeping with the holiday spirit, couldn't they have made room for Khan? [Evil Mad Scientist via Make]

Ok ok, I'm being a bit harsh. The lights are actually pretty nifty if you've already got a good atmosphere going on, but they're not going to magically make hot chicks show up at your late night Guitar Hero tournament.

The lights range from $30 to $120 and are available now. [Rock Gear Shop via Engadget]

You can find all the details for Batsignal projector (including stencil patterns) at Thingiverse. Fun part is that you can even switch out the stencils just in case you decide that you want a different superhero identity. Spacegirl-signal, anyone? [Thingiverse via Make]

This art installation is called "An Almost Ephimeral Autumn" and was created by a group called Luzinterrupus. It took them about three hours to set it up in a Madrid park.

Unfortunately this was only a short exhibit, and the leaves remained trapped in a pretend breeze for a mere four hours. What a shame. I'd have loved to hop on a plane and race through that park, pretending to be an autumn fairy. [Design Boom]

Less spectacular than the Galaxy Dress, but classier. [Fasioningtech via Bornrich]

The "3D LED Wall" is on show at the International Broadcast Equipment Exhibition in Japan, and really highlights just how much of a boner Sony has for 3D right now. They've got 3D laptops, TVs and Blu-ray players planned, and don't forget new games and a firmware update will bring 3D to the PlayStation 3 next year, too. [TechOn via Engadget]

You will learn important lessons like: sizing your TV to optimize resolution, whether to choose LCD vs plasma vs LED and why you don't need to spend money on a 240 Hz TV. So, make sure to check out the following link before you shop. [HDGuru]

This gorgeous thing was designed by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz and they say that it's the "the largest wearable display in the world." I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that I wanted to cry when I read that the dress went straight from the sewing room to the museum mannequin, without ever being worn by a real woman. [Wired]

"The mPower Reserve Battery offers an unprecedented minimum shelf life of 20 years and has an immediate activation to full power. Through an intricate battery design, mPhase developed a way to eliminate power dissipation before initial activation."

The flashlight uses an intense, high-performance LED, and has an accessory USB connection to charge your mobile devices. It's slated to arrive in March, but we hope to get a better look at it at CES in January. [CNETand Yahoo News]

Less than five bucks for an 8-LED lamp that won't even be a blip on your electricity bill? Why not grab one, especially if it somehow pisses off your teleco? [Uxsight via OhGizmo! via Wired]

Frederik Krebs came up with this combination of solar panels and LED lights which, while definitely a work-in-progress, could bring cheap light to some of the world's poorest regions. I call the lamps a work-in-progress because despite being durable enough to last several years, they run at a mere 1% efficiency. But with the expected final cost of $7 a piece, they're full of life-changing potential, despite that low efficiency.

Some prototypes of the lamps are currently being tested in Zambia. As seen in the picture, the solar panels are left laying flat during the day and then rolled up (and secured with snap-button) into a cone-shaped lamp. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the results of the prototype tests and a final product, because no one should go without artificially lit nights. [IEEE Spectrum via Pop Sci]

The design is a rough map of the city's neighborhood as distinguished by "air boundaries".
The data is collected from 27 air monitoring stations; every 15 minutes the map lights up in order of highest to lowest air quality. [Living Light via bldgblog]

We really didn't need postings on Microsoft's Careers page to tell us that a successor to Windows 7 is in the works. The only information in those job ads is that there could be some focus on Internet Information Services (IIS) and Windows Live Mail integration. Other than that Microsoft just plain appears to be setting everything up for testing future development builds. Please page me when there's a leaked version of the builds, until then these are just job postings. [Ars Technica]

Like most concepts designs, this Carpool LED sign is great in theory. You're supposed to stick it on the top of a car (or even a cab) to show that you're willing to carpool and how many seats remain open. That's fantastic except it doesn't take into account that some of us don't want to pick up creepy, smelly strangers in the same fashion we would hitchhikers. The Halloween movies I've watched today even further prove this as a bad idea. [Yanko Design via Uber Gizmo]

A company called Cereplast decided that making plastic junk out of tapioca, corn, wheat and potatoes isn't gross enough. So now they're making flimsy cutlery out of that green gunk that builds on on water. Frankly, I don't care how much petroleum is saved in comparison to traditional plastic, I just plain don't want to shove something made of algae into my mouth. [Pop Sci]

Ideum has made yet another ultra-wide touchscreen surface and this one's designed to be capable of recognizing up to 50 different simultaneous touch points. I guess it could be fun if I had a few extra fingers or if a bunch of people crowded around and used all their toes. Geez. Can we just plain skip overdoing it with the touch points and work on getting one of these into my office? [Slashgear]