In today’s remainders: The Onion visits CES; Recompute makes a cardboard PC; a robot spins on its head; and a helmet inspired by an armadillo.
Raw Onion
America’s Finest News Source visited CES this year and reported on the gadgets that excited them most. Among them: Bose Noise-Delaying Headphones, Texas Instruments’ Graphic Bassoon, and an MP3 that uses nanotechnology to let you feel Taylor Swift breathing lightly on your neck. They must not have been following our coverage that carefully, though, because not one of their imaginary highlights is as ridiculous as this very real product. [The Onion]
https://gizmodo.com/review-the-as-seen-on-tv-hat-an-iphone-viewing-visor-5443241
Cardboard: Check. Motherboard: ?
Recompute’s cardboard computer is now in production, which means that someone, somewhere is furiously cutting and folding huge slabs of cardboard. We’d heard about the eco-friendly idea before, but the non-cardboard guts of the machine—hard drive, processor, motherboard, RAM, etc.—are still yet to be announced, so there’s still no way of telling if Recompute’s admittedly unique idea is one to get excited about. But the real question here: what are they going to ship it in? [SlashGear]
https://gizmodo.com/inside-the-recompute-cardboard-pc-5161611
Dance Dance Evolution
This break dancing robot is definitely fun to watch, but when you think about it, isn’t a regular old person spinning on their head a lot more impressive than a robot spinning on its head? The robot doesn’t even know it’s spinning on its head. It arguably doesn’t even have a head! While I’m not crazy about robots being programmed to do perform pastimes that take years for us humans to perfect, you have to wonder if robo-reflexes prevent robo-break dancers from accidentally kicking babies mid-roundhouse? Anyway, they might have mastered break dancing, but we still have the Foxtrot. For now. [Engadget]
Egg Head
The Tattoo, a concept developed by Julien Bergignat, is a polypropylene helmet that can be rolled up for easy storage, say, in a backpack, or a trash can. The helmet is 100% recyclable and also looks about 100% unlikely to protect your skull in any way if you get hit by a car. The Little House on the Prairie look isn’t going to win you any style points, either. I just hope this ill-conceived example doesn’t keep us from looking to the armadillo family for design inspiration in the future. It can work. [The Design Blog]
https://gizmodo.com/pangolin-backpack-5398996
