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Styrofoam homes may sound like a recipient for disaster, but Japan Dome House Co., Ltd. thinks they’re the future. A future in which all of us will be hobbits or smurfs. Made with 7-inch-thick 100% expanded polystyrene foam modules, the company says that they don’t have the maintenance problems of wood or metal structures, and…
Designer Bradford Waugh came up with Nulla (meaning “nothing”) as a way of making bikes more stylish and lightweight. And visually stunning of course. Lacking spokes, it uses a direct-gear-chain drive system, which leaves the bike looking like a simple set of open curves. Whether or not it would ride well would be immaterial, methinks:…
MP3 speakers play music, so they may as well look like a musical instrument: that seems to be the thinking behind the Sounger Vin 1/8 Violin Speaker System with amp. And before you dismiss the device as a gimmick, you need to know it’s crafted from spruce and maple wood, each speaker is 20W and…
Hookay. So, you all know the Large Hadron Collider by now, the oh-so-pretty particle accelerator thingamajig that will implode taking the whole planet with it. Yeah, that one. Well, it is now T minus 24 hours from ignition. The end of the world, people. In fact, you have less than 24 hours to do everything…
Solid Alliance’s newest USB thumbdrive will either appeal to geeky clergy-types, or vampire-goth-geek types, since it’s an ornate metallic silver-colored drive that comes in a cross-shaped caddy. And it’s specifically designed to hang on a necklace. Bizarre: both markets for this product can’t be all that big, can they? Still, this gizmo might even contain…
Toshiba has announced it’s beefing-up its line of NAND flash storage chips to 32GB sizes. The new package combines eight 4GB 43-nanometer chips into one—double the previous generation’s capacity—and is specifically aimed at the portable device market. Since it can be dropped into existing slots, manufacturers have to make no specific changes to accommodate the…
Back in December we introduced you to SunTable: a photovoltaic solar-power generating table designed to juice up your gadgets in an eco-friendly style. And now the table’s available for purchase. The stainless steel and teak production version charges up in about four hours of bright sun exposure (there’s a hinge so you can angle it…
Let’s say your 20-year-old daughter runs up an astounding $5000 cellphone bill from talking to her good-for-nothing boyfriend too much. Do you a) cancel her service and make her get her own phone? b) reprimand her and block the offending number from the phone? c) grab her and spank her like she’s seven. If you…
The Asus pulse mouse is just what it sounds like: A mouse that measures your pulse as you work at your computer. It sends the information via its wireless connection to software running on your PC that keeps track of your heart rate and displays it graphically. It’s not meant for everyone, but anyone using…
Apple patents don’t always bear fruit, but this one seems like it’ll happen, and soon, actually. It’s for accessing your entire iTunes library from anywhere-streamed to your iPhone or touch either via Wi-Fi or over the air. Basically, this future iTunes will sync the metadata for your whole library, and all the music and videos…
David Walsh, a network engineer who worked at Apple from 1995 to 2007, is currently suing them for making him work a little too hard. Specifically, he says they made him work more than 40 hours a week without overtime (because he was a “senior” engineer, a pseudo-management position he says was created to skirt…
The problem with wheels is that contact with the ground generates drag. So, a simple solution would be to develop an anti-gravity car. No sweat-one already exists. Sure it’s only a few inches tall but hey, this thing could give your action figures the ride of their tiny plastic lives. Thanks to dual ducted fans…
Contradicting HTC’s assurances a couple days ago that its Android phones are on track for later this year, an analyst at Global Equities research says that, according to his sources, HTC is “having structural problems to incorporate Google’s demanded feature set” and “demanding a guaranteed minimum revenue surety from Google,” indicating they don’t have a…
One of the more useless but fun apps on the iTunes app store was Phonesaber, and we say “was” because it’s been pulled. This time, though, it wasn’t Apple but the makers of the app, The Mac Box, themselves. They were contacted by THQ Wireless, a company with the license to make all things Star…
We recently reported on Dynolicious, the $13 app that uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to meter your car’s performance, and mentioned a few positive impressions that surfaced in the app’s early days. Sure, the idea is appealing and makes theoretical sense, but I at least need vaguely scientific confirmation that this thing actually works well. It…
Apple just expanded the list of international iTunes stores on its website, adding countries such as Poland, Qatar and the Czech Republic. The problem? None of these countries can buy anything through the iTunes store. Rather, they’re just setting up the infrastructure so the residents of those countries can have access to iPhone Apps. What…
Want to get in on the closed beta for Sony’s once-upon-a-time hotly anticipated PlayStation Home? To throw your name into the hat, just download the PlayStation Home theme that’ll be added to the store later today. That’s it. Your level of activity is apparently one of the criteria they’ll be looking at-it’s implied the more…
Wall climbing robots have all kinds of potential uses, from inspecting damage on ships to catering to voyeurs and perverts with a taste for gadgetry. OObject has put together a comprehensive list of these creations including a version that climbs with static electricity and another freaky looking bot dubbed the “Ninja II”. Definitely not the…
Generally speaking, refrigerators are not all that exciting unless you’re packing in a draught beer system or it is camouflaged for secret office drink parties. However, Sub-Zero models are usually loaded with all kinds of useful features, and their newest model is no exception. It features a NASA designed filtration system that replenishes the air…
Congrats to Gizmodo alum John Biggs, now at Crunchgear, for selling a book about Marie Antoinette’s watch for $300,000. He first told me about this book about two years ago over a crappy sandwich and soda—it was my treat, I believe—and detailed how this impressive timepiece was passed down over several generations. Apparently six publishing…
