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Posts Tagged ‘bizarre’

Aptera 2e EV car production pushed back to 2010

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 18th 2009 No Comments

Does it look like an egg, a blade-free helicopter or a sperm on wheels? No matter: the one thing we do know is that the Aptera 2e won’t be looking good on your driveway any time soon. The all-electric car – which we first wrote about back in September 2007 – was meant to go into production this year, but Aptera have announced that will actually now take place in 2010. Somewhat ominously, the two co-founders are either stepping aside or taking a “leave of absence” until Aptera can scrape together some more cash.

Aptera 2e

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Arduino-enabled didgeridoo makes for bizarre music manipulation [Video]

By Chris Davies on Thursday, Nov 12th 2009 No Comments

Ah, Arduino – is there anything you can’t do? Didgeridoo enthusiast Kyle Evans decided to take his instrument of choice into the wireless age, by coupling it with a Bluetooth-capable Arduino microprocessor and custom-built externally-mounted sound modules that allow the player to manipulate the sound and control various software instruments (that, again, have been custom created). The end result looks like it should fire rockets and sounds like nothing on Earth.

electronic didgeridoo 2

Video demo after the cut

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Large Hadron Collider bombed by carb-loaded bird

By Chris Davies on Friday, Nov 6th 2009 1 Comment

The Large Hadron Collider experienced overheating problems this week after – and we’re not making this up – a bird dropped a piece of bread onto part of the machinery. According to LHC Machine Coordinator Dr Mike Lamont, “a bit of baguette on the busbars” caused temperatures in portions of the system to rise from their regular 1.9 Kelvin to almost 8 Kelvin; the LHC is not currently operational, after previous – more serious – overheating issues back in September, but scientists working on the project claim it would have merely automatically shut down had the bird bombing occurred during actual testing.

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Electrobite bizarre battery-powered trilobite [Video]

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 4th 2009 1 Comment

Bizarre, metal and electrically powered, if you thought the Cupcake Cars were too cutesy then The Electrobite might be just up your street. Otherwise known by its mouthful of a Latin name – Sarriugarteis (Odontochile) trilobiteis – the battery-run bug is the handiwork of Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate and is another ex-Burning Man oddity.

the electrobite

Video after the cut

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DS and PSP Go fired through walls (just for the fun of it)

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Nov 4th 2009 2 Comments

Remember how Sony launched a PS3 at a BRAVIA flat-panel TV pretty much just for the fun of it? Well, they seem to have triggered a new trend of firing gaming hardware at solid objects, as French gaming magazine Amusement have included a photo-shoot involving Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP Go being fired through walls.

nintendo ds shot through a wall 540x334

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Toyota Tacoma All-Terrain Gamer (ATG) concept: gullwings, hydraulic chairs & more

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Nov 3rd 2009 No Comments

With LCD displays and even consoles being reasonably common among upmarket cars these days, you need to go a little further if you’re going to attract significant amounts of attention. For Toyota and the Microsoft Xbox team, that meant seemingly crashing a Toyota Tacoma truck first through a Jurassic Park themed paint display before throwing all the gaming and custom hydraulics to hand at the tricked-out interior. Even then, you’ve still got some way to go to match the Toyota Tacoma All-Terrain Gamer (ATG) concept shown at SEMA this year.

Toyota All-Terrain Gamer XBOX Tacoma 1

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DIY Virtual Reality headset is bizarre genius [Video]

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Oct 27th 2009 No Comments

I think it’s fair to say that if you make one of these DIY virtual reality headsets, your kids will definitely be the coolest in the playground. The handiwork of Recombu’s Andrew Lim, the cardboard headset takes advantage of an accelerometer-packing HTC Magic, an old pair of lab goggles and some boyish enthusiasm to create a head-tracking view of the world.

diy virtual reality goggles 2

Video demo after the cut

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Sony stage BRAVIA/PS3 crash test in bizarre promo [Video]

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Oct 21st 2009 No Comments

I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at Sony Australia when they came up with this one. ”Guys, it’s a worldwide recession, we need a promotion to keep people buying the PS3 and BRAVIA HDTVs. I know some of you want to run a competition and give the darned things away, but I think we’d be far better off firing one against the other and sticking it up on YouTube.” Hence how we end up with a video of a PS3 being launched at 22 meters per second toward a poor, defenceless flat-panel TV.

sony bravia ps3 crash test 540x415

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Reverse Geocache Puzzle doles out presents depending on location

By Chris Davies on Monday, Oct 19th 2009 No Comments

Weddings are reasonably good fun for those attending, but being expected to provide an often-expensive gift can sometimes irk. So how about giving a present that demands a little more than simply scribbling a thank-you card; that’s just what Mikal did for the friend who introduced him to Arduino tinkering. He constructed the Reverse Geocache Puzzle, a wooden box that would only be unlocked when within 2km of a location Mikal preprogrammed into it.

reverse geocache puzzle 1 540x382

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monome turned into DIY low-res Twitter display [Video]

By Chris Davies on Friday, Oct 16th 2009 No Comments

In an ideal world someone would read this and send me a monome of my own to play with, but the button-encrusted control surfaces are in short supply (and not too cheap). Since controlling music isn’t the sole use of a monome, but still the task most people connect them with, some owners are pushing forward their DIY projects showing that a monome can be pretty much anything you have the imagination for: here, Robert Böhnke repurposes his as a low-res Twitter display.