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New Thanko Silent Keyboard EX

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:45:47 +0000

I had written about what are the silent mouse options in the market in one of previous posts. Thanko is one of the most known manufacturers of silent mouse and keyboards. Their silent mouse model was 5 times less sound producing. This time they have developed a better silent keyword version. Actually, many new laptop and netbook models already have much silenced buttons but Thanko Keyword EX emits only 44.5 DB noise beating all of them.

Since DB is a logarithmic measure (Calculated using power of tens), small changes can effect the noise level highly. For example while a normal conversation provides around 60 dB, whisper does 20 dB. A mosquito buzz is 40 dB. Decide yourself. I have found a useful page which explains decibel and properties of sound waves with samples if you are further interested.

Product Page

3 Interesting Chess Sets and Figures

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:53:35 +0000

While I was considering buying a high quality Onyx Chess Set for playing and home decoration as well, I had noticed several interesting chess sets at Amazon online store. If you also enjoy small figures and chess, be sure to look at the following items.

Ottomans versus Hungarians Chess Set

It is actually a good choice for a war themed chess set since these empires fought the bloodiest open field battles in the middle of Europe. Hungarians kept Ottomans real busy invading Europe more. Anyway, it is written that each piece is 3 inch tall and made from handpainted cold cast resin. A 15 inch wooden chess board is shipped for free.

Product Page

Medieval Chess Set

It looks quite unique and attractive. If you are also an admirer of fantasy art, 32 pieces of medieval knights chessmen is waiting for you. The dragon themed case looks especially extraordinary and carved in detail. Material is polyresin and wood.

Product Page

Isle of Lewis Chess Set

Did you know that there are a few complete medieval chess sets survived until today? Isle of Lewis Chessmen (also known as Lewis or Uig Chessmen) is one of them discovered in 1831 in Scotland. They were made from beautiful walrus ivory (some pieces are made from even whale teeth !) and also featured in Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.

These are the exact replika of Harry Potter’s chess set. The pieces are from ceramic and have antique ivory and chocolate finish. Set is made from composite resin and stone making it resembling more to a medieval original Lewismen chess set.

This set perfectly combines history, chess and Harry Potter magic !

Product Page

Pocket Rocket - World’s Fastest R/C Car

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:20:03 +0000

Who says that remote controlled cars are just toys for children? 46 year old Nic Case designed a R/C car which reaches the top speed of 161 mph (257 kmh approx.) Its name is Pocket Rocket and holds currently world record for a R/C car but I think it is really a competitive area amongst the fans and we can see faster cars.

Nic puts his next target as well. Achieving a speed of 200 mph. I think they should start a R/C Formula 1 car race.

Seen on GearFuse

Using Tongue to Control Wheelchairs

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:04:32 +0000

In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned about Mind Controlled Wheelchairs developed by Toyota. This time a tongue controlled wheelchair (and a computer) was approved to be very promising device as a solution to Quadriplegia for the future after several clinical tests.

Quadriplegia is the medical term where a person loses his ability to control all of his limbs. It is generally a result of severe spinal cord injuries. A grain of rise sized special magnet is attached to patient’s tongue. There is an wireless headphone worn by patient which captures the movement signals from the magnet wirelessly and this information is passed to the computer on the wheelchair. This way, the patient can control both computer and wheelchair. I hope there will be affordable mass production of such useful devices.

via MedGadget

Manhattan Powered Brilliant GPS Map Idea

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:14:17 +0000

This unique map created by Shulze & Webb (A London based creative design studio) is not something regular we are used to see every day. All Manhattan in a bent 3D (without a horizon) is just under your investigation. A realistic bent in the map makes this design as a real GPS product idea. Just imagine to have this in your Garmin device. It would be much intuitive and easier to locate the target building. By the way, S&W sells 1000 limited edition of the map as a big poster at their own website in two bending variations.

Cuboro - Perfect Marble Maze Toy from Switzerland

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:35:18 +0000

Cuboro is a 3D wooden building and marble track system which is as creative as famous Lego and Kapla toys.

There are individual wooden blocks which have holes and carved channels. The idea is to build a structure where the marbles will pass through the tunnels and holes by falling several levels with only help of the gravity.

After a simple start, children can challenge building more complicated structures. There are several sets varying on number of pieces, functionality and difficulty settings.

There is a youtube video below showing how a completed Cuboro structure works.

The wooden toy blocks are ecologically safe and suggested by experts for creativity stimulation of kids 3 years older. A high quality wooden Swiss made toy.

Cuboro Toys at Amazon

Barack Obama as an Audio-Animatronic Robot

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:57:20 +0000

I guess most people including me didn’t know about Walt Disney had a strange museum namely as Hall of Presidents. There are ongoing multimedia presentations and most importantly an audio animatronic show of all 43 US presidents. Did I count right? Anyway, Barack Obama robot also made his first appearance in the hall with his special recorded speech at Walt Disney Studios. I put two videos below. The first one is official from Walt Disney and the other one is an accidentally left open camera from the show, possibly will be deleted by youtube soon.

Via Engadget

The Wildest Super Heavy NutCracker !

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:25:22 +0000

I have seen many uniquely designed nutcrackers including Harold Imports Reed’s Rocket Nutcracker , Davey Crack It Nutcracker and even The Hillary Nutcracker. But, heavy metal nutcracker which you can get the idea looking the photo is totally talking to our ancient rock throwing instincts. Heavy metal nutcracker uses earth gravity to crack the nuts to the fullest in a funny way. Product Page

Making Buildings Invisible to Destructive Earthquakes

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:55:27 +0000

We think naturally about Harry Potter or other fantasies whenever we hear something about invisibility or invisible cloak. But, this time it is for real. According to New Scientist, a team of physicians at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France has serious efforts for the protection of buildings by eliminating earthquake creating seismic waves, especially surface waves which are more destructive. The other type of wave is called as body wave and not controllable as surface wave, luckily it is not as destructive as its counterpart.

According to the theory, a cloak group of large concentric plastic rings will be fixed to the Earth’s surface. When surface waves come to this re-arrangeable area, these plastic rings will keep them not going to the building and direct the waves outside. It is all about tuning to the frequency of coming waves individually.

A building which is 10 meters across will need a few plastic rings which have 1 to 10 meters diameters and 10 cm thickness in its foundation.

Invisibility cloaking has made certain progress in especially light manipulation field of physics. It is quite possible that we will see such materials in constructions as well.

Today’s fantasy is tomorrow’s reality.

Japan Cities are Under Attack by Giant Robots

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:59:44 +0000

We have not so long ago mentioned Giant Gundam Robot in Tokyo. It seems like Japanese people are really obsessed with their famous comics and anime robots.

This time, Kobe’s turn to build a giant 60 foot tall, 50 tonned statue of Tetsujin-28-go in Wakamatsu Park. Tetsujin means Iron Man in Japanese language and Tetsujin 28-go was a manga published in 1956 featuring a secret WW2 robot to help Japanese army. Later, after the war ends, the robot finds its destiny better fighting against criminals and other bad enemy robots. It is still being built and Kobe proudly waits for its release from the factory.

Via OhGizmo