Tag Archives: Interactive

Clicks iPhone Attachment Adds A Physical Keyboard

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Do you miss having a tactile, physical keyboard on your phone? Then set your time machine dial to 2006. Or you can buy Clicks, an iPhone attachment that adds a physical keyboard to the bottom of your phone. In addition to allowing more screen real estate while in use, the keyboard also allows shortcuts and dedicated keys. My productivity is going to skyrocket!

Billed as the first ‘creator’s keyboard’, the Clicks is currently available for iPhone models 14 Pro and 15 Pro ($139), and 15 Pro Max ($159) in two colors: BumbleeBee (yellow) and London Sky (dark grey). The keyboard features a backlight that can be toggled on and off for night use, and appears to make your phone long enough to pass as a handheld metal detector. That alone is worth the price in my opinion.

Make more space for apps and content by moving the keyboard off your screen….Real keys make typing feel so natural, you can tackle more tasks than ever on iPhone. …Fly through tasks with keyboard shortcuts and dedicated keys that give you ultimate control of your phone.

Admittedly, I do miss having a real keyboard on my phone. Of course, I also miss owning a pager. They say technology is cyclical, will both keyboarded phones and pagers make a comeback? I can dream, can’t I?

[via LaughingSquid]

Super Mario 64 Reimagined as First Person VR Game for Quest 3

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Redditor yeldellmedia recently showed off footage showing what a first-person version of Super Mario 64 might look like using the Meta Quest 3 virtual reality system. It looks like a good time. Will Nintendo actually make a VR version of a Mario game? Probably not until they develop their own VR headset, and it becomes the must-have but impossible-to-get toy for like three Christmases in a row.

In the video on Reddit, you can see the player in front of Princess Peach’s castle wandering around and interacting with objects, including Mario’s hat. Unfortunately, in its current state, not all of the in-game objects are interactive yet, so it’s more just imagining what the game might look like.

Would I live in a virtual reality version of the Mushroom Kingdom? There’s no question. Of course, they would need to mod the game further to include a snack bar and toilet in every other level so I don’t forget to eat and go to the bathroom in real life. Otherwise, I might find myself crouching over a warp pipe to do my business, and knowing my luck, it would be a pipe inhabited by a piranha plant.

[via Reddit]

The Ultimate Role-Playing Game Table

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Constructed and customized to order by Etsy shop DragonTempl8, this elaborate role-playing table is the ultimate in tabletop gaming. I mean, just look at this thing. Featuring workstations with card and dice compartments for 8 players (7 + dungeon master), the table also includes RGB LED lighting to set the mood (with a setting for standard day/night light), as well as A SMOKE MACHINE to intensify the atmosphere and a 22″ flatscreen in the center! It instantly moved to the #1 spot on my Christmas list this year.

The table starts at around $8,700 and goes up from there, depending on customization. It measures 160cm x 160cm (62″ x 62″) with a 200cm (78″) height and is going to be the focal point of my home from now on. I’m not going to lie; at first glance, I did think it was the control console inside a TARDIS, which makes me want it even more.

Now all I’m missing is a group of friends that actually want to play role-playing games with me, and I’ll be all set. I’ve tried playing alone, and it’s… difficult. And don’t even get me started on trying to get the cats to play – they just steal the dice! It’s like they get way too into their rogue elf characters.

Desktop Mars Zen Garden: Interplanetary Peace

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Originally created as places for monks to meditate on Buddha’s teachings, Zen gardens have been miniaturized and available in desktop versions for quite some time now. Just not in interplanetary form, like this Mars Zen Garden available from Uncommon Goods. The desktop meditation garden features a 10″ diameter resin tray, red sand, lava rocks, a tiny astronaut and Sojourner rover, and a rake for making patterns. I am going to have so much fun relaxing and not working!

The copper-finish nickel rake features one end for raking and the other for creating craters from meteorite impacts. How realistic. Of course, if they wanted to make it even more realistic, it should come with some alien mini-figures as well. Stop hiding the truth, NASA!

I remember I had a miniature Zen garden in high school to help calm my nerves from the high stress of youth (little did I know!), but my cat Bill eventually knocked it off my desk, and all the sand got lost in the carpet. I suppose I should just be thankful he didn’t decide to use it as a litter box instead. At least there’s that.

[via The Awesomer]

MIT Students Build Wooden Roller Coaster on Campus

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Undergraduate students living in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) dorms are invited every year to take part in Resident Exploration Week (REX), during which the school’s residence halls host a variety of different activities for students to participate in. And this year, some of the students built a wooden roller coaster. That’s cool. I remember my freshman year of college, we had a snowball fight. Of course, I didn’t go to MIT.

The coaster features a 130-foot long track with a sled platform that takes a single rider over a number of hills in reverse, then forward, and is entirely powered by gravity. I wonder if any of the students involved are going to go on to become professional roller coaster designers. I mean, what better use of an MIT education is there?

The team created the initial design for the coaster in 3D CAD software before being reviewed by architects, the university, and the City of Cambridge to receive the necessary building permits and safety certifications. Me? I would have just built the coaster under the cover of darkness without all the necessary permits. I hate red tape; I only use classic silver duct tape.

[via TechEBlog]

A LEGO-Powered Water Vortex Machine

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Because there are very few things you can’t create with LEGO, YouTuber Brick Technology has constructed a collection of transparent, spherical LEGO machines capable of spinning their orbs fast enough to produce water vortices inside. How about that! I wonder what the liquid inside tastes like. My guess is water. Disappointingly, it’s almost always just colored water.

One of the LEGO Technic machines is operated by a Playstation controller, can spin the orb in any direction, and in the video creates a very impressive water vortex, as well as a water band (seen above) by spinning the orb vertically like a car tire. Centripetal force! Science! Or dark magic?

I really want one of these as a executive desk toy, that way everyone who enters my office immediately knows I’m high-level management. Granted I’m not high-level management, and the only people who come into my office are my dogs and cat, but still, maybe I can convince myself that I’m high-level management.

[via The Awesomer]

Playable LEGO PONG Set Turns up on LEGO Ideas

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LEGO maniac TheBananaman2018 has built a fully playable, motorized version of PONG that can be built out of LEGO bricks. He’s added the set to the LEGO Ideas website, and with enough support, LEGO may consider it for production. I don’t know about you, but I just created like twenty accounts and pledged my support from all of them. This might be the most important thing I do in my life.

“The game is played by two players; each of them has a paddle on the right or left side of the screen. There’s also a ball that flies around the whole screen, bouncing off the sides. The players need to move their paddles so that the ball never reaches the left or right side of the screen. If that happens, one of the players scores a point. The machine counts and displays points automatically. When a player scores 5 points, it displays the message “YOU WON!” instead of how many points the player has.” Impressive!

Amazingly, the game (which features over 90 gears) runs off a single motor, including the scorekeeping. Wow! I can’t even imagine the amount of engineering that went into its development but rest assured, it’s way over my head. Honestly, most things are. Don’t even get me started on photosynthesis OR magnets.

[LEGO Ideas]

Omega Mart’s Claw Machine Is Filled With Unwrapped Butter

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Art collective Meow Wolf’s immersive art exhibit Omega Mart in Las Vegas is full of surprises, and new to the store’s lineup of WTF-ery comes Butter Frenzy 2 – a claw machine full of unwrapped sticks of butter you can win. You know, I was just thinking the other day how great it would feel to win a loose stick of butter in an arcade game! Wait, no – no, I wasn’t.

The machine plays like any other claw machine, except instead of trying to grab a stuffed animal, you’re trying to grab sticks of soft, room-temperature butter. Fun AND delicious! Of course, the way the claw appears to cut through the butter will certainly prove a true test of skill. If you can manage to win a warm stick of butter out of a claw machine, you should have absolutely no problem with Pokémon plushies.

What’s next, claw machines filled with flour, eggs, and sugar? Hopefully, otherwise how else am I supposed to win all the ingredients I need to make cookies? And just imagine how rewarding those cookies will taste! Probably as rewarding as cookies can that were made with almost no flour, eggs, or sugar.

[via BoingBoing]

Giant Inflatable Cheeseburger Sprinkler: Waterburger

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Summer is upon us, and you know what that means: making your kids play outside so they stop wrecking the house and driving you crazy. And to aid you on your mission of prolonged sanity comes this giant cheeseburger water sprinkler. Available on Amazon (affiliate link), the inflatable burger will provide hours of backyard fun while you get a little peace and quiet indoors, presumably with the patio door locked.

The burger includes stakes to keep it in place and the sprinkler on top spins around as it sprays, so there’s no escaping its watery wrath. And why would I want to? It’s hot out and my air conditioning broke last summer.

You know, I have fond memories of running through the sprinkler as a child. I also have fond memories of running through the sprinkler as an adult, as recently as last weekend. You’re never too old for some sprinkler and slip ‘n slide action – that’s my motto. It’s important to stay young at heart because God knows the rest of my body is already giving out on me.

[via DudeIWantThat]

The Infectious Disease Coloring Book: Now I Don’t Feel So Good

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Because what better way to raise a future doctor (or dissuade your child from becoming a future doctor) than with a coloring book full of infectious diseases, The Infectious Disease Coloring Book (affiliate link) from Nicholas Wright is advertised as “a gruesome coloring therapy adventure.” I agree on the gruesome coloring part, although I question the book’s merit as a therapy adventure. Have these statements even been verified by the FDA?

Eat your crayons, then grab your colored pencils and prepare to immerse yourself in the world of gory ailments, coloring depictions of diseases such as leprosy, syphilis, flesh-eating bacteria, herpes, and MORE. Obviously, I just bought ten of the coloring books to use as stocking stuffers this year for all my young nieces and nephews.

Am I going to start using the Infectious Disease Coloring Book to self-diagnose ailments instead of spending money on a trip to the hospital? Of course not; that’s what WebMD is for. And according to my most recent diagnosis, I have everything.