Do you want people to think you’re some sort of a wizard, capable looking into their world from a great distance and casting spells over them? You need the Supernova Sphere.
This 8″ light-up orb looks like the kind of mystical crystal ball that a villainous wiz might use to look in on their victims from afar. It also just looks awesome sitting on your desk.
Inside the sphere are LEDs that project a variety of cool, colorful, and ever-changing patterns inside. It almost looks like the atmosphere on some strange glowing planet. Check it out:
Pretty awesome, eh? You can grab the Supernova Sphere over at ThinkGeek for $39.99(USD).
Over the past week, a certain type of drone was all over social media. A foldable drone that would open and close like a book. It boasted of a camera too. Well, the Sphere Drone by nepdesign is the big-daddy of that drone. Overwhelmingly pretty, it takes on a more organic shape, giving the drone a sort of alien-ish vibe.
It has an upward facing camera, a downward facing camera, and a series of cameras all around the side. Can it BE more awesome!?
A couple of years ago we saw an unusual camera. It looked like a ball and took 360° panoramic photos, like the ones on Google Street View but completely spherical. Jonas Pfeil and his co-inventors are now gearing up to mass produce the camera, which they’re now calling the Panono.
Panono works much like the prototype we saw back then. It has 36 cameras that together can make a 72mp 360° image. Panono can be used in three ways. The fun way is to throw the ball up in the air. The camera will sense when it reaches its highest point, and will automatically activate all of its cameras. You can also prop it up on a stick and trigger it using the Panono mobile app or just hold it in your hand and press its button to shoot.
Whichever method you choose, you’ll need a mobile device and an Internet connection in order to get the final panoramic image. That’s because the camera will wirelessly send the images it took to your mobile device. From there you need to upload the images to a free cloud service that will stitch your images together. If you don’t have an Internet connection, you’ll be able to view the images you took via the app, but they’ll be separated. The camera itself can store up to 400 panoramas (that’s 14,400 “normal” images) so you can still use it without a mobile device.
Pledge at least $500 (USD) on Indiegogo to get a Panono as a reward. You can check out the shots taken with the latest prototype on Panono’s website. Now someone needs to come up with a spherical picture frame.
A wild spherical camera appears! Actually it’s not the first of its kind that we’ve seen, but unlike the previous device, Serveball’s Squito is being designed for both professional and recreational use. Forget about Instagram or Vine, the cool kids will want to get ball shots! Yeah! No.
According to Serveball’s press release, the current prototype of Squito has three cameras, an inertial measurement unit, a microcontroller and an image processor. As you’ll see in the video below, the prototype can take 360º panoramic pictures and videos. When taking pictures, the Squito can reorient and stitch the images that its cameras take. When shooting a video, the Squito can stabilize the video, but don’t expect a free falling camera to be as steady as one on a tripod. The Squito will also be able to wirelessly send its pictures and videos to PCs and mobile devices.
The tail end of the video featured a version of the Squito with night vision and thermal imaging capabilities. From what I can tell those features will be on a separate variant of the Squito, which Serveball is calling the Darkball. Fold your browser into a ball and throw it to Serveball’s website for more on its cameras.
Robotic sports were bound to involve balls in space at some point. Students from the U.S. and Europe can now sign up for what is described as “the ultimate robot game” in which they will navigate floating spheres through the International Space Station for the Zero Robotics programming competition.
The competition was organized by MIT and the European Space Agency. The idea is to use volleyball-sized SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, and Reorient Experimental Satellites) that are equipped with 12 jets of compressed gas to move them in different directions. The teams from secondary schools program algorithms to maneuver the satellites and to complete game objectives by navigating obstacles and accomplishing certain tasks.
Just float some hoops around and I will slam dunk these robots everywhich way to a win! Not really. It sounds like fun though.
Just try not to hit our astronauts in their heads, guys. And no high speed fly-bys of the crew either. You leave that showboating stuff at home.
The first competitions take place in computer simulations online, but the best of the best teams will have their code put to the test on the SPHERES themselves in the finals next January aboard the International Space Station.
Bumblebee, you’re doing it wrong. Or maybe he just got scared and decided to roll into a ball. This vehicular sculpture was actually made by Indonesian artist Ichwan Noor. He created this Volkswagen sphere that is 1.8 meters across out of the parts of actual Volkswagen Beetle.
To put it in more artsy-fartsy terms:
The sculpture’s visual form yields an impression of a sphere – the basis of all forms. The shape of a car is pressed onto the spherical form, producing a dynamic movement, a certain flexibility, but also fragility. It is a concept of “totems” that is embraced/believed by the people of today.
Or maybe it’s just cool because someone crushed a car into a ball and it looks like Bumblebee. Yeah, that’s why I like it.
I first saw the Sphero robotic ball about 2 years ago at CES, but I never really got a chance to play with one hands-on until now. When I first saw it in action, all I wanted to say was “Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.” This little orb is packed with cool technology that lets you use it as a remote-control vehicle, a game controller, and tech toy/plaything.
Made by Orbotix, the Sphero itself is a durable polycarbonate-shelled orb which fits nicely in the palm of your hand. This is no accident, since this makes it work perfectly as a controller or plaything itself when it’s not rolling around on the floor. Inside of the ball are its brains, wireless circuit, motion sensors, motors, a small rechargeable battery and multicolor LEDs.
The spherical robot is capable of traversing a variety of surfaces, including hardwood floors, tile, grass, concrete and low-pile carpet (it has a hard time on thicker carpets). It’s even waterproof, so you can drive it around in the bathtub or in a puddle. To juice up the Sphero, simply set it in its inductive charging cradle, and it’ll go for up to an hour on a single charge.
You control the Sphero using either iOS or Android apps, which range from the main Sphero R/C controller app to games, interactive toys, augmented reality and macro programming apps. The library of Sphero apps continues to grow too, since there’s a full Sphero API and SDK available for developers to make their own applications. Many of the current apps are free, while the few that cost money sell for $1.99 or less.
Playing with Sphero is a blast, and it’s stupid-simple to use. Simply pair it with your Bluetooth device, load up an app of your choice, orient the Sphero properly and start playing. It’ll operate at distances up to about 50 feet from your device. Setting the Sphero’s orientation is simple. Just place the ball on the ground and use two fingers to maneuver its secondary blue “tail” LED to point towards you. If you should pick up and move the Sphero, you can do this again in a jiffy.
The main Sphero app is a great place to start, as it lets you drive the Sphero and play with its colors with ease. You can choose from a touch-based or motion-based control scheme, as well as several pre-set macros for things like circles, Figure 8′s and a flashing light show.
The Sphero app can also capture stills or video of your escapades and save them to your device.
And if you log into the Sphero ecosystem, you can record fun achievements, track stats and compete with others for Sphero supremacy.
I tried out just about every Sphero app I could find on the iTunes App Store, and here are my personal favorites: 1) ColorGrab – a frustrating, but fun multiplayer game in which players must quickly pick up the Sphero when its flashing in a specified color; 2) Draw & Drive – which lets you simply draw a path for your Sphero to follow; 3) Etch-o-Matic – this turns your Sphero into the controller for an Etch-a-Sketch inspired drawing pad; and 4) Sharky – an augmented reality app which turns your Sphero into a funny looking beaver that you flick virtual cupcakes at. It’s completely silly, but a fun tech demo.
The hacker in me got the most joy out of the MacroLab app, which lets you create complex programming sequences for the Sphero, adjusting all of its available parameters. These include movement, rotation, light color, speed, and basic programming constructs like delays and loops. The only thing I wish is that you could take your saved macros and load them into the main Sphero application for playback. Apparently, the Android version can even control multiple Spheros at the same time.
If you and your friends have more than one Sphero, they can be independently controlled for races, running obstacle courses, or even for playing Sphero miniature golf (which can also be played solo).
All in all, I really have had a good time playing with the Sphero, and I can only imagine that kids and geeks of all ages would get a kick out of having one. It’s also great for tormenting your pets. The fact that it’s programmable and has a software development community means that even if you get bored with it for a little while, there will be more apps coming down the pike to give it new life. And if you’re a real tinkerer, you can even make your own apps.
Disclosure: Orbotix provided the Sphero for review in this article. However, all reviews are the unbiased views of our editorial staff, and we will only recommend products or services we have used personally, and believe will be good for our readers.
In Tucson, Arizona, locals have discovered a strange collection of purple spheres in the middle of the desert. It’s not yet certain what these spheres are, but analyses are being made to ascertain their exact nature.
Geraldine Vargas and her husband were taking a walk when they came upon the spheres. Some of the spheres were watery while others were translucent. When poked, they let out a watery substance. Some scientists have speculated that the spheres could be a slime mold or jelly fungus. It’s also possible that it’s a man-made product for plant hydration.
One thing is for sure, these spheres aren’t from outer space as some have theorized. They were localized and seemed to ooze out of the ground.
These days, having a small, handy speaker to carry with you is pretty convenient – especially when you want to share your music or watch a video with your friends, without having to rely on the paltry integrated speakers on your tablet or smartphone. These portable speakers come in allshapes and sizes, but this is definitely one of the more unusual designs I’ve seen.
The orb-shaped BALLO speaker was designed by the Swiss firm Bernhard Burkard for Hong Kong-based OYO – Objects You Obsess. It has a built-in rechargeable battery and works with most devices that can play audio thanks to its 3.5mm jack. The design is pretty minimal, and it has a colorful belt that joins the two hemispheres of the spherical speaker. The shape and perforated surface reminds me of the tip of an old-school microphone.
BALLO is available in ten different colors, and it costs about $30(USD). It can be ordered directly from OYO.
It’s been quite a while since Katamari Damacy first came out, but it’s still one of my all-time favorite games. Between the quirky characters and original gameplay mechanics, it definitely belongs in the video game hall of fame, IMHO. And while there’s been a decent amount of fan art done of the years, this is the first time I’ve seen a mechanized tribute to the little Prince and his rolling Katamari.
Builder Mike Choi created this piece he calls Katamari on the Spin, and it’s actually a Gamma Type Stirling Engine powering the Katamari. That piston you see in the rear is actually what drives the sphere. Mike says it took him about 200 hours to build, between the hand-painting and machining of the components.
He buit it as his final project for a mechanical engineering class, and I think he deserves an A+++++++, regardless of what his professor may think. Check it out in action in the video below:
Great job, Mike. Now you just need to rig it so it can actually pick up objects as it spins.
