What better way than to have a good old drinking session with good old vinyls? In case you still have vinyls, you probably love them too much to use them as coasters, but these ones look rather cool, and they don’t hurt your vinyls. They’re made from silicon and the manufacturer says that they are washable and dishwasher safe. Cost $12.
LaughingSquid
Casts need not be so boring and monotonous, you may as well give them a bit of style. While most casts end up getting “decorated” by friends, you may choose to have one with decorative prints. Or you could go for a more personalized one, send them a digital copy of your x-ray, and they will return it as a print.
Casttoo and UberReview
Now that we are moving to the future, we can get rid of the old method of cleaning hands with soap. We get to do it with Plasma Gas. The technology is still under development, but it shows promise. It can completely sterilize a hand in 4 seconds, killing all germs, including the obnoxious drug resistant types. For now, the technology is aimed at hospitals, hotels and the service industry, where greater premium is attached to clean hands.
Dvice
Perhaps just because it’s Valentine’s day, nanotech thought of doing something wonderful for the researchers at University of Birmingham’s Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory. They got a tiny heart, 8 nanometers in size, and which was formed spontaneously, without any effort for that by the researchers. Seen through the Jeol 2100F electron microscope, the bright heart made of palladium atoms is quite catchy.
Physorg
Augmented Reality has done wonders, but this is the first time I’m seeing its application on a tattoo. And though it doesn’t take any huge technology (other than what is conventionally used) to achieve the effect, it still is rather cool. Also, it helps that the augmented reality part is a flying dragon. Checkout this tattoo, and some other applications developed by ThinkAnApp at their website.
designboom
I can’t help thinking that these chopsticks belong to the movie Kungfu Panda but they also seem to be fit for Samurais, or for that matter, wannabe Samurai who love to indulge in the sin of gluttony. Or maybe just enjoy a meal with some Samurai flavor. Costs $84.
Bookofjoe
The wonder material that graphene is, it has opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Researchers in Sweden and the USA have now developed lighting panels from graphene. Small sheets of graphene called LECs (light emitting electromechanical cells), can cover walls and function as an adjustable and even source of light. Oh, and the lighting material is fully recyclable, so it’s all the more better.
Dvice
Researchers have now found that dinosaurs didn’t quite look like the ferocious predators we’ve seen in pictures and movies. Researchers now say that dinosaurs had feathers. As an example, consider the 155-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi you see in renderings here. Researchers say this dinosaur looked like a woodpecker and was the size of a chicken. Not so flattering for the dinosaur, but we do have full body renderings as proof.
National Geographic and io9
Portugese company Displax has developed a flexible film, which they say has the potential to turn any surface into a touchscreen. It can be placed atop opaque structures, or placed behind transparent materials like glass. Wires embedded in the screen capture the input, and relay the same to a system which transmits it to the computer.
Designboom
If getting conventional tea bags in cool designs makes you want for more, you could have a submarine full of tea romaing near the bottom of your cup. While crawling near the bottom of the cup, this sub purportedly creates “the perfect infusion of your favorite brew.”
Random Good Stuff