Retro

This week, the Crave crew uncovers a cupcake-dispensing ATM, hot-tub boats, and a sonic weapon that confounds your enemy into silence. Plus, a concept Xbox controller that massages your thumbs, merit badges for nerdlings, and a DARPA cheetah bot that will be chasing us in our nightmares.

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My Facebook Timeline goes back to when I was born, but lists no notable events until 1994. I'm a veritable blip on the Timeline radar compared with The New York Times, which tracks the paper all the way back to the mid 19th century.

The grand old lady of newspapers is taking advantage of the new Timeline for Pages that gives companies a big top banner and list of dates down the side of the profile, a feature that has already been rolled out for personal users.

The paper flaunts its storied history with an image of the first issue from way, way back when. So far, the image has 117 thumbs ups and comments like, "Well! This is old news!" The paper itself cost just 1 cent.… Read more

This week, old meets new as we drool over a new AC/DC pinball machine, turn our old CDs into works of art, and put your condom's location on the Web. Plus, a skateboard powered by your brain, a shopping cart that stalks and judges you, a DIY Chewbacca tissue box suitable for space travel misadventures, and Bonnie's robot gets a name.

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I never expected to write "Santorum," "Apple," and "1984" together in the same blog post, but here you go.

Apple fans (and anybody else even vaguely familiar with the history of commercials) will recognize a whole lot of vintage Macintosh-inspired marketing coming from Santorum's latest anti-Mitt Romney ad.

The video is titled "Rebellion." There's no doubt the Santorum ad is quoting from the original Apple endeavor. It features marching people wearing gray while authority figures bark slogans in the background and Romney's talking head glitches out like Max Headroom.

Instead of a woman in short-shorts with a big hammer, you get a woman hauling a "Santorum for President" political sign that she flips over to display a video of Santorum sharing his conservative views.

Santorum does manage to squeeze in a quick clip of some baby-hugging near the end. This is a political ad, after all.… Read more

I knew there was something missing from my life. I just didn't know what it was until I came across ToyOtter's latest list of rejected "Star Wars" merchandise ideas on Action Figure Insider.

I'm missing a Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader salt and pepper shaker set, without which my life will never be complete. How did this product not get made?

"Let these legends of the kitchen table be a constant reminder of the battle over good and evil in the galaxy," the concept reads. Each morning there could be an epic battle for the very soul of my scrambled eggs.… Read more

The typical DJ booth is awash in buttons, knobs, and faders, allowing for precise control over any music mix. And if you've ever witnessed a DJ in this natural habitat, you know how utterly boring it is to watch.

Enter the MIDI Fighter 3D, a new $249 DJ controller from DJ Tech Tools. Finally, a visually striking controller that requires its user to do more than just twist a few knobs.

In addition to the arcade-style oversized buttons used on the original MIDI Fighter controller, the MIDI Fighter 3D adds an internal gyroscopic sensor and digital compass, allowing you to control MIDI parameters (such as volume, pitch, and effect variations) by tilting or turning the entire device. … Read more

Have you ever tried buying an AC/DC album on iTunes? Don't bother. It's not there. Unlike those sellouts, The Beatles, AC/DC is too cool for that crap.

So what better way to honor the world's most tenaciously old-school rock gods than to give them their own pinball machine? I mean, it's about time someone showed The Who, that serious pinball geeks deserve a more rocking anthem than "Pinball Wizard."

The AC/DC Pro, currently in production by Stern Pinball, weighs in at a whopping 250 pounds, and can be yours for around $… Read more

Want to play god much?

With Nukemap, a new tool that lets anyone test out--on a Google Map--the effects of some of history's most famous nuclear explosions on cities around the world, you can.

Say you're inclined to see just how bad the destruction would be in London if "Fat Man," the second A-bomb dropped on Japan by the Americans during World War II, detonated there. Nukemap lays it all out for you.

Nukemap lets you choose from a long list of cities to experiment with--or drag the map's marker wherever you want--and then choose either a custom yield in kilotons, or one of a list of famous bombs. When you click the "detonate" button, you quickly see a map with a series of colored circles that show the radii of the fireball, the air blast, the spread of radiation, and the spread of thermal radiation. … Read more

This week, Lego goes crazy for Minecraft (even if we don't); the Death Star gets a real-world estimate; DARPA invests in making "Avatar" a reality; and Eric and Bonnie make their Barbie dreams come true. In Geek News, Eric is obsessed with Mass Effect 3, and shows off a mashup of "The Prestige" and the latest "Dark Knight" trailers.

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