Earbuds (or good ones, anyway) work like corks for your ears: sealing in music while blocking surrounding sounds. They're fine when you're safe at home, but not so much outside when you need to be aware of your environment.
As you stretch a rubber band, it heats up. But as it cools down it actually loses some of the energy it stored when it was stretched. That means the longer a slingshot is left loaded, the less powerful it becomes. Unless you're Joerg Sprave, the internet's resident master of slingshot design, who discovered that simply reheating a stretched elastic band can restore up to 40 per cent of its original powuh.
There's a good chance you've seen most of the photos featured in Tim Mantoani's new book, Behind Photographs. But I doubt you've seen the faces of the photographers behind those shots, who are finally given the notoriety they all deserve.
Our tools for extinguishing fire are almost as primitive as our forefathers who discovered it. Extinguishers that attempt to choke or disrupt the chemical reaction often do just as much damage, so DARPA's been working on a high-tech alternative.
Created by Berlin-based design studio The Product, this set of three unique turntables was built for the premiere of Volkswagen's new Beetle at the 2011 IAA motor show. Instead of vinyl, it uses discs with concentric geometric patterns to produce music.
It was over a year ago when we first heard about Star Wars Uncut, the 15-second-at-a-time, crowdsourced remake of Star Wars: A New Hope. And it's now finally available in its entirety for your streaming pleasure.
Krispy Kreme (of all companies) created a similar kind of sandal as part of a promotion a few years ago, but Kusa's grass flip flops have two distinct differences. They're made with artificial turf, and you can actually buy them.
I love everything about these ninja-inspired throwing star sticky notes from ThinkGeek. Everything except the fact they're made from black paper, making them next to impossible to write on with anything other than a special marker.
When you're trekking through the great outdoors in the middle of the night, you need your hands free for reading maps, clearing obstacles, and fighting off bears. So Petzl's new Nao headlamp makes all the brightness and focus adjustments for you.
After watching this animatronic robotic infant writhe around on the floor with no skin hiding its internal components, I bet you'll appreciate those awkward Uncanny Valley CG characters seen in films like The Polar Express.
Instead of the toxic smell of melted plastics, while the Imagine 3D printer is doing its thing, your workspace will be filled with the aroma of delicious confections. Because its printing head uses syringes that can be filled with chocolate.
Did you hear that? That's the sound of a million Trekkies and board game enthusiasts heads exploding. Because come March, the first themed version of Settlers of Catan will be released, called Star Trek Catan. Set your faces to stunned.
If Apple had designed an iPad 2 stand that didn't double as a protective cover, I'm inclined to believe it would look exactly like Ten One Design's Magnus, which uses a strong neodymium magnet to make the iPad appear to float.
In addition to still cameras, Lomography also makes the LomoKino which lets retro enthusiasts capture 35mm movies in all their scratchy, grainy glory. But sharing those creations isn't easy, at least without this smartphone adapter which lets you digitise your flicks.
The folks at BrickIt were commissioned by a company called Dynaway to build this miniature, but impressive, Lego sorting factory to demonstrate the firm's manufacturing execution system. And lucky for us, they created a mesmerising video of it in action.
After terrorists tried to fly with liquid explosives back in 2006, air travelers have been limited to bringing only small bottles onto planes. But that inconvenience could soon be gone if Cobalt's new laser scanners start appearing at airport security checkpoints.
