This morning, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall for Crosman semi-automatic air pistols due to an explosion hazard. According to the CPSC, the air pistols, manufactured by Taiwan-based WinGun Technology, can explode at high temperatures, propelling the pistol’s broken plastic pieces into the air, and posing a risk of serious […]
Materializing Your Emotions
Based in Rome, Italy, three co-founders of a small start-up formed a basic business plan to develop a useful and engaging 3D printing app. With a pair of engineers and a product designer, Makoo was launched after the trio noticed how complicated it was to use common 3D modeling tools. Watch: RapidFIRE: Start-Up Translates Your […]
Nowhere to Run
Karma certainly is a swift vixen, isn’t she? I was a few hours removed from editing Meaghan Ziemba’s column, Smartphone Shakes, for the latest issue of Wireless Design & Development magazine (PD&D’s sister) when I was retelling the story of her troubles following an incident involving a barroom toilet and her smartphone — nothing pairs […]
Welcome to My Nightmare
Ed Edmunds and his wife Marsha Taub-Edmunds have been in the fright business since 1978. The heads of Distortions Unlimited, and current stars of Making Monsters on the Travel Channel, started with horror-themed masks and props, but in 1995 they designed Shake n Bake, an animatronic electric chair that was unlike anything the industry had […]
Paint By Slumbers
High-tech beds are outfitted with sensors to turn sleep patterns into unique works of art. Last year, the Ibis hotel in Paris kicked off a unique project in collaboration with Swedish production company ACNE, the BETC ad agency in Paris, and ABB France’s Robotics division. Ibis launched the Sleep Art Project as part of an […]
The Earth is Eating People
I’m not sure if it was the first photos of the “freak geological incident” to surface, or news of the golfer who plummeted deep into an 18-foot cavern that has made it impossible for me to make it through a full night without living through vivid nightmares in which a sinkhole opens up beneath me […]
Kickstarter of the Week: RoBo 3D Printer
Today is the final day of funding for the RoBo 3D Printer on Kickstarter.com. RoBo is the latest low-cost, open source printer to be received with great fanfare on the crowd sourcing site, retaining the support of 1,100 backers and raising more than $590,000, blowing away the upstart’s $49,000 goal. The RoBo 3D printer is […]