Augmented reality… it doesn’t come cheap, unless you have invention and ingenuity on your side. This crafty cheapskate created his own Augmented Reality Goggles using nothing more than some cardboard and his HTC Magic smartphone, plus a little extra hacking of the Magic’s compass feature and Google Street View.
Hit the jump for a video demo.
Like a lot of geeks out there I have a constant stream of crap being shipped to me from various internet companies. But I’m getting sick of just chucking all of the cardboard away. There has to be something productive we can create using all of our excess boxes.
And then I came across this and I had a “Eureka!” moment. Duh. Why not create a piece of furniture? And a geeky piece of furniture at that! I might just have to make a PS3 version. Maybe one day I’ll make a Wii cardboard toilet. We already shit on the Wii plenty anyway.
Perhaps the greenest and most flammable case mod we’ve ever seen, aside from the UbuntuBox, the “Recompute” cardboard PC case shows off how sustainability can not only be cheap, but can ignite your whole house in flames as well.
Even if there is a cooling fan, and even if the power supply and mother board are kept at separate ends of the PC, this thing is going to generate plenty of heat.
Created by Professor George W. Hart of SUNY Stony Brook, this is a papercraft work of art/puzzle that’s guaranteed to blow your mind. It’s called Frabjous and it’s made of 30 pieces of cardboard interwoven together. George was nice enough to make a PDF file for the rest of us who want to make one and solve it. Putting it together will be a challenge and one only the most bored of people will undertake.
Check out these laptop bags from designer Giles Miller. He does wondrous things with cardboard, attaches a leather belt and calls it a laptop case. While I love the look, it’s still a cardboard case. What happens if it rains? In fact, scratch that. Who cares. Didn’t your laptop come in a cardboard box? If you hung onto that, why not just attach a piece of rope on each side and voila! You’ve got yourself a case. Last I checked, Apple’s box design is more chic than half of the laptop bags out there today but I think Giles’ design wins overall due to the street cred.
Here’s a decent mod, albeit not a beautiful one. Take an iPod Touch and strap a cardboard box to the back with a ghetto speaker inside it. Poke out a few holes, wire up a headphone jack and boom, instant portable speaker. It also does a decent job of keeping the iPod upright. Genius? No, but the ability to blast “Crank Dat Batman” at the wee hours of the morning makes it all the better. I have to admit, though, I’ve seen better.
Now don’t get too excited. This isn’t some crazy contraption that will scan your friend’s boobs when you’re out to dinner one night. This is a nice limited contraption that allows you to “scan” items with your iPhone. It’s essentially a stand that holds the iPhone up with a white piece of paper on the bottom to keep the background uniform. Still, for a device made of cardboard, it’s pretty decent. Probably great for dead insects.
I thought I was really into Star Trek. I have every episode from the original series and TNG as well as many articles of clothing and a beer bottle opener shaped like the Enterprise. However, Bob Prior’s passion and fanboy-ism for Star Trek far surpasses my own. He’s created Star Trek replicas from Rice Krispies boxes. From Kirk to Picard, Spock to LaForge, Bob has created over 50 models which include the Starship Enterprise, its command bridge and captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. The funniest part of the whole thing is that his wife hates the show but has been putting up with his obsession all these years.
Says Bob:
“I’ve made models from the start – right through Deep Space Nine, Voyager and the films up to First Contact.”
Deep Space Nine? Ew! Now I know for sure he’s suffering from dementia.
They say malt liquor tastes better on the street. I wouldn’t know because I don’t live in a cardboard condominium but I do enjoy my malt liquor. Apparently so do designers Barry Sheehan and Gregor Timlin for their concept of the Shelter Cart in light of Designboom’s mobile living/storage competition.
It’s your standard cart but flip it over and you’ve got yourself a chillin’ bachelor pad. Why stay homeless when you can have the luxuries of life without the bullshit that comes along with paying for utilities and doing your taxes? Invite all the ladies over, but please, no sex in the champagne room. The cart was made to raise awareness about the issue of urban homelessness, not for breeding more hobos. Everyone’s screamin’ for change.
These homemade guitar picks from Flickr member Aud1073cH are pretty badass. With designs ranging from Mount Rushmore to the Toshiba and Paramount logos, one wonders how he created these…
Handmade guitar picks. Most are made from old plastic cards (gift cards, credit cards, hotel room keys, etc.) Other materials are cardboard, “Handi Snacks” stick, CD, Toshiba laptop, and plastic packaging.
There you have it. I wonder if the cardboard-based picks even work?
