Burial plot prices are skyrocketing in Japanese cities, so one company built a facility that uses RFID technology to help store the dead. At Nichiryoku, mourners visit a “prayer area” where they swipe RFID cards to have the cremated remains of their loved one are lifted up from an underground storage vault.

CScout Japan has some excellent videos of the RFID burial plots in action. My favorite is the Nichiryoku commercial where a woman tells the ghost of her dead father that visiting him is “no problem” because the automated cemetery is so “close to the train station.” This sounds like a great way to say Sayonara to gadget lovers who are looking a futuristic funeral.

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This might look like a miniature Death Star but, in actuality, it’s a top secret spy cam. The DVR CamBall is the first ever digital video camera and MP3 player that’s as small as a ping-pong ball and able to record at 320×240 or 640×480 resolutions. What better way to sneak a camera into top-secret facilities than to roll it under the door. Unfortunately, once it’s out of your grasp their is little you can do to aim it.

That’s fine though, since this thing’s got the capability to hold up to 8GB of photos with an SD card. At $200, it comes with a couple of accessories including a tassel to wear the camera around your neck and an underwater case for snorkling shots that’ll turn you into a marine biologist in no time.

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Take a peek at this video of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Who doesn’t love messing with an amusement park’s rides to make massacres occur at will? In Tycoon 2, I used to build the free fall rides real short, but make it launch at high speeds. It was a death trap ride I named “Suicide Machine“. This video shows a roller coaster track being built into a pedestrian walkway. Hilarity ensues as most of the victims walk away from the “accident”. Much more fun than building your own mini coaster kit.

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This new LEGO Star Wars toy is the Castle Grayskull of all LEGOs. Fuck Fort Legorado, this LEGO Death Star is twice as much money ($400) and twice as cool. It comes with 25 Star Wars characters LEGO-style, including the “TK-421! Why aren’t you at your post?” Stormtrooper clad Han and Luke. It even has the trash compactor monster that nearly killed Luke in Episode IV.

You won’t find a better way to relive your childhood by reenacting the final duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in the Emperor’s throne room. Oh and remember to always let the Wookiee win.

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Fighting with DIY robots isn’t anything new. I mean come on, it’s on cable television. However, tearing apart a fax machine with a robot while filming in slow motion is news to me. Peep the video to see robots tearing each other to pieces as well as helpless office appliances and even golf balls getting caught in the crossfire. Watching a Linksys router sit there taking a beating from a blade-spinning bot is like watching a grizzly bear fighting an infant - it’s highly enjoyable.

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Your eyes do not deceive you, dear readers. Some jackass actually let his 94-year-old mother (meaning she was born in 1914, mind you) ride an ATV around on his property. Eventually, she ran his ass over. From the article:

Smith was working with his mother, Mary Smith, around 12:30 p.m. at the property about 6 miles north of Howell, police said.

Ronald Smith was opening a gate when his mother apparently lost control of the Kubota RTV 900 utility vehicle she was riding and hit the gate, then caromed off the gate and struck her son.

He was trapped underneath the vehicle, police said.

Police said Mary Smith tried to get the vehicle off her son, but couldn’t.

You’re telling me a woman a century old couldn’t lift an ATV up? What a surprise. Maybe granny should have gotten a bitchin’ angle-cutter and sliced the vehicle in half. The man who died, Ron Smith, was pronounced dead at the scene. Sounds like a terrible Mother’s Day.

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The Skeleton Mouse might be designed a little on the morbid side. Hell, who are we kidding, it’s a mouse made to look like a decomposed corpse. Archaeologist’s and grave diggers alike will have a fun time with this one.

The species known as mousicus bonicus was thought to be long since extinct, but you can have a piece of prehistoric tech of your own if a product like this is ever mass-produced. (more…)