Usually free weights aren’t the first thing you’d think of when design is mentioned. However, this is not the case for designer Sang-Hoon Lee. This digital barbell concept, dubbed the Revolution Dumbbell, really could be useful if put into production. You set the display to the appropriate weight and inside, balls start to spin. When they spin fast enough, the desired weight is achieved.

Without the need for a whole rack of weights to exercise, this setup could easily find its way into exclusive gyms like Equinox and celebrity personal trainers would most likely make it a staple of a workout. In the mean time, stick with the Bowflex you bought three years ago. One thing’s for sure, don’t count on John Brownlee buying them.

(more…)

Desktop PC’s have been a foundation of everyday life for most people for over a decade now. If you were to do a case study of computers and their hardware history, one fact remains a constant. Hardware just keeps increasing work capacity, while also decreasing in physical size. With the ever growing explosion of laptop sales and the ever shrinking stature of desktop components, how long is it until the two sources of computing become one. When will the desktop PC become a legacy item?

With laptops capable of running faster and storing more than most desktops, the question popped in our minds of the future of the PC tower. What would have to change and how would our lives be different as we know them if there were to be a notebook revolution? I think we are already in a notebook revolution. WiFi and other wireless solutions are going to undergo heavy growth within the next 2-3 years.

The growth of wireless technology can only lead to one thing. A super gadget! Or at least we hope so. A contraption that houses not only a fully functional computer, but also a GPS system, with full integration to cars and other vehicles. Also with Internet telephony options and integrated social capabilities to interact with the people around you. This is just a pipe dream, but the creation of such an all-encompassing gadget is inevitable. With the shrinking desktop hardware constantly decreasing to palm sized technology, the death of the desktop is upon us. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. — Andrew Dobrow

[ev type="youtube" data="1n4fDgmrF3o"][/ev]

Coming to a rec room near you! It’s “Internet”! This 1993 broadcast is so hysterical, even though it shouldn’t be, since this was our recent past. But through the revolution called “Internet”, we can now pass gossip and cooking tips! And for only $200 a year! — Andrew Dobrow

It’s called “Internet” [Neatorama]

Why do fanboys wish to recreate the past so badly? This is a simple decal that lets you have your brand new Wii controller turn into a “retro” controller so that you don’t have to get out that SNES to get the nostalgia juices flowing. While this decal lets you get a blast-from-the-past, it clashes with the Wii’s minimal aesthetic.

Or at least it will if you don’t buy the matching Wii console decal along side the controller decal. That way you can have a SNES controller with the NES system, wow, next-gen just got thrown back into the time machine. Just one qualm about the console decal: why does it say Revolution. Of course, the Wii’s code name was Revolution, but once the name Wii was announced, Revolution was supposed to be thrown away into the pits of generic names hell. — Nik Gomez

Wii Classic Controller Skin - Retro [via Destructoid]