origami

Burning paper models for the dead is a religious tradition practiced by some Chinese. These can include houses, cars, and even Rolex watches. The belief is that the departed will receive them in the afterworld, making their lives (or rather, afterlives) more bearable. But what if the dead person is a geek who never fancied flashy cars or gold-plated timepieces? You burn him an Xbox 360, of course.

That's when you need one of these paper craft models from Fx Console, as seen on Notcot. Downloadable from the blog site are a series of PDFs that are templates for … Read more

The biggest origami news of 2007 has nothing to do with Microsoft or ultramobile PCs.

Instead, thanks to centuries-old telescope technology reapplied to camera lenses by engineers at UC San Diego, the origami lens takes the cake.

At just one-seventh the thickness as a traditional lens, the origami system could significantly raise the resolution bar for camera phones. It might also make today's slimmest ultracompact cams seem like anvils.

The system borrows the folded optical system found in Cassegrain telescopes, but uses a single, diamond-cut optical crystal instead of a series of mirrors. The origami system bounces light through … Read more