steampunk

Crave 50: The cauldron of awesome (podcast)

This week, we take a look at some of the world's coolest one-of-a-kind DIY tech, including 3D chocolate printers, a 20-foot-wide touch-screen Star Wars game, a wearable TV, and a USB drive (possibly) forged in the belly of an ancient Egyptian deity. Also, zombie dolls.

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Rotary dials give smartphone retro flair

It's silly, inevitable, and inspired. Of course, in this retro-crazed world, somebody was bound to slap a real rotary dial on a smartphone. And you know what? It looks cool.

New Zealand designer Richard Clarkson has come up with a concept smartphone that features a digital touch screen on the front and a space on the back where heavy brass dials, a traditional rotary dial and a dial with buttons can be interchanged like camera lenses. The phone is enclosed in a painted copper case designed to show metal where paint wears through.

Clarkson explains his motivation for the phone, dubbed Rotary Mechanical:

The rotary mechanical smartphone is based on the idea of incorporating more feeling and life into our everyday digital objects. In modern times these objects have come to define us, but who and what defines these objects? Are we happy with generic rectangles of a touch screen or do we want something with more tangibility, something with more life, something with more aura?

Clarkson's concept phone is a fine example of steampunk craft, never mind that rotary dial telephones came on the scene in the chrome-and-glass art deco '20s, several decades after the leather-and-brass Victorian era. I guess to do a truly period-appropriate steampunk smartphone you'd have to slap a crank handle on the side --not so appealing, or pocketable.… Read more

Steampunk laptop maker ready to take preorders

Now that you have the opportunity to own your own Victorian-era steampunk laptop, you can finally compute like it's 1899.

Richard "Doc" Nagy, who describes himself as a "steampunk contraptor, technical artist, and jackass-of-all-trades" first built a steampunk Windows XP laptop for fun nearly five years ago. Lately he's been busy shopping around his Victorian-era keyboards at CES and elsewhere, but now he says he's ready to make that sweet steampunk silicon action available to the public.

This week Nagy announced that he is ready to start taking preorders on a batch of steampunk laptops that will be updated and redesigned to reflect numerous technological advancements, both in laptop systems and in Nagy's own workshop.… Read more

Crave 37: That '70s steampunk show (podcast)

Donald and Eric take a trip back through time, or maybe to an alternate Jules Verne-inspired future. Wherever they are, the gadgets are distinctly retro and lovingly hacked together. Even old Jedi master Yoda seems a little different. Plus, a burglar alarm that will blast you in the face.

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Steampunk show imagines Jules Verne gadgets

French author Jules Verne pioneered science fiction in the Victorian age with mind-bending ideas and inventions, but what if he were around in the age of cell phones and PCs?

An ongoing exhibition running through the end of May imagines the world of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" with steampunk tech.

Nemo's Steampunk Art & Invention Gallery, named after the novel's Captain Nemo, brings together some 40 works and 29 artists from North America, Australia, and Croatia at Patriot Place's North Lifestyle Center in Foxboro, Mass.

Organizers including Bruce Rosenbaum, whose steampunk computer desk blew our minds last year, have imagined an "alternate reality where the Victorian period happened at the same time as the computer or information age."

The show is part of the Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Interactive Entertainment Experience, which brings to life Nemo's famous Nautilus submarine.

The steampunk exhibition runs through the end of May and includes punked-out bicycles, guitars, and cell phones. Check out the photos in our gallery. … Read more

'Star Wars' characters get steampunked

While overlooking Mos Eisley, Obi-wan Kenobi cautiously warned Luke Skywalker: "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." The same could be said for the digital steampunk "Star Wars" characters floating around in the imagination of artist Bjorn Hurri.

"Star Wars" fan art is as ubiquitous as the Midi-chlorian count in Anakin Skywalker, but every once in a while something special pops up and gets everyone buzzing. Hurri combines the Victorian- and mechanical-inspired world of steampunk with various characters from the "Star Wars" saga, including Han Solo, Leia, … Read more

The 404 734: Where we're voted the worst of CES (podcast)

It's our final live show from CES 2011, and it's safe to assume our position as Worst Podcast of CES. Case in point: did any of the other CNET Live podcasts receive an anti-teen-sexting pamphlet from PicsChecker after their show? The 404 must give off some kind of unique vibe, because this service seems to appeal to our demographic. Check it out and let us know what you think. No guest on today's show, but there's plenty of stories from CES to run down, so let's go right to it!

At last year's CES, Polaroid appointed Lady Gaga to the role of creative director, and this time we get to see exactly what she's been working on for the past 12 months. At her big press conference this year, Gaga announced that phones are truly the cameras of the future and debuted the GL20 Camera Glasses, an innovative pair of shades that feature two embedded OLED screens that can capture and display images of anything around you.

Also announced were the GL30 Instant Digital Camera, a printer enabled device that seems to be a throwback of the old "shake it to develop" days of Polaroid film that works in conjunction with the GL10 Instant Printer, a Bluetooth wireless device that can produce Polaroid-style prints in under a minute. TOLD you me and Gaga have a lot in common!

CES is no stranger to extravagance and ridiculousness, and this year saw a bunch of both, starting with the insane Samsung press conference. With their own child from the future emceeing the night, Samsung and DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeff Katzenberg stole the show with 3D images, Samsung dance routines replete with rectangular TV props, and a sneak peek at the Xfinity TV app for the Samsung Galaxy Tab that turns the tablet into a remote control and video player.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, indulge us as we take a minute to do what we do best: poke fun at some of the stranger, and perhaps more useless, products featured here in Vegas starting with this Wii/Kinect/Move-enabled bowling ball courtesy of our friends at CTA Digital.

This CTA booth girl looked all right playing with it, but this single-function accessory had us shaking our heads and wondering who would buy this toy.

Let's move on to the booth for Christian gaming site GameChurch.com that actually features a cardboard cutout of Jesus himself fragging enemies like there's no tomorrow. We had no idea Jesus was a gamer, but apparently he's achieved "Ub3r Pwnage since 33 A.D."

GameChurch.com is based on the idea that video game ratings aren't stringent enough for the God-fearing consumer, so the site is here to award its own "morality ratings" to popular video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Strangely enough, the site also has a sister site at an adjacent convention called XXXChurch.com that seeks to save blasphemers from their own hands.

Stick around after the break, because we have plenty more craziness from the showroom floor to get to, including an exhibiting insurance company that lets you smash an Asus laptop with a hammer, a Steampunk keyboard fetish, and more rumors about the impending Apple iPhone coming to Verizon on February 3. Plus, don't miss our picks for Best of CES 2011. Thanks for listening!

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CES: Datamancer ushers you into world of Steampunk keyboard fetishism

Clicky mechanical keyboards, with their Cherry MX switches and robust base units, can be considered a form of keyboard fetishism, but Datamancer's Richard Nagy takes "paraphrenalic technofetishism" to new heights with his custom Victorian computer mods with a steampunk twist.

Check out this Von Slatt revisionist wonder on display at CES 2011. It's a one-off design made specifically for a customer who requested the classic Das Keyboard mechanical peripheral as its core and is built entirely by Nagy's hands. According to the receiver, "the steampunk theme recalls an age when technology was as much 'love and wonder' as 'labor.'"

The artist would not disclose the pricing since each piece is made to order, but Nagy will gladly sell you a DI(mostly)Y keyboard kit to build your own Steampunk/Victorian device!

Click through for more photos of Richard Nagy's Von Slatt keyboard.… Read more

Crave 28: Where's my steampunk boombox? (podcast)

This week, we get all Crave-y over a new boombox from TDK with a sweet design that belies the company's low-tech roots. Also, a fake coffee bot makes us yearn for the days when "The Jetsons" becomes a reality; some creepy crawlers get made over into flashy, USB-powered robots that are just ripe for holiday stockings; and we check out a tutorial on how to install your own "Star Trek"-worthy pneumatic doors. Plus, an utterly expensive--yet awesome--steampunk flash drive catches our eyes, as does a rather emasculating motorcycle ripped straight out of "Tron"--but for entirely different reasons. Finally, a shout-out to a local eatery in this week's "This is Why You're Fat" segment.

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