Toys

There was a time when people would collect America Online CDs for various art projects, but that got old. There was only so much you could do when working with materials of that size. Hard disks are an entirely different matter, however, as TechEBlog proves with this post on a "Hard Drive Platter Motorcycle" from some guy who obviously has far too much time on his hands. If you think this was a silly waste of time, consider this: It's more productive than setting up hard drive dominoes.

Okay, I might like Dance Dance Revolution, but I'm not this hardcore about it by any means. Nevertheless, apparently some people are. JustDDR.com is selling a souped-up DDR deck called the "Metal Pad DDR Platinum Pro." The foot pads on this luxe dance machine are made of stainless steel, so that you can bring your home arcade a major notch above the norm. The pricing information is in Japanese, so I'm not positive how much it costs, but I'm sure it ain't cheap.

Now that's heavy metal.

(Via Red Ferret)

I'm going to say it up front: this remote-controlled hammerhead shark does not serve any useful purpose whatsoever. It's only two feet long, so it's not very scary. It can only be controlled from up to 50 feet away, so it's not like you could really hide from it. And it can only dive in up to 8 feet of water.

So, basically, it's a glorified pool toy.

Nevertheless, I think this is awesome. I mean, a remote-controlled shark that swims around? And his eyes light up! And at $80, he only costs as much … Read more

Toshio Iwai, the designer of beloved Nintendo DS music game Electroplankton, has been showing a prototype of his jaw-dropping Tenori-On instrument since 2005. Last week, Yamaha announced plans to turn this Star Trek-worthy digital sound toy into an actual shipping product, retailing with an estimated price tag of around $1,000. For most consumers, that is an insane price for a beautiful sound toy, but electronic musicians and artists are falling all over themselves for this thing. The Tenori-On is a touch screen grid of white LEDs that allows you to compose music by activating little squares that trigger built-in … Read more

It's apparently not enough for Swarovski to ruin good taste. According to Red Ferret, it wants to play a part in trashing vinyl records as well.

Swarovski has taken its crystal-making juggernaut to this self-running record player, aptly named the "Vinyl Killer," complete with its own needle, speaker and amplifier. But even though its VW bus design would seem perfect for playing your old LPs, we wouldn't recommend using it on your Stones collection. (Get it? Stones?)

Besides, if you're willing to shell out $487 for this thing, you might want to keep it on … Read more

Needless to say, we're fairly sick of all the alarm clocks that continue to flood the market, regardless of how sycophantic they may be. So we thought that we'd perhaps feel differently about a clock that lets us compose our own music to awaken us. We were wrong.

Hammacher Schlemmer's "Desktop Music Composer" has seven plastic modules of varying colors and shapes that provide sounds of different instruments depending where they're placed--up to 1,159 variations, to be exact. But as Ubergizmo says, "It will probably take a lifetime to find a tune … Read more

Mickey Mouse isn't just for kids, as any trip to eBay will show. (We once sold an old Mickey shirt to Buffalo Exchange for $50, only to see it on display for $125 a day later.)

That "Disneyana" obsession would explain the design of the newly released "MixStick" Mickey MP3 player, which looks distinctly more adult than previous Disney music devices made by Japan's Run-At. Akihabara News says it does come in three other colors, but the silver version pictured here could easily pass for a grown-up player, with or without the ears.

Although … Read more

This is how I know I've gone off the deep end. It's not enough that my apartment is cluttered with all kinds of knob-covered music devices. Now I'm actually considering buying little miniature versions to populate my cubicle at work. What is broken in my brain that makes me want to drop $20 on a small paper version of a vintage Arp 2600 modular synthesizer? And that's the budget version! Those of you for whom money is no object can commission Dan McPharlin to create your own Lilliputian fantasy recording studio. Now I just need to … Read more

Not that there was ever much doubt, but WowWee's career path for the "Robosapien" is now abundantly clear: They want to make it the Britney Spears of the robot world. (It already has the same hairdo.)

Only days after toy Robosapiens descended on McDonald's Happy Meals, RoboCommunity reports that the celebrity bot will star in its own movie, a collaboration with Arad Productions of Spiderman and X-Men fame. Touted as a combination of live action and CGI, the movie is scheduled for release in 2009.

But they'd better hurry. As the market gets flooded with … Read more