crafting

Word-game enthusiasts around the world may find a new addiction in WordZap Deluxe--if they can swallow the $20 fee, that is.

Part Boggle and part Scrabble, WordZap offers a set of letters from which you must create enough words to beat your computer opponent. As in Boggle, if you and the computer create the same word, the word cancels out. A timer adds another constraint. You can increase or decrease the difficulty level in several ways. WordZap assigns a handicap that adjusts to your performance but which you can also change manually. You can also change settings related to word-length, … Read more

If you're contemplating liquidating some of your assets, eBay, Craigslist and others are probably looking pretty attractive right now. Don't forget about the garage sale though!

A good way to dress one up, or turn those old pizza boxes into holiday gift baskets is to head over to iStockPack. It's an Instructables-like community that's filled with various projects to put together anything from a cigar box to a cardboard cookie jar using nothing more than materials you may have laying around the house.

Users can submit their own designs with instructions, which go into one … Read more

Wassup StarCraft fans?!! That was my Brian Tong impression. Spot on, no? Anyway, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that StarCraft II is shaping up to be a much more ambitious product than Blizzard Entertainment had originally conceived, and the company is going to be forced to delay parts of the game.

The good news is that instead of waiting until everything in the game is complete, Blizzard is splitting the game into a trilogy--each focusing on a different StarCraft race.

The first game in the series--Wings of Liberty--will focus on the Terrans. The second … Read more

You may not need help determining if the beverage you are drinking is hot or cold, but some people might. Luckily, these coasters will tell you just what you need to know: red for hot, blue for cold. A light encapsulated inside the coaster changes to the appropriate color depending on the temperature of your drink.

Empirical evidence shows that there is a great need for temperature awareness in today's modern world. For example, we have specially designed beer packaging that tells us when the beer is cold (hint: it's when the mountains turn blue). And of course, … Read more

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

One of New York's most talked about tech start-ups these days is undoubtedly Etsy, the Brooklyn-based online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods. And it's continuing to generate headlines: co-founder Robert Kalin announced in a blog post Wednesday that the company has picked up an impressive $27 million in Series D financing.

The venture funding comes from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Hubert Burda Media, as well as Accel Partners' Jim Breyer, who will take on a seat on Etsy's board of directors.

Etsy is "almost break-even" when it comes to profits, Kalin … Read more

The U.S. Navy has selected two companies to develop a Transformable Craft capable of ferrying heavy tanks from ships at sea, through the surf, and onto beachheads around the world.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) wants a T-Craft that does 40 knots, carries at least six tanks, and is able to survive 57-knot winds and 60-foot waves. It must also mitigate wave motion, to allow the transfer of vehicles from one ship to the other while rocking on the high seas.

To accomplish that, the companies Alion Science and Umoe-Mandal will need to develop and deploy some combination … Read more

When thinking of knitting and crocheting, one doesn't often associate it with social networking Web sites. Despite being a solitary activity, knitting is also a social event and a chance for people to get together and share tips, projects, and chatter--also known as the "stitch and bitch." Ravelry is a new site for knitters and crocheters that's taking that online, and adding an interesting Web spin with project management, and the creation of a massive directory of user shared patterns. The end result is a social network that doubles as a place to find new projects and talk to others who have done them.

The service is set up to give everyone their own social profiles, including a blog that can be slurped from your existing site. There are also themed groups, with shared project and yarn pools, and private forums. Interestingly enough, instead of grouping "neighbors" by geographical region, Ravelry instead chooses to group people together by the projects they're working on.

The real draw, however, is the "stash," which is a place to document whatever yarns or fibers you own. Just take pictures of it, upload, and tag them. It then resides in your stash, until you've used it (which then goes into your "used" pile). The hope is that Ravelry users will keep their stashes up to date, letting other users ping them to purchase or swap the yarn, or ask questions.

According to CNET's resident knitting expert, and published author Jennifer Stafford, the stash actually helps to solve a real world problem in the crafts community--dyeing. Each lot of yarn has its own unique color, and if you somehow can't get more of a certain color later on, you're pretty much out of luck. Assuming people have tagged their stashes correctly, you might be able to pick up that oh-so-important missing piece of your project.

Ravelry is still in its private beta testing phase and is whittling down its waiting list of over 17k users by inviting about 500 new ones a day. You can sign up for it here.

Note: This post has been changed since its original publish to correct inaccuracies about the neighbors and patterns features, and to specify terminology about what's in the stash.… Read more

For DIY nuts out there, the Web is a source of plentiful project ideas and guides. It's also the home of a handful of paper craft projects, the kind you can print out and put together with a little bit of glue and ingenuity. A new, and really neat one got sent our way this weekend. It's called Paper Critters, and it's a Web-based creation tool for making your own desk art in the form of a boxlike creature. You can edit all five sides of it using a simple drag-and-drop editor with a variety of stamps and drawing tools. There's also a custom stamp that lets you use an image from your hard drive.

When finished putting everything together, there are several ways to share you work, including a printout feature that comes complete with step-by-step instructions. There's an e-mail tool and a permalink to send to others on your usual e-mail client, or via IM. My favorite is the embed code, which lets you drop it into a blog or Web site.

Once a critter has been shared, it goes into a group collective called "The Colony." From there, anyone can give it a look and add it to their favorites list. There's also a section for user comments. The real killer application is being able to edit other peoples' work and customize it. While this won't be reflected on their original, if you see something someone else has made, you can print it out yourself, or make alterations.

I've embedded an example of a 3-D Paper Critter. I've also been told by creator JR Fabito that a Facebook Application could be on the way. If you're into these kinds of projects, there are countless blogs dedicated to chronicling Web-syndicated paper crafts. Two of my favorites are Paper Forest and PaperKraft.net--both offer some serious eye candy and links to other projects.

Disclosure: Paper Critters creator JR Fabito is an ex-CNET employee and one of the designers of Webware.com.

… Read more