Archive for the ‘Super Powers’ Category

Researchers Create Off-The-Shelf Cloaking Device

Saturday, January 17th, 2015

Two scientists, John Howell and Joseph Choi, of the University of Rochester have taken a couple of lenses, set them in a particular configuration and tah-dah! You can now hide your Harry Potter puppet in plain sight without anyone ever judging you for have a Harry Potter puppet in the first place.

Over the years we’ve talked about and posted several projects that’ve used elaborate and fancy technology to produce some pretty lackluster attempts at a real cloaking device.

Coined the Rochester Cloak, the layout of four lenses allows the viewer to actually look at the object from varying angles while still keeping the object completely invisible.

There are still a lot of limitations and we’re really far from throwing a blanket over our heads and walking out the front door of a house party that’s gone bad.

But then again…this discovery came about because some science-loving dad helped his son with a science project over the holidays.

[Rochester.Edu]

Posted in Cloaking, Experiment, Harry Potter, Inivisibility, Invisible, Super Powers | Comments Off on Researchers Create Off-The-Shelf Cloaking Device

An Armband That Gives You Superhuman Abilities!

Sunday, March 10th, 2013

For a LOT of the more nerdy kids out there, we’re placing bets that many of you pretended you had the ability to throw fireballs, move objects by waving your hands and occasionally even tried in vain to channel the Force.

That was all fun, lots of pretending and wishful thinking…wasn’t it?

Not any more.

Thalmic Labs, the creators of Myo is a company that, with the help of a special armband, could make a lot of those things a reality.

‘As a company, we’re interested in how we can use technology to enhance our abilities as humans – in short, giving us superpowers,’ Stephen Lake, co-founder and CEO of Thalmic Labs said.

Using gesture control, Myo is an armband that registers the electrical activity in your muscle movements that will produce a signal that’s interpreted and sent wirelessly to your phone, television, kitchen or even your personal drone instantly.

But the best part about Myo?

You can actually pre-order one right now! Scheduled to come out later this year, the Myo armband will begin shipping near the end of the 2013.

The asking price? $149!

At that price why waste time running around in a swamp with an 800 year-old, green, raisin-skinned, wizard clinging to your back and nagging at you or visiting some weird old desert hermit when you can just drop a little cash and skip the middleman?

Let’s just hope people remember to remove it when they’re doing…uh…private stuff involving a lot of gesturing.

We’re pretty sure that this thing can’t help us ‘unsee’ things yet.

[Daily Mail UK]

Posted in Science, Super Hero, Super Powers, Superheroes, Superpower, Technology | Comments Off on An Armband That Gives You Superhuman Abilities!

Real Life Superhero Gets Nose Broken, Narrowly Avoids Death

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

The question of how the law should hand real life super heroes is a very interesting one. On one hand, they are mostly well-intentioned citizens who deter crime in a neighborhood. After all, if you were going to mug someone would you want to do it near the dude in a suit of molded rubber, or move a few blocks down the road. Then maybe while walking down the road you see a Little Caesars and totally agree to split a pizza. Then you forget about the mugging stuff whilst stuffing your face and laughing about the last episode of the Jersey Shore.

But on the other hand, tacitly approving vigilante justice can lead to situations like Phoenix Jones, who had his nose broken while being held at gunpoint last week.

A few of the Weird Things staff members (most notably Andrew Mayne whose production company produced the series) created an episode of G4 Underground about his very topic. You can check it out on iTunes.

[Boing Boing]

Posted in Crime, Super Powers, Superheroes | 1 Comment »

Canadian ‘Eyeborg’ Films What He Sees

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Eyeborg Phase II from eyeborg on Vimeo.

Canadian Filmmaker Rob Spence has turned tragedy into tragedy-aide with his new invention.

Spence lost his eye in a shooting accident when he was a teenager. With the proliferation of cheap miniature cameras he realized he could record true first-person footage with a little tinkering. He’s installed the camera into a prosthetic eye, and while it’s doesn’t give him binocular vision it does allow him to shoot and stream footage of everything he sees. He’s also included a red light to enhance the creepy factor.

You can find out more about Spence’s futuristic project by checking out his blog.

Posted in Cyborgs, Robots, Super Powers | 2 Comments »

English Schoolboy Builds Spider-Man Machine

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

13-year-old Hibiki Kono has finally done what most of us have dreamed of since we were teenagers: Built a machine that simulates the most famous power of Marvel Comics’s Spider-Man.

The machine, constructed over 5 months, uses vacuum cleaners to hold wanna-be webheads to any surface, although Kono admits his mom won’t let him use it inside lest he damage the walls. Hopefully the machine will allow him to shed his VERY nerdy demeanor like the spider bite did for Peter Parker. That might be a bit far-fetched though.

What would you do with a Spider-Man machine? Let us know in the comments!

Posted in Super Powers | 1 Comment »

Podcast: Super-Awesome Juice

Monday, May 17th, 2010

weird things podcast SM

The crew invents a new form of inter-species prejudice, declares their willingness to do stupid things in the name of science and then goes metaphysical.

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Download url:

http://itricks.com/upload/WT051410.mp3

[podcast]http://itricks.com/upload/WT051410.mp3[/podcast]

Posted in Archeology, Bizarre, Experiments, Higher Dimensions, LSD, Physics, Podcast, Podcasts, Science, Super Powers | 9 Comments »

Chi Whiz

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Two film makers sought out Indonesian Qi Gong Master John Chang to have him dazzle them with his powers. Take a look at the video. At first glance it seems pretty convincing, but note that the miraculous electrocution coming off his body is something that can be replicated with a portable high voltage generator strapped somewhere on the body. And the spontaneous newspaper combustion is something that any good slight of hand artist with a couple of gel caps filled with potassium permanganate and glycerin could accomplish with ease. Food for thought.

Posted in Super Powers | 2 Comments »