Created by MIT student Melissa Chow, the “like-a-hug” jacket makes virtual experiences a bit more realistic, by inflating and giving you a hug whenever someone likes you on Facebook. Soon, real friends will probably be obsolete.

Having people like you on Facebook is nice, but don’t you wish you could feel the love whenever they hit that “Like” button? Well, thanks to the innovative “like-a-hug” jacket, now you can. Inventor Melissa Chow, from the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says it “allows us to feel the warmth, encouragement, support, or love that we feel when we receive hugs”. The concept behind this Facebook jacket is fairly simple – air pockets inside the jacket inflate every time your smartphone sends a signal that a new “like”has been received. Better still, you can send hugs back to your friend by simply squeezing the jacket and deflating it.

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Remember the Necomimi, those wacky brainwave-controlled cat ears we featured around this time last year? Well, the same Japanese company that makes those, Neurowear, has just released a fluffy mind-controlled tail to go with them.

I have to admit it’s kind of strange seeing a company that has the knowledge to create mind-controlled gadgets create stuff like cat ears and tails for humans, but then again this is Japan, so the weird factor is still pretty low. Anyway, much like the Necomimi cat ears, Shippo, the new tail developed by Neurowear is able to read your emotions and reflect your mood by wagging. Depending on how your heart beats and the extent to which alpha and beta brainwaves are activated, the tail moves from side to side or top to bottom at different intensities. The feline accessory also communicates with an app that records your mood and broadcasts it out via your social network, so anyone can know when you’re happy, sad and even in love. There is even a  database of places other people wearing these wacky cat tails found relaxing, so you can check them out whenever you’re looking to find some peace and quiet.

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No, this is not a joke, it’s not fake, Chinese hospitals really are using automatic sperm extractors for the most serious medical purposes. Still, I thought this was weird enough to post an article on.

So, an entry about automatic sperm extractors being introduced in a Nanjing hospital recently went viral on China’s Weibo social platform. It contained some photos of the unusual machine, and a brief description of its functions. Apparently, the “massage pipe” in front of the device can be adjusted according to the height of its user, and the speed, frequency, amplitude and temperature at which it operates can also be set according to personal preference. When turned on, the screen of the extractor starts playing movies with surround sound to get the user in the right mood. The entry also said “now you can make that money standing up”, referring to the usage of the extractor for sperm bank donations, but the director of the urology department at Zhengzhou Central Hospital was quick to dismiss this rumor. Apparently, the machine is only used by infertility patients who are finding it difficult to retrieve sperm the old fashioned way. Read More »

George Chirita, a Romanian electronics engineer turned computer designer makes luxury computers and accessories for the world’s rich and famous. His creations are inspired by royalty like French King Louis XVI and are decorated with expensive materials like gold, marble or lapis lazuli. Prices start at $21,000.

If you think your dusty old machine just isn’t worthy of your royal lifestyle, you’ll be glad to know someone finally came up with the idea of making computers fit for kings. His name is George Chirita and he’s a Romanian immigrant who took France by storm with his gold-plated computers decorated with marble and precious stones. His small company produces computers in three different styles – Louis XV, Louis XVI and Empire – inspired by classic French decorations, which Chirita says he has always been a fan of. And while the company’s main goal is to create a stylish decorative object to enoble customers’ surroundings, they certainly don’t neglect quality hardware. “To bring together and create this world of ‘luxury technology’, first of all you’ve got to use the latest high-tech innovations, in terms of the electronic components to build a computer like that, and we also use classic French styles which are timeless styles”, George Chirita told Reuters.

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Created by Japanese engineer Hitoshi Takahashi, the KABUTOM RX-03 is an 11-meter-long, 17-tonne-heavy robot shaped like a rhinoceros beetle. The impressive mecha can walk with its six legs, blows smoke from its nose and always gets Japanese crowds raddled when it makes an appearance.

The KABUTOM RX-03 is definitely one of the most impressive functional robots unveiled in recent years, especially since it was designed and built by one man, 60-year-old tech-wiz Hitoshi Takahashi. The Japanese engineer started working on his personal giant robot in 1997, as a hobby, and 11 years later, in 2008, he unveiled his creation to all of Japan, during a popular television show. The KABUTOM RX-03 was an instant hit and ever since then, Takahashi and his giant beetle mecha have been performing at events all over the country. We’ve seen big, cool-looking robots from Japan before, like the life-size RX87 Gundam or the Tetsujin 28-go aka Gigantor, but unlike them, this one actually works.

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Are horror films not scary enough for you? Than you might want to try watching them from the Chilly Chair, an offbeat invention that literally raises the hair on your forearms and back to enhance emotion.

You could say Shogo Fukushima’s invention is really hair-raising. The doctoral student who attends the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo wanted to create a device that would induce body hair to stand up, thus potentially intensifying people’s reaction to movies and video games. He came-up with a thing called the Chilly Chair, with weird forearm-rests that use electricity to reproduce the sensation usually activated by feelings of fear and surprise. The square arches of the innovative chair are made up of three layers; from the inside to the outside it contains an insulating dielectric plate, an electrode and a rubber plate. Electricity goes through the electrode polarizing the dielectric plate and attracts the user’s arm hairs making them experience a sensation similar to when picking up clothes charged with static energy. After testing the Chilly Chair on six subjects, Fukushima found they showed stronger reactions to video and audio stimuli.

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Mike Senna, a computer programmer from Orange County, California, has spent the last two and a half years building a real-life Wall-E robot, from scratch. It moves around, rolls and talks, but he doesn’t collect trash.

In 2009, shortly after the movie Wall-E was launched, we featured some photos of cool Wall-E computer case mod, but that feat simply pales in comparison to Mike Senna’s awesome achievement. The robot aficionado spend between 3,200 and 3,800 man hours building his very own version of the adorable Pixar trash-collecting hero. His computer programming skills definitely came in handy, but seeing as there were no Wall-E parts available anywhere on this planet, he had to construct the whole thing from scratch. He worked on it about 25 hours a week, after his day job, but all the hard work certainly paid off.

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You know those movies where an author with writer’s block keeps throwing drafts over his shoulder trying to hit the trash can, but never seems to land one in? Well, that might just be a problem of the past, because someone seems to have invented a smart trash can that targets and catches flying pieces of trash.

It’s amazing what some people can create if they put their minds to it. Take this Japanese guy who goes by “FRP”, who, inspired by a commercial, decided to create his own trash can of the future, able to anticipate where flying trash is going to land and catch it before it hits the ground. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but according to the clever inventor, all you need is a wheeled base integrated with a circuit board and attached to the bottom of a common trashcan, a Kinect camera to monitor the room, and a specially-written program that allows the camera to track incoming garbage and guide the trashcan to catch it before it lands.

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Well, it’s not exactly as advanced as you’re used to seeing in sci-fi movies, but China’s colorful robot-themed restaurant can be a sign of things to come.

They’re probably going to render us extinct one day, so we might as well enjoy their servitude, while it lasts. A unique restaurant, in Harbin, China’s Heilongjiang Province, has 18 different robots doing all kinds of jobs, from ushering in guests to waiting tables and cooking various dishes. All the robots were designed and created by the Harbin Haohai Robot Company. Chief Engineer Liu Hasheng, they invested around 5 million yuan ($790,000) in the restaurant, with each robot costing 200,000 to 300,000 yuan ($31,500 – $47,000). With an average cost per dinner of between $6 and $10, they won’t be recovering their investment anytime soon, but it is great advertisement for what the robot company can create.

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A team from the University of Western Australia have added a bacteria to red wine and managed to create a cotton-like fabric that can be used to make anything from dresses to t-shirts and swimwear.

Although still in the early stages of development, this technique of making clothes from wine could one day become mainstream, at least according to the people who came up with the idea. ‘This project redefines the production of woven materials. ‘By combining art and science knowledge and with a little inventiveness, the ultimate goal will be to produce a bacterial fermented seamless garment that forms without a single stitch,’ lead researcher Gary Cass said. Still, the technology is far from perfect, and there will probably be a long time before people will be wearing casual clothes made from Pinot Noir or Merlot.

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Invented by MIT’s Kelly Dobson, the ScreamBody is an ingenious device that allows you to let out all your rage and frustration without having to worry about it being socially inappropriate.

As a kid, I watched a lot of cartoons where characters would just scream inside a paper bag, because they couldn’t let out their pain at that exact time, and just “unload” all the screaming later. I remember wishing something like that existed in real life. As it turns out, it actually does, and it’s called a ScreamBody. Invented back in the mid 2000’s, by former MIT student Kelly Dobson, this strange-looking piece of equipment is actually a portable space for screaming that contains all of your loudly-expressed emotions and releases them at a later time. Exactly like they did in those cartoons I liked so much.

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Making the impossible possible is just a matter of time, according to Dmitry Itskov and the people involved in his project, called Russia 2045. It’s by that time they hope to recreate a whole new civilization with the help of android avatars into which to transfer humans’ personalities after their bodies die.

It sounds a bit far-fetched, I know, but Russia 2045 is a real project, with a team of real scientists working on a way to make us all immortal. It was founded by Dmitry Itskov, a man who’s been doing media projects, especially on the Internet, for the last 12 years. At one point he became interested in the prolongation of life and the idea of immortality through cybernetic technology. Neither a scientist nor a philosopher, he had no idea how to expand on these ideas to attain the ultimate goal of attaining immortality,  but he used his skills to create a social movement with the goal of connecting scientists, philosophers,visionaries and public figures to work on this common goal. They’ve already started working on androids, or human avatars, that will soon replace us physically, but carry on our spiritual and intellectual legacy.

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If you’re a couch potato who dreams of seeing the beautiful Alps without actually doing any hiking, you can thank technology for the unbelievable experience offered by WebWandern.ch.

Translated as Web Hike, this revolutionary website allows visitors to see the most beautiful sights the Alps have to offer, from the perspective of a hiker. To achieve the desired effect, the project initiators used real hikers to film HD footage of their  mountain treks and uploaded the material to their website. All in all there are 10 stages that cover 130 kilometers of hiking, from Thusis (Switzerland) to Tirano (Italy). It all unfolds at normal speed, so it would take you days to go through the whole thing, but the best part is anyone can just jump through the footage however they like and see the most popular sights of the mountain range in a matter of hours.

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Hugvie, the huggable robotic pillow-phone invented by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, of Osaka University, has a heartbeat and internal vibrators meant to make it seem more human-like as you put your arm around it imagining it’s the person hundreds of miles away.

The concept of enhancing long-distance phone conversations between loved ones isn’t new. Kissinger, the long distance kiss messenger, and the kiss transmission device invented by other Japanese researchers have also tried to make long-distance conversations more personal by making the protagonists feel closer to each other. Hugvie is basically a robotic pillow with a human shape that acts as a port for your mobile phone. It’s got its own heartbeat and internal vibrators that react faster and stronger, depending on the tone of the conversation. It sounds like an interesting device, but a lot of people find it just a little bit creepy.

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Stepping in dog poo is said to bring good luck, but for most people it’s one of the worst things that could happen as they walk through the city. Owners not picking up their pets’ droppings is a global problem, but a Mexican Internet portal has come up with an invention that might just inspire people to do the right thing. It’s called Poo Wifi and it’s pure genius.

Walking through the park trying to avoid every dog poo that comes in your way is an almost impossible task, but it wouldn’t be a problem if owners would just clean up after their pets. So Internet portal Terra has teamed up with ad agency DDB to create something that would motivate people to actually pick up their dogs turds. After some brainstorming, they came up with Poo Wifi, a machine that offers a free wifi connection in exchange for dog poo. So after they’ve picked up the droppings, people can drop the bags in a special box on top of the machine, after which the machine offers a number of minutes of free wifi, depending on the weight of the poo. Obviously, large dog owners will get more free wifi, which makes sense since their dogs’ droppings are the messiest.

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