It’s one thing to be rescued by a robot like this, but it’s a completely different ballgame to see one of these creepy bots crawling your way when you’re in need of help. Designed by Marcos Nolan, the Elios is a spider-like robot with 10 arms (carried in its belly) designed to lift people from harm’s way and into safety. Optical and biometric sensors ensure Elios keeps on target whereas its rugged shell keeps it from being damaged. I admit, it looks cool as hell, but I’d probably faint if I saw one of these crawling my way. – Louis Ramirez

A Giant Insect Robot Could Save Your Life [Electro Plankton via Gearfuse]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wearables

It may not be quite as exciting as the X-Prize competitions, but NASA’s latest Centennial Challenge looks like it could prove to be fairly consequential in its own right, tasking competitors to build a better astronaut glove, NewScientist reports. Set to go down on May 2nd and 3rd, the challenge will pit six teams against each other, with $250,000 in prize money up for grabs, not to mention the possibility of the winning design actually being put into use in space. From the looks of it, the entrants themselves will also face more than a few challenges, with one test requiring a team member wearing their glove to squeeze a ball inside a pressurized box for 30 minutes — if blood starts dripping out, they’re disqualified. As with its other challenges, however, NASA isn’t expecting to find a winner in its first year, so those that missed out this time ’round may still get a shot at making the cut for next year’s competition

[Photo courtesy of NASA]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Apple fans all over the globe are panting uncontrollably after Samsung’s latest announcement. Samsung will be the first to mass produce 16Gb NAND flash memory. The tech specs from Samsung state the memory support 30MB/s transfer rates and 4-bit error correcting code.Like most of you, I’m not really thinking about the ram tech specs. I’m […]

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Filed under: Media PCs, Peripherals

We’re hearing some fairly bold words from a startup company with a purported Wiimote killer, even though it’s about as far from the gaming realm as it could possibly be. In what’s likely a shameless attempt to link the WavIt 3D Media-PC Remote to the well-regarded Wiimote, ThinkOptics has reportedly “made a pointing system for the computer and TV that makes the Nintendo Wii’s controller look downright primitive.” Realistically, the Wavlt doesn’t look much better than any other overachieving wireless pointing device, but it does hope to interact with TVs and HTPCs in order to make on-screen navigation a bit less painful. Additionally, the creator is looking to incorporate the motion-sensing device into home automation in order to raise and dim lights, crank up the furnace, or mute your youngster’s blaring music from the living room. The controller supposedly utilizes both RF and infrared technologies, and although it can track minute twists, flips, and turns, it does lack both an accelerometer and built-in Bluetooth. Notably, the wand will rely on the 2.4GHz band as well as Zigbee’s 802.15 protocol, and while no firm release date was set, official pricing information should be unveiled shortly. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Holy crap, literally! The Turd Twister is one hell of a unique gadget. Remember those Play-Doh machines back in the day that would pump out spaghetti and other shapes in Play-Doh—well this is pretty much identical, but the dough is of a more home-made variety. Pop the Turd Twister of your choice into the poop chute and begin the fun! Anybody watch Sopranos last night? Yeah, Vito, Jr. could really use one of these. The set of 10 dishwasher safe designs is available for $10. –Travis “AFK Vomiting” Hudson

Product Page [Via Nerd approved]

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