The Geek Church

Here’s the SwineAttack for the iPhone.

Here’s some Iron Man 2 news: It has a new iPhone App and the LG Ally, which has an ad associated with it, will show up soon.

Here’s iPhone App has two keypads for translation.

Here’s the Gboard, which will give you great Gmail shortcuts.

Star Wars Voice will be put on Tom Tom GPS devices.

Novatel MiFi 3G router is experiencing a recall.

Here’s the Nokia CarKit CK-200, see it demonstrated Juha Kankkunen.

Zenithink clones the iPad in China.

Here’s a Portable GameCube.

Here’s a laser jacket with 200 laser diodes.

Here’s a model of the U.S.S. Enterprise that can really fly.

Some scientists have used lasers to create clouds. Weather control next?

If you were to ask an adult gamer who grew up through various generations of console systems about Nintendo’s first true effort in 3D gaming, he’d probably say it was the Virtual Boy console. However, you might be interested to know that Nintendo developed a 3D device that predates the Virtual Boy, which was released over a decade ago in 1995. This device was actually made during the era of the original Famicom from Japan.

In those days, Nintendo created a 3D accessory that was compatible with the Famicom console. It was called the Famicom 3D. It consisted of a pair of LCD shutter glasses hooked up to the console and it would sync with both the left and right eye to make images on the screen a credible 3D gaming experience. However, only a few games were actually developed with Famicom 3D compatibility since the device never gained popularity in Japan.

As a result, Nintendo didn’t risk bringing this accessory to the United States after its unsuccessful run in the land of the rising sun. Furthermore, gamers who actually used the Famicom 3D complained about motion sickness and headaches, which served to make the product’s failure certain in the gaming world. Well, there’s your dose of gaming history for the day, dear readers. Let’s see if Nintendo has learned anything from the failure of the Famicom 3D and the Virtual Boy flop when they launch the upcoming 3DS in the near future.

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There are less conventional methods of eating foods than using kitchen utensils like knifes, forks and spoons. Of course, there was various types of foods that you can eat with your hands. Furthermore, culinary creations made in a blender can be enjoyed through a straw if there’s enough liquid in it and the mixture isn’t too thick. But what about eating food shot directly at your face by a cannon? Apparently, Tyler B. Robinson thought this was a good idea and actually created a cannon that shoots cupcukes. This certainly gives the expression “Playing with your food” a whole new meaning.

Robinson’s cannon is capable of firing cupcukes with 120 pounds of force per square inch. This creation seems to be a personal invention, so it might not be available for purchase at a store or through special order and there’s no current information about price. However, such a device may serve many different real-life appliances if it was ever mass produced. It could start out as a personal entertainment tool in food fights, then become a device for carnival or circus games and finally lead to the development of non-lethal weaponry with food as the ammunition of choice. Nonetheless, with this cupcuke cannon, you can finally shoot your cake and eat it too.

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Armed with a brush and a load of assorted paint, a skilled painter can take a blank canvass or flat surface and transform it into a beautiful work of art. Of course, painting ranges from being a personal hobby to a professional career for novices, students and veterans alike. Artists and art lovers often see beauty in the skill of a painter’s hand, signs of a signature style, displays of imaginative vision and deep expressions of personal emotions and memories. But does that same beauty exist in a creative work when a machine is the painter instead of a person? Decide the answer for yourselves today, dear readers, as we take a look at a self-operating machine designed to create murals.

This machine is called the Facadeprinter. The automated creation is controlled by software and basically functions like an automatic paintball cannon. It was designed to shoot a wall with dots of paint at a rate of two hundred kilometers per hour and its range is about twelve meters. This machine also has the capability to upload SVG images from a USB flash drive and it has a touchscreen that allows the user to overlay work on a photo of the printing area for proper scale size and alignment. Although the user must measure distance of the printing area and enter it into the machine manually, the printing software itself will make the necessary adjustments for correct perspective and ballistic distortion.

Furthermore, the Facadeprinter is able to fire five paintballs per second and the colored pixels left behind are five to ten centimeters in diameter. The machine also allows a person to use a laser display of a full-scale bounding box of the artwork on the printing surface to make sure that it’s aligned in the right position. So, mural paintings are now easily made with this automated device. Personally, I doubt that this Facadeprinter is capable of creating the same imaginative beauty that exists in a hand-made work of art, though.

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One long-time problem with soda is that it eventually loses its fizz and much of its flavor is gone when that happens. This occurrence is usually referred to as “soda going flat”. This can happen in a few hours when a open can or cup of soda is left uncovered and it eventually happens even to soda in liter bottles that sit in a fridge for several days to a week after they’re initially opened and resealed. Now a device has been developed to put the life back into flat soda.

This device is called the Fizz-Gizz. It is a pressure-regulated CO2 dispenser used with two bottle caps and a CO2 cartridge to re-carbonate your soft drink and it can also carbonate other types of drinks too. Apparently, it does the job is less than a minute. In order to use Fizz-Gizz, you first load a CO2 cartridge into the CO2 dispenser, seal your bottle with a Fizz-Gizz cap and squeeze it slightly to clear out excess air before tightening the cap. Then, invert the bottle, put the dispenser’s nozzle into the guidehole in the center of the cap and press the thumb button. After the bubbles have slowed down to a few droplets, shake the bottle well, then agitation will cause the bubbles to dissolve into the liquid thoroughly and the bottle should be sealed tight and secure when you’re done. Thus, you can have your own custom-made, carbonated drink in under a minute.

So, soda enthusiasts rejoice! Now you have the perfect tool for revitalizing your favorite drink when it goes flat. The Fizz-Gizz is currently available for order at $29.99. That’s a reasonable price for getting your own carbonation device and drink mixer. Perhaps this invention is a long-awaited dream come true for the soda lovers among us.

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I hope you are enjoying the series so far. Today, it kicks up a notch as Engels gets some serious orders. (Not much of a spoiler, honest.)

Anyway, I’ve realize that I forgot to update the Index, and I’ll want to do that daily. So if you missed the last few chapters, including the Prologue, you can get caught up.

Anyway, get a load of Chapter 3 after the jump.

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