Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular dosage of all things merchandise. This week, we’ve got claws out for a very cool Iron Spider figure, Lego’s descent into chibi-figurine madness continues, and Overwatch’s premiere edgelord slinks into action figure form for the first time. Hide those wallets, the toys are here!
As you raced through your locker combination four or five times a day during high school, did you ever stop to wonder how those seemingly random rotations actually worked to protect your lunch and textbooks? The lock’s mysterious inner workings were always hidden away under a metal case, but this clear plastic replica…
One of the many inconveniences that doomed wearable products like Google Glass and Snap’s Spectacles was the need to charge them every night. Streaming video and data requires a lot of power, and that takes a tremendous toll on a tiny battery. But engineers at the University of Washington say they’ve found a way to …
Before Westworld’s Dr. Ford and Bernard were entertaining us with their impressive cyborg cowboys, Simone Giertz was delighting the internet with her equally unimpressive and catastrophic robotic creations. So what happens when Giertz tries her hand at building a Westworld automaton? Let’s just say season two is going…
Are you a billionaire suffering from wrist cramps brought on by the endless stacks of checks you need to endorse? A two-dollar rubber stamp is one solution, but more befitting of your fiduciary status could be Jaquet Droz’s Signing Machine, which uses sophisticated clockwork mechanisms to flawlessly recreate your…
If you’re a gamer who doesn’t want to haul a PC with you on vacation, you could book your next trip to Panama City where the local Hilton has packed a ridiculously customized hotel room full of high-end gaming gear and accessories. The beanbag chairs, VR goggles, and racing seat all make sense to me, but why did the…
If, for you, Halloween is less about trying to score free candy, and more about terrifying every last adult and child that crosses your path, then a company called VFX Creates has the perfect prank for you. What looks like an empty (suspiciously blood-splattered) box breaks open to send a screaming, heart…
With millions of people uploading thousands of hours of video every day, your content needs to be pretty unique if you want to stand out on YouTube. For Steve1989MREInfo, that involves filming himself eating old army rations—extremely old army rations—and subjecting his intestines to century-old torture.
Pipe bending machines make short work of twisting and shaping metal tubes into everything from car exhausts to trombones. Yoshihito Isogawa’s pipe cleaner bending robot works essentially the same way, although it’s more of an exercise in pushing Lego to its functional limits, as opposed to filling an automated void in…
If you haven’t had a chance to check out Netflix’s reboot of the campy ‘60s scifi classic, Lost in Space, you might want to avoid this spoiler-packed look at some of the new series’ visual effects. But this behind-the-scenes is a great example of how far VFX has come—and how a low-budget scifi show doesn’t necessarily…
Swapping ion engines for an electric drivetrain, Nova Scotia’s Allan Carver built a battery-powered replica of a TIE Fighter that can hit a top speed of six miles per hour when piloted using an RC remote. But at roughly one-third the size of the movie version, the ship is also big enough to accommodate a pilot on…
Lots of fans walk out of superhero movies wishing they were Wonder Woman or Iron Man, but does the same thing happen with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or Jurassic World? Dino cosplay is apparently live, well, and not at all concerned with anatomical accuracy, as these new inflatable thunder lizard costumes reveal.
You might think the most dangerous part of a roll of plastic wrap is the metal cutting blade on the package, but another hazard lurks within the roll itself. After turning aluminum foil into an functional blade, Japan’s most talented knife maker has now demonstrated how a roll of regular food wrap can be hardened,…
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's weekly roundup of the nifty little tchotchkes tempting our wallets lately. This week: Lego rides its chibi-style figurines all the way to the future, Hot Toys unleashes its take on a very beardy Captain America, and a weirdly cute Deadpool. Take a look!
Star Wars was the first major franchise that Lego licensed for a series of sets that went on to become a massive success for the company. That was in 1999, however—six years after Jurassic Park originally hit theaters. But now that the movie is celebrating its 25th anniversary, Lego is righting a terrible wrong and…
Growing up in the ‘80s, I assumed I was part of the generation that had the best kids’ toys: G.I. Joe, Transformers, Voltron. But after discovering this flawless miniature Volkswagen Camper Van that can actually be driven by a couple of toddlers, I’m genuinely envious of four-year-olds.
The most common types of 3D printing involve either extruding melted plastic or using a laser to solidify tiny particles, layer by layer, to slowly build up a solid object. But researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found a way to radically change that process by 3D…
The Flintstones, a cartoon about life in the Stone Age, has just surpassed The Jetsons, a cartoon about life in the distant future, when it comes to technological innovation. Researchers have successfully trained artificial intelligence to generate new clips of the prehistoric animated series based on nothing but…
Take a moment to think of a Jeff Goldblum role you absolutely hate. Having a hard time coming up with one? That’s because bad Goldblum performances don’t exist. The man is an intergalactic treasure, and he can even make awkward pauses entertaining, as this four-minute highlight reel of random Goldblum noises proves.
