The breakout star of Star Wars: The Last Jedi wasn’t Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico, it was those half-bird-half-pug creatures called Porgs that endeared themselves to Chewbacca, and audiences. So is it any surprise that one of Hot Wheel’s forthcoming San Diego Comic-Con exclusives is a Porg that’s commandeered the…
When you’re flying around in space, where there’s no air or wind resistance, aerodynamics aren’t important. That’s why the Star Trek Borg ship is just a giant cube and still works just fine. But when ships are also visiting planets with atmospheres, aerodynamics do come into play—and apparently neither the Rebels nor…
Master Replicas, makers of some of the finest lightsaber replicas in any galaxy, sadly closed its doors back in 2008. Last year, however, part of its original team opened Master Replicas Group, a new company that’s relaunching with a series of 2001: A Space Odyssey collectibles to start, including a flash drive based…
In the classic Simpsons episode “You Only Move Twice,” after hurling his moccasins out the front door, Hank Scorpio asks Homer if he’s ever seen a guy say goodbye to a shoe. The throwaway joke has sparked countless discussions online about why it’s actually funny, but there’s no debating that Scorpio would have never…
The most effective way to tell your co-workers you don’t want to be bothered is to close your office door. But if you’re stuck in cubicle purgatory, that’s not an option. Instead, try this Scrabble tile rack desk lamp that lets you spell out seven-letter warnings like ‘GO AWAY’, ‘NOT NOW’, or other, blunter messages…
Blindly reaching under your desk to find an available outlet to plug in your dying laptop is never a safe idea—I’ve had it go wrong... it was not pleasant. Reaching for a flashlight is a safer approach, but Ten One Design’s new Stella plug is an even better one. It’s got its own built-in flashlight that only turns on…
Adobe has embraced mobile photo editing with open arms, releasing robust apps like Lightroom for processing and perfecting your images on a phone. It hasn’t been quite as committed when it comes to mobile support for video production, which is why it’s nice to see its four-year-old Premiere Clip app being eclipsed by…
How many times have you accidentally given yourself a papercut after excitedly tearing open a delivery from Amazon? As Japan’s most resourceful knife maker demonstrates, those papercuts could be a lot worse if you spend hours painstakingly turning those cardboard boxes into a razor-sharp chef’s knife.
One of the hardest video effects to fake is slow motion. It requires software to stretch out a clip by creating hundreds of non-existent in-between frames, and the results are often stuttered and unconvincing. But taking advantage of the incredible image-processing potential of deep learning, Nvidia has come up with a…
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round-up of all the shiny things we’ve wanted to spend our savings on recently. This week, we’ve got some very cool Voltron, Star Wars, and Batman Beyond toys heading to San Diego Comic-Con, a lovely little Pokémon pal, and a most impressive Sith Lord. Check it out!
There were rumors of a Playstation 5 and news on the next generation of Xbox, but this E3 was ultimately pretty light on the cool hardware. We knew that was the case given the sheer amount of VR accessories most of us can’t or won’t use any time soon.
The illegal wildlife trade is a big problem around the world, leading some species to go extinct at the hands of humanity. But you don’t have to worry about the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service busting down your door to confiscate this T-rex foot garbage can. Dinosaurs are already extinct, and besides, this trophy is made…
What was the best thing your parents ever built for you? A treehouse? Maybe a go-kart? I’m afraid their efforts pale in comparison to the jet-powered scooter Colin Furze built for his son who finally has a definite answer to the question, “which parent do you love the most?”
Every summer, amusement parks across the country compete to lure visitors with bigger, faster, and more terrifying thrill rides. This year, Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey is hoping that people will actually line up to ride its new Cyborg Cyber Spin that churns stomachs along three different axes.
When October 30th rolls around, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on a memorable, last-minute Halloween costume that will just end up hanging in the back of your closet the rest of the year. A Japanese stationery brand has created a cheap, build-it-yourself cardboard alternative that still looks like you…
The information age has generated far more data than humanity can ever hope to manually process, but with the help of artificial intelligence, that avalanche of data is now revealing itself to be far more useful than we ever thought possible. The omnipresent wireless signals that keep us connected can now be used like…
I always assumed I wasn’t the kind of person who’d be willing to take candy from a baby. A lollipop is easy to resist, but this epic toy box built to look like a miniature Star Wars Sandcrawler? Someone distract Matthew Regonini’s son so I can sneak this wonderful creation into my trunk.
One of the best parts of Solo: A Star Wars Story is Lando Calrissian’s piloting droid, L3-37, who’s been uniquely pieced together and upgraded from parts of other droids. Patrick Stefanski has essentially done the same thing to turn Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant into a desktop version of L3-37 who answers to your…
Playing classic 8-bit side scrollers with a touchscreen is awful, so 8BitDo’s releasing an updated version of its tiny, keychain-sized Zero gamepad with support for the Nintendo Switch, and motion controls, so it should be easier to be perpetually prepared for any retro gaming emergency.
Replicating the complicated muscle structure that allows fish to wiggle their bodies and dart through the water is no easy feat. But not every underwater creature moves that way. Cuttlefish instead use long fins that undulate in waves to propel themselves, which is an approach that robotics maker Festo found…
