Airheads work as a standard MIDI controller, you can connect them to most synthesizers or even a drum machine, so you can play some serious air drums. (Assuming you don’t mind gesticulating wildly when you’re playing your tunes.)

Each Airheads controller uses an array of LEDs paired up with infrared sensors to work its auditory magic.

A starter kit (soldering and assembly required), including a single Airheads controller and all necessary parts and cables is available from MakerSHED for $99.95 (USD). You can check out more videos of Airheads in action over on Flickr.

The projector is called the 3M MPro110 and is one of the tiniest projectors ever made. It measures in at a mere 115mm x 50mm x 22mm (L x W x H) and weighs 152g. Despite the small size, the projector can throw an image of 5-inches to 50-inches and offers a resolution of 640 x 480.

The projector uses LCOS technology and energy efficient LED backlighting. The efficiency of the projector allows the battery to last for 60 minutes of use. 3M doesn’t specify if the battery power is from internal rechargeable batteries or from normal AA or AAA batteries. The projector will be available in December in Hong Kong for HK $3,380 (roughly $400 USD).

3M

The projector is called the 3M MPro110 and is one of the tiniest projectors ever made. It measures in at a mere 115mm x 50mm x 22mm (L x W x H) and weighs 152g. Despite the small size, the projector can throw an image of 5-inches to 50-inches and offers a resolution of 640 x 480.

The projector uses LCOS technology and energy efficient LED backlighting. The efficiency of the projector allows the battery to last for 60 minutes of use. 3M doesn’t specify if the battery power is from internal rechargeable batteries or from normal AA or AAA batteries. The projector will be available in December in Hong Kong for HK $3,380 (roughly $400 USD).

3M

Designed by Adafruit (in collaboration with Jay Silver), Drawdio is an analog synthesizer circuit that straps to any soft-leaded pencil, and lets you crank out electronic sounds while you sketch. The kit takes advantage of the conductive properties of the graphite in the pencil lead, and produces a veritable cacophony of sounds as you put pencil to paper.

So maybe you can’t call those otherworldly bleeps, beeps and squeaks “music”, but with enough practice you might be able to carry a basic tune… or you could give one of these a try the next time you have to fill in all those perfect little circles on your SAT or GMAT exam. I’m sure the test administrator would love that.

Adafruit sells the Drawdio kit for $19.50 (USD), including the circuit board, all necessary hardware and a 2B pencil. You’ll need basic soldering skills to put Drawdio together, so don’t expect it to work without some experience building electronic kits.

And then you think, “Yes, yes… and this Mystical Fire should be in powder form, so I could just sprinkle 1 to 3 packages on any outdoor/indoor wood burning fire, and so I can use it not only for camping and for luring my brother into the fireplace but also as props for Friday night D&D’s. Also, I think they should come in 25 gram sachets. Not 26 grams. 25. Because 25 grams is the right amount to create fires like the one below.”

Finally you think, “If such a Mystical Fire powder should exist, it would be really nice if it sells for like… £1.49 (appx. $2.29 USD). Over at Boy’s Stuff. Man. it sure would be nice if there really was some Mystical Fire powder.”

Here’s where I come in, and say “You there, red flame hater! You crazy psychic! Call me if you begin thinking of the numbers that a winning lottery ticket would have.”

[via boy'sstuff via random good stuff]

While Nanovision is making several models of these diminutive displays, the one I got to try out was the UM-710, which is the most basic of the three models available stateside. While the UM-710 ($129 USD) only works as a secondary monitor, the UM-730 ($169 USD) adds a webcam and microphone, and the UM-740 ($199 USD) ups the ante by adding a touchscreen.

The model I tested came in a high-gloss black plastic that’s reminiscent of the exterior of the Playstation 3. The black model is definitely a bit of a fingerprint magnet, so you might want to check out the white model if you’re anal retentive about those things. Personally, I prefer the black model, as I think it looks cooler on my desktop. (Plus, it’s the only color currently available outside of Korea).

Setup of the Nanovision screen couldn’t be much easier. Just attach the display to the included stand with a simple turn of the shiny chrome thumbscrew, install the included driver software, and plug in the included USB cable between the display and your computer (the display comes with a dual USB connector in case one port doesn’t provide sufficient power). Thanks to the USB 2.0-based connection, you can connect multiple monitors without need for an additional video card. Keep in mind that each display you add will eat up somewhere around 50 to 75 MB of your system memory.

The drivers I tested were a pre-release of the English language version of Nanovisions DisplayLink Core software. I only got to test the Windows version, but OS X support is also supposed to be included. The software installed easily and without much incident on my Dell Latitude laptop, running Windows Vista Pro. The only challenge with the driver was that after installation, it messed with the resolution of my main display, and I had to reboot. After the reboot, all went smoothly, and the mini Mimo display started to work as a mirror of my main screen. A simple tick of the “Extend” option on the included task bar application turned the external display into its own unique desktop. You can decide whether the screen is extended from the left, right, top or bottom of your primary display. For more precision, you can tweak this using the Windows standard multiple monitor properties controls.

When I first connected the display, I was immediately impressed by the sharpness of the 7-inch 800×480 widescreen display, which packs a singnificantly higher pixel density than typical PC monitors. There was a little bit of flicker when I first plugged in the display, but bumping up the backlight control on the side of the display by one or two notches immediately resolved this issue. The photo below doesn’t nearly do justice to the sharp focus of the diminutive screen.

The Mimo displays all feature a pivot feature, which lets you rotate the monitor from landscape to portrait mode with just a simple twist of your wrist. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the display doesn’t auto-sense the pivot. Even though the box says “auto-pivot”, it turns out that you do need to go into the task bar app and set the rotation manually. It’s unclear to me if there is or isn’t a motion sensor inside the screen and if this is a software bug or just bad labeling on the box. Either way, the display worked quite well in either orientation once I figured this out.

I did find that off-axis viewing angles of the screen were quite a bit better in landscape mode than portrait mode, however, so you’ll need to make sure the display is oriented properly if you’re operating in portrait mode for optimal brightness. After playing with both modes, I decided to stick with landscape since I could watch videos or open web pages most efficiently on the screen in that orientation.

A couple of minor things to be aware of with the Mimo. First off, I couldn’t find a way to apply color correction to make the display match my primary screen. While there might be a way to do this with Windows color profiles, I couldn’t figure out a way to make that work. Nanovision should consider including color correction software to make this possible. One other minor issue is the stand. The arm only has a single pivot point, which somewhat limits the angles you can set the display to. Also, if you swing the arm back too far, it’s very top-heavy and can easily tip over. That said, with proper adjustment of the arm, it’s not a big deal. There’s also no cord-control for the small USB cable, so it does interfere a bit with the sleek lines of the monitor.

At first, I wondered how much I’d use a display like this. But after just a few hours with the Mimo, I was hooked. I pawned off all of my Windows Sidebar gadgets, instant messenger windows, and used the display as a holding place for extraneous palettes in Photoshop whenever I worked on larger images. The mini-screen is exceptionally sharp, so it’s even possible to read entire web pages on the display while working on other documents on your larger screen.

Overall, I was really impressed with this pint-size monitor. It took just a couple of minutes to get set up, and it looks really great (especially in landscape mode). While you probably wouldn’t trust the color accuracy of the display for image retouching work, it’s more than capable of handling the secondary display usage that it was designed for. And while I wondered about USB’s ability to handle fast-motion data, I managed to play back full-screen video clips on the display with not the slightest stutter.

If you’ve ever find yourself running out of space on your computer screen, you need one of these. If you just want a cool toy for your desktop, you need one too. I’m already feeling like I can’t live without one, and want to order the touchscreen UM-740 as soon as its available. It’s already made me more productive, and it just looks really damned cool sitting alongside my other monitor. To get your hands on one, head on over to The Gadgeteers, who have worked hard to bring these slick little displays to North America for all of us to enjoy.

This massive R/C black widow spider is designed to be an “educational toy”, but if I had one of these in class when I was a kid, it would have ended me up in the principal’s office for sure.

Created by London’s Natural History Museum, the larger-than-life (appx 12″ long by 10″ wide) mechanical arachnid can creep forward, backwards, left, right, or even spin itself around on a dime. The remote control works from up to 30 feet away, letting you stalk your unwitting victims from around a corner or hiding in their closet.

Ready to unleash havoc? Head on over to UK gadget retailer Play.com and plunk down your £17.99 (appx. $28 USD). Venom not included.

While these pint-size versions of Breakout and Tetris aren’t totally faithful to their arcade counterparts, they only charge a single shiny copper penny to play.

Each mini-machine is actually a piggy bank, which encourage you to deposit coins in exchange for games. Every coin you drop triggers the start of a new game, which is a whole lot more fun than putting your pocket change in the back of a porcine ceramic bank. Check out the video below to see some gameplay action:

These rarities are tough to come by outside of Japan, but the guys over at Strapya World have started to take pre-orders (¥3850 / $39.90 USD) and are willing to ship them worldwide.

Imagine the phone rings when your friends are over for dinner. You saunter on over to your desk, where you proceed to pull this candy apple Batphone out of the drawer and answer the call. Just be sure to end every call with “we’re on our way,” to keep them wondering if you’re living a secret double life as a superhero. Need to make an outbound call to Commissioner Gordon? Just press the button on the face of the phone, and the cover flips open to reveal a push-button dial.

When you’re ready to run out to your garage Bat-Cave for some crime-fighting action, dash on over to this replica of Bruce Wayne’s famous Shakespeare bust, flip open his lid, and activate the switch inside to activate the door to your secret Bat-cave. What, you don’t have a secret door? Then maybe you can plug it into a set of Christmas lights, or maybe your stereo so they turn on when you activate the remote power outlet that’s connected to the Bard’s bust.

The guys over at RED5 sell the Batphone for £50 (appx. $77 USD) and you can find the the remote-control Shakespeare bust over at Red Hot Phones for (holy credit card, Batman!) $312 bucks.