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GravaStar's latest speaker looks like a tiny crawling robot
In addition to playing music, the Supernova Bluetooth speaker doubles as a lantern — while looking like it would have been right at home in the Star Wars prequels.
Green House's lantern runs on salt and water, powers your gadgets via USB
Japanese company Green House Co Ltd has quite an eclectic product portfolio, what with its women-only camcorder and peripherals like a PCI Express interface card with USB 3.0 support. Its latest device falls under another category entirely: the rivetingly named GH-LED10WBW is an LED lantern that runs on just water and salt; no batteries required. The light source provides eight hours of electricity per dose of saline water, and the lantern comes with a dedicated water bag for mixing the solution. The salt / water combo acts as an electrolyte with the magnesium (negative electrode) and carbon (positive electrode) rods inside the lantern. Users can get about 120 hours of power with the Mg rod before they'll need to buy a replacement (the rod is sold separately to begin with). More than just supplying a battery-free source of light, though, the lantern can function as a charger, thanks to a USB port built into the casing. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the GH-LED10WBW will be available by mid-September.
Watching TV together: The seasoned business strategy of Frost Wars
Austin Hice and Carlo Eugster began their professional careers in the film industry, working on television shows and on-camera, live entertainment in Los Angeles. When they decided to quit those jobs and start an independent game development studio in 2011, it wasn't simply to get away from the repetitive hierarchy of Hollywood – it was to fulfill a lifelong passion for gaming and engaging storytelling."Video games seemed like the natural tansition. We've both been avid gamers since we were very, very small," Hice tells Joystiq. "We saw an opportunity to take the experience we got in film and television and establish something new. That's how Lantern got its start."Lantern now has a dozen core staff and is working on its first game, Frost Wars: The Rise of Fatty Sparkles, which will debut at PAX on August 31 in the form of a booth with a four-player demo.Frost Wars is a turn-based strategy, comedy and adventure game planned to launch for iOS, Droid, PC, Mac and eventually Linux. It's set in the Arctic, where Toxi Co., a foreign corporation, interrupts the peaceful life of the Eskimos by drilling the ice and accidentally tapping into an ancient goo that, once released, mutates the native animals. The Eskimos and Toxi Co. employees are then thrown into a vicious war. Fatty Sparkles, for those wondering, isn't on either side; he's the arms-dealing polar bear pulling the strings behind the scenes.%Gallery-163178%
SOE shows off new DCUO Green Lantern content
Say what you will about Sony Online Entertainment, but the company is savvy when it comes to marketing. While interest in Green Lantern is at an all-time high (driven in part by the recent release of the mega-budget comic book movie), SOE is introducing its own Lantern Corps content into DC Universe Online. To that end, we've got some new assets for your perusal, all of them focused around the new Fight for the Light update. Said update brings three new Lantern-themed group combat alerts, Lantern gear, and new light-based powers to DCUO, and you'll want to check out the one-minute trailer after the cut (as well as the new screenshot gallery below). %Gallery-128108%
Joby tempts the argonauts with Switchback headlamp / lantern
Call us crazy, but we're guessing that the Joby you knew last year will look nothing like the Joby that we see this time next year. Once famous for crafting flexible tripods for simple point and shoot cameras, the outfit has branched out quite significantly since. Case in point: the Switchback. Joby's still relying on its flexible mount expertise by including a tripod with this here lighting instrument, but it's the device itself that steals the show. The water resistant Switchback is a two-piece product; there's a headlamp that can be worn around your dome, and it can be shoved into a lantern container for those sit-around-the-campfire moments. The light itself has a central white beam with two power levels, and it's surrounded by a foursome of Cree LEDs that shine blue or red (and can be toggled with a button press). Joby throws a pair of AA batteries in for good measure, and in our testing, we found it sufficient enough for backyard gatherings and the like. The lantern apparatus has a clip on the bottom in order to affix the aforesaid tripod, but in practice we found it fairly simple to tip over when not wrapped around a tree limb. At any rate, it's on sale today for $59.95 for those looking to hit the forests in the near future.%Gallery-105428%
How-to: geek up your pumpkin
BOO! It's Halloween and it's also a Saturday, so let's not hear any pathetic excuses for not carving pumpkins. While we're no experts, we've got a few tips for making your jack-o'-lanterns better looking and more unique.
PiSAT Solar's K-Light boasts a one-to-one charging ratio
It's pretty rare that a portable solar-based device offers much more utility than impressing your friends, but PiSAT Solar's K-Light won't only make you the coolest kid on your block: it might actually prove useful the next time you take a hike or find yourself hanging out in a developing country. In 10 hours of daylight charging the unit gathers up to 20 hours worth of battery power for use in the low-power 8 LED mode, or 10 hours of life if used in 16 LED mode. It's also switchable between flashlight and lantern modes. That should be great for campers, but where the K-Light really "shines" (so to speak) is in places like Africa, where villagers without electricity often use makeshift kerosene lanterns for light at night. K-Light is designed for up to 10 years of full daily use in such a scenario, and PiSAT is working on an adapter to let the lantern's battery also charge a cellphone. At $50 a pop, the barrier to entry isn't incredibly high, and PiSAT is working with the Koinonia Foundation to provide start-up grants of K-Lights to groups of African women to create local businesses selling the lights. One-off purchases are also available now online for us non-entrepreneurial types.
Show and Tell: A Tale of Some Kirbys
When Chrismix sent us pictures of a pink lantern Kirby, we were so bowled over by the cuteness that there was no other option than this: dedicating this week's Show and Tell to the little pink guy. Thus did we set out, scouring the harsh planes of these wild internets in search of custom Kirby swag. Interested in what we found? Take the guided tour here, or jump right into the gallery below.%Gallery-42710% Show and Tell is all about fan stuff, so long as it's Nintendo-related. We love to see your collections, your crafts, your frosted creations, your t-shirts and swag of all sorts.Just snap a few pictures, tell us what's up, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest. Not a handy type, but found something neat? Send us a link instead.
Wireless Outdoor Solar Speaker rocks out on beaches, picnics
It's not like we had anything personal against the 80s style boomboxes that lasted a good half hour or so on eight D-cell batteries, but tagging one along to a day at the beach wound up getting pretty costly in a hurry. Joining the hordes of other eco-friendly and multi-faceted camping / outdoor gear is the Wireless Outdoor Solar Speaker, which is quite likely to be overlooked as a simple thermos at first glance. Atop the canister sits a solar panel that soaks up energy and uses it to pump out tunes through its (understandably weak) five-watt speaker. Additionally, a complimentary wireless (albeit battery-powered) transceiver allows any music source with a 3.5-millimeter output to be beam music to the solar speaker from "up to 150 feet away." Reportedly, the sun-lovin' device will run UK-based chaps £99.95 ($199), but that's assuming you can actually catch it in stock.[Via PopGadget]
Gundam Lantern, 1:1 scale, lights up Taiwan lantern festival
As part of a celebration for the Lantern Festival, a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year, the Taiwanese district of Jiayi put up a 1:1 scale model of the original Gundam in lantern form. Traditionally, an animal lantern is used as the central display, but this year a competition was run and as you can see, the RX-78 Gundam lantern won out. Not that the citizens had any choice in the matter: paper sheets have never looked so formidable. It still does "NOT!" top our Engadget pumpkin though.
USB camping lamp with FM radio
If you're the type who never really disconnects even while shacking up in the woods, this handy USB camping lamp should fit right into your electronic arsenal of must-have campout gear. Although you may not need portable lighting in your Travelodge hotel / tent hybrid, a little backlighting never hurts while staking your place in line for those oh-so-important launch events. Sporting a flashlight beam, lantern mode, FM radio, retractable antenna, and 3.5mm headphone jack, this multi-function device can be powered from any open USB port -- if your laptop is running out of juice, three AAA batteries will also do the trick. While you probably shouldn't expect an awful lot of candle power here, it'll provide a fairly good excuse to bust out your machine in hopes of finding a stray WiFi (or WiMAX) signal, and besides, brightening up your next campout will only set you back $12.[Via Uber-Review]
