Lee Wei Chen, an MA student from the Kingston University, London, has designed an “amusement washing machine” that combines arcade gaming with doing laundry.

Lee Wei, who is originally feom Taiwan, came up with the idea for his wacky invention while thinking of a productive use for the “wasted but enjoyable time” he spent playing video games. The 27-year-old says he realized the skills he had in the virtual world were completely useless in the real world and he decided to find a way to make them useful. That’s how he came up with the amusement washing machine, a contraption that looks like an arcade gaming station with an incorporated washing machine in the lower half. Chen linked the circuitry of the two devices, making the washing cycle dependent on the user’s gaming skills. If the gamer sucks at video games he or she will have to insert more coins in order to complete the cycle.

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Just in case you’ve always wanted a gift that would creep the heck out of your family and friends, but you never really found it, I’m here to tell you your wish has come true. A Japanese company is making incredibly detailed 3D replicas of human faces and selling them as gifts.

REAL-f is a unique company that specializes in 3 Dimensions Photo Forms, which in colloquial terms translates as 3D masks and busts of anyone willing to pay for them. That doesn’t sound weird or impressive at all, but the guys at REAL-f claim their proprietary technology allows them to replicate every detail of the human face, including skin pores, blood vessels and the iris. The Japanese startup first takes photos of the subject from multiple angles, generates a 3D image on the computer and imprints it on vinyl chloride resin stretched over a mold. The result is as impressive as it is unsettling, and words simply don’t do these things justice, just take a look at the photos below…

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Raincatch is a water purification raincoat that turns collected rain water into drinkable water the wearer can enjoy on the go.

Let’s just put it this way, wearing Raincatch in a rainy city like London means you’ll probably never be thirsty again. Sure, in some regions of the world rain water is still clean enough to be drunk as it falls from the sky, but in today’s polluted climate drinking it without purifying it first poses a real risk. But thanks to the invention of two CIID students, Hyeona Yang and Joshua Noble, you’ll be able to enjoy refreshing rain water on the go, without a care in the world.

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No matter how many birthing classes they attend or how many baby books they read, men can never truly experience pregnancy, right girls? Wrong! The Mommy Tummy suit simulates the whole nine months of weight gaining, breast enlargement and baby kicking.

Showcased at the SIGGRAPH 2011 interactive technology conference, the Mommy Tummy caused quite a stir among participants after it was announced it’s main function is to allow men to experience pregnancy. Designed by Takayuki Kosaka, from the Kanagawa Institute of Technology, in Atsugi, Japan, the pregnancy simulator looks a lot like the suits you put on when getting dental X-rays, but in reality it’s a lot more complex. It features a number of pouches that fill with liquid and actuators that simulate a kicking baby, in order to offer a faithful pregnancy experience for guys.

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Safety Shorts is a line of radiation-proof underwear developed by a team of young Austrian students, aged 18 to 23, that’s supposed to protect people from infertility and other medical problems caused by radiation from mobile phones and laptops.

Carry your phone in your pants’ pocket a lot? Than you’re already at risk, at least according to a series of tests that have proven cell phone radiation can be harmful. Luckily, a pair of Safety Shorts is all you need to be safe from serious and irreversible health issues like infertility and impotence. The material used to make these special garments contains silver thread which deflects 99% of the radiation emitted by mobile phones and laptops.

Rico Kogleck, one of the students involved in the project, says he came up with the idea one day, in class, when they were talking about radiation and its harmful effects. He started thinking about ways in which we could protect ourselves and came up with these radiation-proof shorts. He and four of his pals spent a year working on Safety Shorts, and even though they were disappointed a similar fabric had already been implemented in Germany, no one had used it to make boxers.

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Terry LeBleu of Granite Shoals, Texas, is one of the few people who can honestly say he’s not worried about water restrictions in these times of drought, and that’s because he has the Drought Master, a machine that makes water out of air.

The concept of LeBleu’s water-making machine is pretty simple – the Drought Master’s generator sucks in moisture-laden air, condenses it, then exhausts the purified air and captures the water, which is filtered and ready for drinking. “These make pure water,” LeBleu says.  “The water never touches the ground.  It is strictly straight out of the air.  We have oceans of water in the air, in the sky.  All you have to do is pull it out and condense it down.” The clever invention is now on the market, and locals are already using it to beat the severe drought.

All you have to do is plug the Drought Master into an electric outlet and it will take care of the rest. According to its inventor, the machine can produce between 5 to 7 gallons of drinkable water a day, at just 4 cents of electricity cost per gallon. It beats buying bottled water from the supermarket, and LeFleur says his water samples met the standards set up by the Environmental Protection Agency, Association of Analytical Chemists, American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association and the Water Pollution Control Federation. It contains no metals like zinc and copper, nor any coliform bacteria, and Terry says the company that analyzed the water likened it to sterilized distilled water.

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Inventor David Forbes is the proud owner of the world’s first video coat, a gadget/clothing item that allows him to display videos right on his body. Although it’s not exactly a technological breakthrough, the Video Coat scores points for geekiness and originality.

Created for the Burning Man, this wearable LED display is powered by a 12V battery and works by being plugged into an iPod or DVD player. With a resolution of 160×120, it doesn’t offer the clarity of a high definition television, but then again, you can’t really wear an HD TV either, so that makes them even. The coat was built on flex boards and expands on the back and sleeves offering a total body video experience.

The Video Coat is driven by circuit boards located on the wearer’s shoulders and hips and even comes with switches that allow you to tweak the colors. In the presentation video he made, David chose to play The Simpson on his wearable TV, because he thinks “its is the pinnacle of modern television entertainment”.

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One of the most bizarre concepts introduced this year, AutoWed is essentially a wedding vending machine that will get you and your loved one hitched in minutes, for just $1.

Sure, an automated wedding machine pretty much takes all the romance out of the whole deal, but with weddings getting more and more expensive every year, people seem to be welcoming any cheap alternative with open arms. Such was the case with Concept Shed’s latest project, AutoWed. The English company managed to create what can best be described as a wedding vending machine that will do the job quicker and cheaper than a priest, minister, rabbi, or any other religious figure.

It’s part parking meter, part pink Cadillac, part cathedral and part steampunk installation, and the ceremony isn’t exactly on par with what you’ve seen at conventional weddings, but it gets the job done and for just $1. The 8-feet-tall piece of machinery features wedding music and a weird robotic voice that prompts you to press a bunch of keys in order to keep the weeding going, after you’ve inserted the mandatory coins. You start by choosing between a straight, gay or lesbian marriage and a friends forever ceremony, then you input your names and can press 1 for “I do” or 2 for “Escape”. At the end, AutoWed lets you kiss the bride and even dispenses a receipt and two plastic rings to commemorate this special day.

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Tired of waiting for the official release of Apple’s iPhone 5, the guys at TopFruit.com decided to create their own version, from fruits and vegetables.

It’s rumored Apple will release its next generation iPhone this September, but that was just too long a wait for the guys at TopFruit, who decided to create their own smartphone out of what they know best – fresh fruits and vegetables. If this organic version of the iPhone 5 is anything to go by, the real phone will be one sweet piece of hardware, literally.

And in case you were wondering, apples were used in the making of this delicious model.

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American designer Andrew Schneider has used conductive thread to sew photo-voltaic panels together in a Solar Bikini that allows you to charge your favorite gadgets while getting a nice tan.

30-year-old Schneider says ‘I use 40 individual paper-thin flexible, photo-voltaic panels for each bikini. I sew them together over a normal bikini using soft-conductive thread,’ adding that it takes him around 80 hours to painstakingly sew the panels. Every swimsuit is made to measure and costs as much as a conventional designer bikini, $200.

The Solar Bikini allows its wearer to connect any modern gadget via the USB ports sewn into the fabric, meaning you’ll never run out of juice at  the beach, ever again. ‘Anything that you can power or charge through a USB connection you can power and charge using the solar bikini, assuming of course you’re out and about under the sun.’ This ingenious yet fashionable garment doesn’t take away the pleasure of going into the water, all wearers have to do is unplug their gadgets before going in and making sure the USB ports are dry before reconnecting them.

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This revolutionary kiss transmission device is still under development at the Kajimoto Laboratory, at the University of Electro-Communications, and its creators hope it will soon be able to effectively transmit the feeling of a kiss over long distances.

A kiss is really a complex thing, if you think about it, and there are a lot of things to consider in order to truly replicate it using a device. So far, the researchers at the Kajimoto Laboratory have only come up with a gadget that replicates the movement of the tongue. “If you take one device in your mouth and turn it with your tongue, the other device turns in the same way. If you turn it back the other way, then your partner’s turns back the same way, so your partner’s device turns whichever way your own device turns.” says one of the bright minds working on the project.

“It is achieved only by motor rotations, and you control the rotation positions via PC. It is called a bilateral control, and the turn angle information is sent reciprocally by both devices to maintain the same position. Right now the values are handled by one PC, but if a system is put together to handle the values over a network, then it would be easy for this operation to be conducted remotely.” One of the top YouTube comments said it best: Imagine using this over the internet and you hit a lag spike. It stalls for 10 seconds, and then all the motions comes at once and rips your tongue out.

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A group of Japanese scientists have created a doll-like mobile phone they say is designed to make you feel closer to the person you’re talking to. No, this is not a joke…

Japan has been at the forefront of technological research and development for a long time, but some of the things they’ve come up over the years were incredibly weird and creepy. Case in point the latest mobile phone prototype designed by researcher Takashi Minato assisted by a team of scientists. He has created a human-shaped cell phone with a skin-like outer layer that is supposed to help people feel closer to the person they’re communicating with.

The current prototype is slightly larger than the palm of a hand, designed to look like a human and has a soft outer layer that heats and cools in a similar way human skin does. A speaker is installed in the creepy humanoid head of the handheld gadget, and the microphone is located at the bottom, where the feet should be. It also has a light-emitting diode that turns blue when the phone is in use and red when it’s in stand-by mode. Minato and his colleagues hope to add image and voice recognition in the near future.

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They make people look like they’ve been chewing on glow sticks, but the LED smiles created by designers Motoi Ishibashi and Daito Manabe are the new rage in Japan.

Originally created as an experiment, the LED smile is currently used in a commercial for the winter sale of a popular Japanese clothing store, and are quickly becoming one of the most sought-after fashion accessories in Japan. LED smiles are easily fixed to one’s teeth and glow different colors when you smile. Best used in the dark, these unusual gadgets change color wirelessy, through a computer interface.

Although LED smiles aren’t yet available for purchase, Ishibashi and Manabe are currently offering workshops across Japan, teaching people how to create their own.

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The SEGA Corporation has released a wacky toilet prototype, called SEGA Toylet, that lets you play video games with your urine stream. Just when you thought Japanese toilets couldn’t get any weirder, right?

Since the conventional gaming industry is getting pretty crowded these days, Japanese video gaming giant decided to try its luck in a whole new, untapped niche – toilet gaming. It actually isn’t s stupid as it sounds; whether they try to clean the toilet bowl with their stream, or aim it at a certain point, for some reason guys can’t help play with their urine stream, so why not capitalize on that?

The SEGA Toylet features a pressure sensor strategically placed in the public urinal, and a small display that shows the data from the sensor in the form of video games. So far, SEGA has come up with four games for their toilet entertainment system:

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A Ukrainian IT company posted some photos of toys its staff created from various hard disk components, to show off their creativity. Vist officials also added they are very proud of their employees’ ingenuity, but this doesn’t mean they have too much free time on their hands. The toys were created during breaks and in-between creation and testing of company applications.

While they just look like cool metal models, the hard disk toys created by Vist are actually functional. The bird’s neck and legs are mobile, and the cool-looking quad has front and rear suspension and a small engine allows it to roll around.

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