Here's a custom project where a guy made a hot air balloon shaped like Darth Vader's head. The article about it is somewhat light on details but it does say they sent a 3D object file to the hot air balloon manufacturers�and then made custom modifications once they received the final balloon.

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Here is an interesting article about an inventor from England who has created a hoverdrone. It is basically a cross between a hovercraft and a helicopter which looks like a flying saucer. It's shaped like a bell with the rotating blade above the bellshape. The air is forced down around the sides of the bell which I assume causes lift. This thing looks like the hover drones from the Dark Angel TV series. The real question is can they scale this thing up so it can carry a human?

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One of the most emailed photos on Yahoo today is this photo of a giant strawberry shaped cake. Apparently they made it in the Philippines and it won the Guiness World Record for being the largest fruit shortcake. The woman is cutting the cake with a sword. It doesn't list what the cake is made out of on the caption for the photo howerver.

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Here is a pretty bizarre demonstration of a starfish shaped robot that generates it's own walking algorythm. Apparently the robot gets a sense of itself and then uses that to 'walk'. Near the end of the video they damage the robot and it is still able to walk around based on the new modal it generates. Or something.

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Here's a jetski like watercraft which is complete covered and shaped like a dolphin. It can only submerge up to two feet but it can do rolls and dives within that two feet. Additionally they claim it can jump up to 10 feet out of the water and is powered by a car size 300 hp engine. The cockpit glass of the watercraft is from an F-18 and is about half an inch think which lets it withstand it hitting the water. In the photo on the main site for the watercraft it looks to have two seats in it but in the video it seems like it only has one seat.

Check out the video of the Dolphin jetski watercraft below or click over and view it on the host site (plus additional videos).

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Here is a pretty cool do it yourself project that turns an optical mouse into kind of a reverse trackball. Basically it is an optical mouse shaped like a piece of soap that is in an elastic/silk/polyester bag. You can rotate the mouse inside the bag like it was a wet bar of soap. You can also move the fabric of the bag with your thumb over the optical sensor causing the mouse cursor to move around. The video itself explains it much better including how make one for yourself. It seems like it works pretty well from watching the people in the video play games and navigate windows with it.

Watch the SOAP like interface device video below or click over and view it on the host site.

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Here is a video which is taken in time lapse (or at least the video is sped up) of a hot air balloon race which happened in Reno recently. There are all kinds of different hot air balloon shapes in the video even though the majority are your regular hot air balloons. To name a few of the irregularly shaped balloons I see a cow, a bee, an engle, Noah's Ark, Jesus, a stage coach, and what looks like a teddy bear. I believe the eagle was actually a spotter balloon as it takes off and lands before the other ones but I really have no idea. I assume a lot of these balloons are corporate sponsored.

Check out the hot air balloon video below or click over and view it on the host site.

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This video features a 'Manta Ray' which appears to be a cross between waterskiing, jetskiing, and parasailing. There is an inflatable wing shaped 'Manta Ray' which is pulled by a waterskiing boat. The Manta Ray is shaped with 'wings' on either side of where the rider stands in it. The wings catch air and it lifts off from the water so it is flying like a kite behind the ski boat. The disclaimers on the video are pretty funny as they state something to the effect that the people in the video are professionals and riding the Manta Ray is tough. It goes on to say that you shouldn't fly it higher than you are willing to fall. All the crazy 'sports' come out of Australia don't they?

Check out the video of the flying Manta Ray jetski waterski boat thing below or click over and watch it on the host site.

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We're one step closer to�a Futurama future! This video has a group of scientists from Hubo Labs working on a robot version of Einstein. I'm not sure what their overall goal with the project is other than maybe creating a robot tour guide or robot grade school history/science lesson. The head of the robot is a human shaped latex head of Einstein while the rest of the robot is your generic Japanese looking robot. The head and face of Einstein has facial expressions and 'talks' (though I assume it is pre-recorded). The head itself looks pretty good but it would have probably looked better had it been on a human sized body and not a three foot tall robot body.

Watch the full video of the walking talking robot with an Einstein head below or click over and view it on the host site.

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Over on Yahoo one of the most emailed photos right now is this picture of a bionic dolphin. Apparently the submergable is built to look like a dolphin and can travel at 40 mph on the surface and 20 mph underwater. It can hold two people as well but it doesn't say how long it can stay under water or what the battery life on it is. If you ask me it looks like they need to add a windshield wiper because the window is all fogged up and they probably can't even see out of there. It also looks like that to hold two people they would have to be laying down on top of each other.

Go check out the full size photo of the bionic dolphin for yourself.

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