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Holy Yoda Holograms, Batman! Star Wars Holographic Chess Just Left the Millennium Falcon and Can Be in Your House. For realz!

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If you’ve got it in a digital format, you can see it in a 3D holographic experience in your home with the Holus. Your coolness factor will go up by 12 parsecs.

For my readers that are my real life friends I’ve known for years – you’ve heard me joke about wanting the next gizmo to come out with Yoda Holograms. The Holus, a Kickstarter campaign from Vancouver, Canada, is bringing us closer to the magic of 1977, when kids and grown-ups around the world saw R2-D2 beating Chewbacca at holographic chess… and of course, Princess Leia beaming out of R2 as a hologram – all of it was beyond magical, and we were just seeing it in 2D the whole time. This campaign ends in a week and has well exceeded its funding goal.

Their goal is not just to deliver a hologram that says, “This is our most desperate hour. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!” No – their goal is reflected in their company name – to humanize technology. There are a ton of applications for this technology, especially in education. Kids are already blitzed by their iPads and other flickering gizmos. They can experience not just games in 3D, but perhaps a walk through of Auschwitz or a jungle in India, where their environment looks like environments do in real life – in 3D, and without glasses or headaches after the show.

Check out the video below for an insight on how other tech geeks at CES enjoyed engaging with this in person.

You can follow Humanizing Technology on Facebook, Twitter. and their website.

That smiling person on the other side of the 3D action could be you!

That smiling person on the other side of the 3D action could be you!

These Twist LED Smart Bulbs Will Rock You. For Real.

Screen Shot 2015-06-25 at 8.53.05 PMThis may just be the next revolution in smart-home gadgetry and lighting. This brilliantly designed bulb does a lot of cool stuff. It’s LED, not CFL, so not only are you safe from mercury vapor poisoning if you drop one, these babies are simply far more durable than compact fluorescents and they don’t tend to spontaneously burn out the way CFL’s are prone to do in some outlets. No – this new bulb, the Twist, is not simply a bulb. It is also a speaker. Not just a speaker – it’s AirPlay ready. And for you Android geeks that know nothing of Apple, AirPlay is Apple’s super easy technology for streaming from your iOS device to HDTVs – well, now you can do that to these bulbs.

Wait – there’s more. These smart bulbs connect to your phone so they know what time of the day it is. They are bluish-white in the morning and give a warm glow in the evening. Why? Twist LEDs mimic the sun’s patterns, so that waking up, falling asleep, and everything in between is more natural.

You can use these bulbs all over your house for light, then rock the casbah when you’re doing spring cleaning. These are things you never thought would go together. The vibration of a music speaker would be too much for incandescent and CFL bulbs – but LED’s were made for this… they just didn’t know it until now.

Oh – and you don’t have to clamor for your iPhone or iPad every time you need to turn on a light or play music – there’s a manual hardware dial switch as well – it’s beautiful in its simplicity. The form factor will allow you to put it the Twist in just about any lamp that would accommodate a standard incandescent bulb.

You can follow Twist on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and their website.

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