When you really start to think about the sheer number of gadgets in the world, it’s amazing they aren’t littering the streets and roadways like cold tech corpses. After all, we keep buying them and them throwing them out to buy another.

But we aren’t here to preach. We’re just impressed by this beautiful reminder of our consumerism in the form of sculpted cardboard gadgets. These are works of art really. They are from British designer Kyle Bean and they are really nicely detailed.

There’s a new trash can in Philadelphia. Several in fact. These brand new solar trash cans are being installed on philly sidewalks and are entirely powered by the sun. The city hopes that you will use them. They can accept close to eight times as much waste as a regular trash can. They go by the name of Big Bellys and they will save the city close to 12 million dollars over 10 years!

The first Big Belly was recently inaugurated by the Mayor at 15th Street and JFK boulevard at JFK Plaza. Over 500 of the units will be installed by July. 210 of those will also feature an additional recycling bin component. Since the compacting bins only have to be emptied 5 times per week (Regular bins which must be emptied 19 times), the city will see huge savings on staff time, fuel costs, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Skyscrapers are literally everywhere. Which means that you have to think about safety in times of danger. During the 9/11 attacks people were jumping out of the World Trade Center and falling to their death. What if they had had a way to at least try to get down safely?

Kevin Stone has designed the Rescue Reel, a device to help people vacate skyscrapers in during just such emergencies. Much like a fishing reel, the device is a simple harness to lower people to the ground, letting the individual plan his own escape. The user would open a small container, which is hooked to an anchor, then the user can slip into a one size fits all harness and use automatically controlled centrifugal braking to manage their descent.

Pixel Qi is showing off its latest line of displays that are more energy efficient compared to your standard LCD display. The screens will feature two modes: A backlit mode with full color saturation and an ePaper mode that will not use the backlight in order to use less energy.

The ePaper mode also makes the display easier to read when in bright sunlight compared to most displays. The image above is of a Pixel Qi display modified to for an Acer Aspire One in ePaper mode, chillin in the sun.

iVisit is working on an application called SeeScan that can help blind people identify everyday objects around them, which we take for granted. The program uses your cameraphone to detect objects using image recognition software, while reading aloud what the phone identifies it as.

There are many practical applications, like telling the difference between denominations of paper money for example. It could certainly make life easier for the blind and may help them speed up some of their activities during their typical day.

RunPee is a useful tool if you truly love movies and have an overactive bladder. RunPee is a movie review site that doesn’t care if the movie sucks or not. It’s not about praising great works of art or panning celluloid crap.

RunPee is all about telling you which scenes are the best parts for you to leave for a few minutes, so you can go pee. Get it? RunPee? From what I hear about Terminator Salvation, you can just get up any old time and you won’t miss much. Feel free to be constipated and read a newspaper or three.

Edmund Dohnert has always had some uncertainty about whether he’s an artist or an engineer. We don’t really care. His works are just plain cool. And yes, they are both art and engineering. Just plain fun to look at and watch.

For instance, the Victor Rat Trap No. 1 pictured above has a knight repeatedly attacking an evil jester in order to save He-Man’s life. The only power source is a simple rat trap on a wooden base. The rat trap’s spring can be pulled all the way back and held, thanks to a cord and roller arrangement attached to a crank shaft.

Despite a weak economy, Flat-panel sets are selling like hot-cakes. And Vizio is in first place among LCD TV manufacturers. The folks at DisplaySearch have some interesting new numbers on the flat-panel TV market, which has surged over the last year.

About 7.2 million flat-panel sets were sold in the first quarter of 2009, which is a 23% increase over the numbers from the first quarter of 2008. The numbers show Vizio’s market share at an impressive 18.9%. Higher-end brands like Sony and Samsung didn’t fare as well during the economic downturn and they saw their sales decrease compared to the same period last year.

Electrical engineering researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a flexible, stretchable OLED that acts like rubber. It doesn’t tear or break when stretched. They produce the material by spraying a layer of carbon nanotubes with a fluoro-rubber compound, which creates a rubbery, conducive material.

At 10-centimeters square, the current monochrome display prototype has a resolution of just 256 pixels and can apparently be folded about 1,000 times with out degrading, falling apart, or tearing. In short, our future may be filled with rubber bouncing balls that have OLED screens.

Giant snakes powering homes? What is this, the Flintstones? Are we to play our non-vinyl granite records with bird beaks? Man, I hope not. But as it turns out, reptiles are a good source of energy. Not real ones. Fake snakes. A company called Checkmate is using these creatures to help provide cheap and clean power for up to 50,000 UK homes within five years.

The company is testing 200m long rubber devices which would be tethered to the sea bed and are designed to swim against the current and produce up to 1MW of power each. The waves cause a bulge to ripple down the length of the snakes and power turbines at the tails.

This awesome mind-controlled wheelchair prototype has been developed at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. As you might expect, it uses an EEG cap worn on the head, a P300 neurophysiological protocol and automated navigation.

It works like this. The user sees a visualization of his surroundings on the screen in front of him and then concentrates on the space where he wants to navigate to. The wheelchair obeys. The mind and the wheelchair are doing all of the work. Mostly the wheelchair. Check out the video below.

Envirobank’s “cash for cans” reverse vending machines hold up to 3000 containers and accept PET (#1),HDPE (#2) and PVC (#3) plastic, brown, clear and green glass and aluminum cans. Deposit your recyclables in these and you’ll get credits for discount shopping.

Pretty nice incentive to recycle your goods huh? It may not give out snacks, but Envirobank claims that their machines cut CO2 emissions, reduce waste disposal and collection costs, and even provide advertising and fund raising opportunities for those who need it.

Vending Machine from Ellie Harrison on Vimeo.
So the other day we saw a vending machine that quenches your thirst during an emergency. The British now have their own vending machine that does one better. It dispenses snacks when the BBC reports bad news about the economy.

Why, we would be fed all day here in the US. I can get behind this kind of machine. The whole deal is actually an art project designed and created by Ellie Harrison as part of her residency at the Plymouth College of Art. The monitor on the right tracks the BBC’s RSS feed, and whenever doom and gloom news stories hit, you get a snack.

As you may or may not know Japan is prone to many an earthquake. Japan’s major cities have an extended underground transportation system. So when a quake happens, people could be potentially trapped for long periods of time and suffer from dehydration.

That’s where these updated vending machines come into play. During an emergency, they’ll give out free drinks. But…Won’t people just turn into A-holes and start fighting over the drinks?

It’s one thing to get lost in a car, a town, a city. It’s something else entirely to get lost in a supermarket while driving a shopping cart. Apparently Grocery stores are more dangerous and confusing than any of us knew. Especially to the elderly. It’s a real concern. They get confused.

One minute you’re pushing your cart by the oatmeal, hitting a few stock boys with your cane, bitching about the government, talkin’ about the good old days when bread was 50 cents, when next thing you know you’re in the frozen food section with a pregnancy test in your 80 year old hand and a fresh fish sticking out of your purse. Wth?