The Star Wars franchise is still strong and so it makes sense to still market Star Wars toys even to the younger generation. Uncle Milton Industries will actually unleash a whole line of cool new Star Wars tech toys including Star Wars Optical Command Unit, Star Wars Darth Vader Robotic Arm, Star Wars Jedi Telescope and Star Wars Jedi Projector. More details on the Star Wars site.

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No, you’re not tapping into some “all-powerful force controlling everything,” as Han Solo said in the movies. But you are reaching out with mind power via one of the first mass-market brain-to-computer products. “It’s been a fantasy everyone has had, using The Force,” says Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing.

Mind-control games may be the coming thing: Mattel plans to demonstrate a Mind Flex game (also due this fall), which uses brain-wave activity to move a ball through a tabletop obstacle course, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.

In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere, which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower.

A state of deep concentration is needed to achieve a Force-full effect. “When you concentrate, it activates the training remote,” says Frank Adler of toymaker Uncle Milton Industries, which is creating the Trainer. “There is a flow of air that will move the (ball). You can actually feel like you are in a zone.”

Star Wars sound effects and audio clips emitted from the base unit “cue you in to progress to the next level (from Padawan to Jedi) or when to move the sphere up or down to keep challenging yourself,” Adler says.

“Until today, EEG technology has been designed for rigorous medical and clinical applications with little regard to price (and) ease of use,” says Greg Hyver of NeuroSky, which developed the brain-wave technology for both games. “We are putting this exciting technology into everyone’s living room.”

Source: USA Today

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How to make Star Wars Oragami

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Not only is this Lego Star Wars diorama of the ice world Hoth fun to look at, it’s got some gadgety goodness inside too. Oh, and footprints. Tons of tiny minifig footprints.

As the headline says, the 5′X10′ diorama is comprised of 60,000 Lego bricks. It cost creator Mark Borlase about $3,000 and four years of construction time to complete.

There’s also the 50 LED lights that illuminate the Echo Base hangar and bacta tank with a soothing blue. Motorized AT-AT wenches and a fully operational hanger door top off this gorgeous pile of eye candy.

And according to the block heads over at Brothers Brick the diorama also won the recent “Star Wars building challenge” and was featured in the official LEGO Magazine.

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For those rare occasions where sci-fi geek meets sports freak, the past year introduced perfect holiday gifts allowing that rare mix of top-notch athletic performance and hopeless nerdiness.

Above you see an example of Brunswick’s new Viz-A-Ball Star Wars Edition, cool bowling balls that are ready to plow through pins. These resin balls come with shiny, 360-degree, limited-edition graphics. Sure, you can get Hello Kitty or the Three Stooges, but the Darth Vader and Yoda bowling balls prove that the power to roll a strike is insignificant next to the power of The Force.

For those Imperial officers who occasionally get out for a little fresh air, Bridgestone Golf introduced Star Wars golf bags in Darth Vader and Stormtrooper designs (pictured, below). Even at $500 a pop, good luck finding one of these in stock at the 19th hole’s pro shop.

Finally, Drew Pearson Marketing offers a complete line of Star Wars sports jerseys. In football, basketball and hockey styles (and on the market for a couple years now), they’re still a good idea for parents looking to inspire kids to make the transition from sci-fi movie fantasy to real-world athletic competition.
Even Boba Fett is a better role model than Terrell Owens or Kobe Bryant.

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Star Wars Sled?

Let’s face it, the average overly enthusiastic Star Wars fan is probably more at home in front of his or her favorite trilogy than they are on the slopes. So what to do when one’s friends head out for a delightful day on the mountain? Pack in your Milennium Falcon sled and let the good times roll. Sledding requires almost no physical coordination beyond that which can be developed via video games.

Unfortunately, it looks like someone has dropped the ball on this one as it is not going to be available for another 2-6 weeks through Oh Gizmo. Genius..

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On Thursday, one fan spent $240,000 to get the real thing: the prop that Mark Hamill used in the first two movies in the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

The light saber highlighted several Hollywood memorabilia sold at an auction in Los Angeles by Profiles in History. The auction house said it sold about $3.5 million in memorabilia.

The droid helmet worn by Anthony Daniels to play C-3PO sold for $120,000, and the costume Marlon Brando wore in the “Superman” movie went for $72,000.

The first British edition of “You Only Live Twice” inscribed by Ian Fleming sold for $84,000. Roald Dahl’s handwritten screenplay for the film of the same title sold for $96,000.

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He invented the Segway. He founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) for high school students. His latest project: a revolutionary prosthetic arm.

The “Luke Arm,” named for Luke Skywalker’s prosthetic hand from Star Wars, is a strap-on prosthetic arm invented by DEKA, Kamen’s research firm. It is changing the face of prosthetics.

Kamen was approached by the Department of Defense in 2005 to create an improved prosthetic arm for amputee soldiers, according to Newsweek.

Most prosthetic arms available did not offer fine motor control, opposable thumbs, and other key features that would make them more like a real arm. These prosthetics were more like “a hook at the end of a plastic tube,” Kamen recalls the department official telling him.

The department wanted the improved prosthetic arm in only two years. Kamen took on the challenge.

“This turned out to be an extraordinary opportunity to do some extraordinary technology,” Kamen recounted in Newsweek.

How right he was.

With the Luke Arm, amputee soldiers have more function and adaptability than ever before. The Luke Arm uses “targeted reinnervation,” invented by Dr. Todd Kuiken, which attaches to a persons nerves and decodes signals that the nerves send.

Now, all a person has to do is think about a movement – let’s say reaching for a book. This thought will send signals to the nerve, and then the arm will move.

When you look at these kids, it’s like you give them back their life,” Kuiken told Newsweek.

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has committed $50 million to creating more and better prosthetics, according to Newsweek.

Dean Kamen: Segway

Source: NY Daily News

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Quotes from characters such as Darth Vader, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and C-3PO are included, as well as sound effects including the Lightsaber, R2-D2’s beeps, Chewbacca’s growls, and TIE Fighters flying.

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There are three Leias with the golden bikini as seen in “The Return of the Jedi.” Three laser-wielding Han Solos. Three 2-1 B Medical Droids, as seen briefly in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “The Return of the Jedi.”

“You probably think I’m nuts,” says Wally Boyer, who owns — or, more accurately — holds an estimated 1,500 Star Wars toys.

Boyer’s first son, Jonathan, was born in 1977, and his two other sons, Andrew and Christopher, followed over the next seven years. Star Wars was released in 1977, and its sequels were released in 1980 and 1983.

Only coincidences, to be sure, but the movies provided “something that’s been fun to do with the boys,” Boyer said.

At first, the boys opened and played with the toys.

At some point, perhaps the early ’90s, they started collecting. Sometimes they’d buy from other collectors, other times it was on a ‘we-don’t-have-that’ whim. They tried to pick up three of everything, one for each boy.

The family has Star Wars sheets, pillows, mugs, a footstool.

As owner of Jake’s, Boyer also picked up a life-size Yoda as a result of his Pepsi distributorship.

Collectors have determined how much each type of Star Wars action figures is worth. Most are less than $30, but there are some in the thousands, even one Obi Wan that is apparently worth $19,999.99.

Boyer doesn’t have any of these big-ticket items.

He says it’s often the minor characters that end up being valuable. Nobody wanted them, so not many were made.

Take Sio Bibble, governor of Naboo in the Star Wars prequels. Originally the figure sold for about $5, and it’s worth $35 now. Boyer has only one of them, though, so far.

Boyer’s son Christopher was in a serious car accident six years ago and suffered brain injury. He now has the mental state of a 14- or 15-year-old, Boyer said. Christopher now lives in an adult foster facility in Rochester, but the Star Wars collecting remains a connection with his family, and his youth.

Boyer and his wife, Brenda, were selling some extra toys recently in the former Maggie’s restaurant, which his wife’s family owns.

He says the economy doesn’t put a huge dent on collecting because most people don’t do it for the money. If people don’t buy and sell quickly with the hope that prices will go up next week, prices don’t change all that much.

Not that the money hurts.

Boyer has this collection insured and plans one day to give one of each toy to each of his sons.

“Maybe it’ll be a down payment on a house,” he jokes.

Source – The Free Press

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