Star Wars: Rogue One As Told By LEGO [Video]

Disney today debuted Rogue One: As Told By LEGO, the second episode of its digital series created in collaboration with LEGO. The charming stop-motion animation video tackles the Lucasfilm narrative of The Battle of Scarif – in just under three minutes. Jyn Erso and her team of Rebels attempt to steal the plans to destroy the Death Star.

This Star Wars-themed episode goes inside the imagination of young Billy, who uses a “briefcase” as the Imperial base on the tropical planet of Scarif to recreate the Star Wars world in his bedroom and bring to life his own epic stories.

[Disney | LEGO Star Wars Death Star 75159]


Lost in the Desert [Comic]

No food, no water, things just couldn’t get worse for us…

desert

Just love how kids can often turn a mundane object into a whole world of fantasy. In this case, the object in question might leave the parents a little infuriated considering that they’ll have to clean the both kid and part of the room as well. Kids will be kids, and we can’t blame them for using their imagination because only good things can come from it in the long run.

A comic by Josh Mecouch of Formal Sweatpants.

[Source: Formal Sweatpants | Like “Formal Sweatpants” on Facebook]

April Fool’s Day 2017 Falls Flat

April Fool’s Day falling at the weekend hasn’t stopped Internet giants coming up with a host of pranks and “fake news” that at least have a playful element. To be honest, though, the major company offerings seem a little lame this year, with the attempts to market real products more brazen than usual.

As usual, Google leads the way with a barrage of bogus stories, though perhaps the most fun is more of a (slightly early) Easter Egg. Just as it did a couple of years back, Google has turned its map app into a video game, though this time it’s Ms. Pac-Man rather than her male counterpart. The game uses real-world street layouts as a game map, though whether you can play in your own location appears to depend on your system and area.

Google’s also put together some rather underwhelming “I’m Feeling Woof” and “I’m Feeling Meow” options for its iOS app, along with a “Google Play for Pets” on Android.

Amazon is also getting in on the pet theme with a spoof “Petlexa” that, predictably enough, claims to be an option for dogs and cats to use the Echo to play games and order pet food.

Probably the best Google offering is a supposed service where a team of workers come to your home with a variety of measures to make sure your senses of taste, touch and smell are stimulated while your eyes and ears are enjoying virtual reality technology.

Several companies have gone for supposed wearables technology, though they also seem quite half-hearted, perhaps because so much genuinely mindblowing tech is already a reality. Lyft claims to have produced a glove that automatically orders a car when you give a thumbs-up, while T-Mobile came up with an internet-connected Onesie because, you know, they have a handset called the One.

IKEA chucked in some social commentary with a Facebook post claiming its Smaland in-store playgrounds would be replaced with sitting pods and tablets (pictured) to reflect the changing nature of childrens’ play time. Judging by responses to the post, this proved all too plausible.

Hulu claimed to have created Hu, a special version of the streaming service for users with a short attention span. It supposedly offers eight second “short cuts” of TV episodes that contain all the key points and gags. Unfortunately most of the clips are only viewable if you sign up to a free trial of the real Hulu.

Tinder took the prize for worst punchline, albeit cheating by delivering a day early, promising to stream a date on Facebook Live. A mere 55 people marked themselves as “attending” the live broadcast which, as you may have guessed, turned out to be a piece middle Eastern fruit sat on a table.

One of the more interesting appearances isn’t so much an April Fool as an artistic experiment. Reddit has launched a section that’s simply a large grid where any registered user can place or change a colored pixel once every ten minutes (slowed down from five at launch). It’s led to some intriguing attempts at collaboration and at the time of writing the image was dominated by some religious commentary, a Romanian flag, and both Luigi and the Reddit logo in states of visible arousal.

And as usual, there’s always somebody who went too far. A mattress company that we won’t give the benefit of naming decided the best bet would be to mock internet culture with “the bed of your memes”, namely the Harambed, covered in the mock fur of a certain Cincinnati Zoo gorilla.

WANT: Bicycle Horn of Gondor

If you think the small horn on your bycicle doesn’t attrack enough attention, be sure to get one of those bicycle horns from Gondor!

Meet the Bicycle Horn of Gondor (also known as the Bicycle Horn of Boromir or the Great Bicycle Horn). Fashioned after the horn carried by the eldest sons of the Stewards of Gondor throughout the ages, the Bicycle Horn of Gondor can be quickly clamped onto handlebars from 19-26mm with no tools required. Give it a gentle squeeze to release a massive blast whenever you are in need of something whether it be a dedicated bike lane or assistance in defending Hobbits from the Orcs and Uruk-hai of Saruman.

[Bicycle Horn of Gondor]

Release the Kraken in Yourself With the Tentacuddle Wrap!

Thanks to the folks from Thinkgeek, you can now stay warm while looking like Cthulhu with the Tentacuddle wrap! Screw being a mermaid – we want tentacles!

If you want one of these Tentacuddle Wraps, you’d better get kraken. We have very limited quantities available since each of these is handmade. We source these from an independent crafter we found in R’lyeh who says he knits when he can’t sleep. The center tentacle (or arm, depending on the species you’ve chosen to represent) hugs your body; the outer ones just provide additional awesome. Curl one around your drink to keep it handy. Curl another around your significant other. Honestly, it’d be madness not to get one.

[Tentacuddle Wrap]

Google Launches Google Gnome Smart Yard Device [Video]

Yep, tomorrow is April 1st. Good one, Google.

Google Gnome is like having a tiny, little meteorologist at your beck and call. Ask Gnome all kinds of questions, like: “what’s the difference between cirrocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds”, “why is humidity the worst”, and, for windswept hair in summertime photo shoots, “which way is the wind blowing”?

[Google]