Japanese students may soon welcome a 4-foot-tall humanoid robot that has been designed as an educational tool. The bot is based on ZMP’s e-nuvo Humanoid platform.

If only we could go back in time and continue earning living wages as children. The Junior 35 MPH Classic Corvette, while a 2/3 scale replica of the 1956 Corvette, actually runs on gasoline and features automatic transmission for easy driving. It seats two kid-sized people, and can zoom them around at a maximum speed of 35 miles per hour.

Even if both the driver and passenger are hefty specimens of childhood, the Classic Corvette can support up to 330 pounds—though I’m sure traveling near or at max weight will affect the car’s performance somewhat. With a price of $32,000, the Classic Corvette is definitely beyond the reach of your average kid, and even your average adult, but within the wallet of over-indulgent wealthy parents or financial prodigies who’ve managed to create income streams at a tender age.

If only I was small enough to fit into this thing. Ah, but such toys are best left to the future of this world. As an educational tool, nothing like a fancy car teaches the attention—good or bad—notable possessions bring. Again, the Junior 35 MPH Corvette retails for $32,000, from hammacher.com.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

At the Pacific Pinball Expo in San Rafael, players of all ages can try their hands at nearly 400 different pinball machines. The expo runs through the weekend at the Marin County Civic Center.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN RAFAEL, California–You might not think of pinball as an educational tool, but to some devotees of the age-old arcade favorite, that’s exactly what they can be.

That’s because pinball machines have been around for decades, and often have themes representative of the era in which they were built. And this weekend, visitors to the Pacific Pinball Expo here, an event billed as the “world’s largest” pinball show, can see history on display in bright lights and enhanced with familiar bells and whistles, things like the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the first man on the moon, contemporary music from the 1950s and much more.

At the expo, which opened Friday at the Marin County Civic Center here (admission is $25 for adults and $15 for kids 12 and under), visitors can see more than 350 machines from as early as the 1920s, and with names like “Wild West,” “Quartette,” “Dragonette, “4-Belles” and much more.

And the mission statement of the Pacific Pinball Museum, which is behind the expo, is as follows: “To inspire an interest in science, art and history through pinball and to preserve and promote this important part of American culture.”

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Originally posted at Geek Gestalt