Retro

Once upon a time, only the coolest (and wealthiest) people had mobile phones, and those phones were the size of a large guinea pig. This magical time was known as the 1980s.

If you pine for the days when acid wash jeans and Phil Collins ruled America, then ThinkGeek's Retro iPhone Case is for you.

Slip your iPhone into this case and lose all pretense to having a sleek, modern telecommunications device. All of a sudden, you have a brick-sized 1980s phone to go with your "Miami Vice" pop-collar jacket and gelled hair.

This honkin' huge case … Read more

Who knew pants could be so controversial? The issue of whether or not Wonder Woman should wear pants has heated up the comic book community in the past. Photographer Adam Jay of SuperHero Photography is having it both ways.

Jay's recent photo shoot features a reimagined Wonder Woman costume that has managed not to offend anybody's comic book geek sensibilities. The costumes were built by Hermes Terceiro and modeled by Sarah Scott (warning: scantily clad pole-dancing photo ahead).

The updated take on the look includes Wonder Woman's classic red, blue, and gold ensemble, but punches it up with a tough, modern feel to the wardrobe.… Read more

Here's an example of life imitating art imitating life.

And -- like the vinyl records masquerading as a digital sound file that we wrote about not long ago -- another example of the sort of real-world-meets-digital-realm mashup our culture seems so fascinated by as we all veer back and forth from the physical to the virtual.

An outfit named ADR Studio has come up with an Instamatic-like camera modeled on the icon for the Instagram app (an icon that was itself modeled on real-world Polaroid cameras and their attendant colorful branding).… Read more

It's good to be reminded sometimes that automated technology solutions can't fix everything. That reminder came recently with the announcement of the impending big-screen return of The Beatles' trippy 1968 animated film, "Yellow Submarine."

A team of specialists at Triage Motion Picture Services and Eque is responsible for the restoration effort. Sure, it's a digital restoration, but that's not all that was involved with bringing it back to life. The team couldn't just load the film into a powerhouse computer, press go, and wait for the remaster to spit itself out.… Read more

"What happens when you weaponize all the horsepower of a full-size steam locomotive?" asks Professor T. Lemetry. "You get the Goliathon. One shot can level a building, down an airship, or turn a man inside out."

I bet it can take down Morlocks, too.

In any case, this is how the Nerf Vulcan should have been designed. Not out of cheap plastic, but awesome copper and brass.

Meet the Goliathon, a heavily modified Vulcan from Etsy vendor T. Lemetry. It's two and a half feet of steampunky goodness. … Read more

Remember when kids used to play stickball, marbles, and hopscotch instead of iPhone games? Well I don't either. But this Kickstarter project wants to revive a medium of simpler times -- with a modern twist.

The Can is a tin can telephone wired for IP phone use. It has a microphone, a speaker, and a jack for your computer, phone, or tablet so you can pretend you're 7 years old and it's 1939 again.

Aside from its patently ridiculous design, alternately listening to and speaking into The Can seems like more fun than just slapping a regular phone to your skull.

As the video below shows, The Can comes in Commander and Mini editions, with the former featuring an indicator light for missed calls. The Mini, meanwhile, jacks into your cell phone with a TRS connector. … Read more

CNET readers and Facebook fans are a creative bunch, and you always blow us away when we ask you to put your talents to the test in one of our artistic challenges.

Here at CNET UK, we recently threw down the gauntlet by asking you what scenes you could Photoshop our cuddly Droidy into, and we promised to post the best pictures right here on the site. As fine-art experts enthusiasts, our reactions to your splendid entries ranged from exclamations of "just sublime!" to "so profound!" to "LOL." To put it simply, they were all brilliant.

Read more of "Your best Droidy Photoshop challenge images," and see more pics, at Crave UK. … Read more

If you've got even one geeky bone in your body, the odds are you have fond memories of something Nintendo related. Whether it's Donkey Kong, the Super NES, Dennis Hopper playing King Koopa or Pokemon cereal, the Big N has bestowed precious childhood memories on every one of us.

So brace your brain for a blast from the past as we don the nostalgia goggles and celebrate the weird and wonderful, as well as all the hits and misses of Nintendo.

Read more of "Nintendo history celebrated in our nostalgia-filled video" at Crave UK. … Read more

ALAMOGORDO, N.M.--A flat plaque in cement on the ground in front of the flagpoles at the New Mexico Museum of Space History marks the final resting place for Ham the Astrochimp. I've brought flowers to spruce the place up a little bit, but it still looks very plain. This isn't quite what I expected. I thought the grave of a space pioneer might have a little more flair.

Earning a real name Ham's name is an acronym for "Holloman Aeromedical," the lab where he and other space chimps were trained. He didn't earn a real name until he successfully returned from orbit. Before that, he was Chimp Number 65.… Read more