On display at Maker Faire 2009 , Interactivation is a whimsical, slightly non-sensical cross between a six-way collaborative music machine and a Tesla coil , producing improvised sounds and scientific trickery from the same machine. Interactivation was created by a group called Lightning Temple, who want to use sound vibrations to promote holistic healing or something like that. Great. But it’s the tech I’m more interested in.

Of all the ridiculous things one can see at the Maker Faire , the Puppy Mover Monorail might take the cake. The scary thing about the Puppy Monorail is that it has managed to evolve over the years. The project started out as a modest 3 car train, but now has expanded to a WHOPPING five cars (FIVE!!!). Still, until I see some real puppies moving 10 feet down that squiggly track, I’m not sold. Also, one of the train cars should really be a milk bowl. [ Puppy Mover Monorail ]

If you, too, want to start making Hollywood caliber videos like our man Adam Frucci , this $14 DIY video camera stabilizer project we found over at Lifehacker today will help. Now you just need to work on being funny. [ MAKE (PDF) via Lifehacker ]

If watching the N97crawl out of its Espoo-designed packagingjust isn’t enough for one day, how’s about this? An unlocked SamsungOmniaHD(or i8910, if we’rebeing proper) has found its way into the ever-loving hands of one mareskino, …

Microsoft “guru” Paul Thurott says theZune HDlaunches on September 5. Mind you, this info comes fresh from the Zune forums, so we’ll slap a rumor on it for now with the caveat that itmatches our …

When we had the downright magnificent opportunity to toy with Philips’ latest PMP line here in the States, we immediately noticed that the GoGear Opus stood out among the rest. The crew over at TrustedReviews recently spent some quality time with the 8GB version of that very unit, and while they found the audio quality to be “excellent,” they seemed rather disappointed — if not irked — by everything else in the package. For starters, the whole solution just felt boring, with critics noting that its biggest problem was a lack of “excitement.” Granted, none of this would matter at a rock-bottom price point, but for $100, there’s an awful lot of competition. As we found during our short time with the player, these folks also noticed that the user interface was simply “old-fashioned,” and that video playback was nothing to write home about. The bottom line?

Look, we fully understand that September 5th is a long ways out, but don’t think for a second that Microsoft isn’t inking every last detail of its Zune HD launch in stone. That said, Windows expert and all-around good guy Paul Thurrott has been “told” that this very player will ship exactly on the fifth day of the ninth month of this year. Needless to say, that jibes with Microsoft’s official line (” this fall “), but sadly, we’ve no other information to go on at the moment. In other words, feel free to pencil this one in, but keep that eraser handy — cool? [Via Zune Boards , thanks Joel] Filed under: Portable Audio , Portable Video Microsoft’s Zune HD shipping on September 5th? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 17:13:00 EST

Microsoft “guru” Paul Thurott says the Zune HD launches on September 5. Mind you, this info comes fresh from the Zune forums, so we’ll slap a rumor on it for now with the caveat that it matches our earlier post about a September launch window. [ Zune Forums - Thanks Joel]

In the tradition of the Atari ring comes this gold Optimus Prime ring from deviantartist =Dans-Magic . It’s the perfect gift for that special someone. That same special someone who’s willing to wait hours and hours in line with you at a premiere so you can go into the theater to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and ogle Megan Fox half-naked on a motorcycle. [ Geekologie ]

Look, LED light bulbs are fanciful, great for Ma Earth and a fine addition to any home, barber shop or underground fight club. But let’s be honest — even the guy that bikes through blizzards to get to work and wears garb that he grew in his basement isn’t apt to shell out $120 a pop to have what’s likely the most efficient light bulb American dollars can buy. Enter Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester, who has helped discover a process which could morph a traditional incandescent light bulb into a beacon of burning light without using nearly as much energy as before. In fact, his usage of the femtosecond laser pulse — which creates a “unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament” — could enable a bulb to increase output efficiency in order to emit 100-watts worth of light while sucking down less than 60-watts of power.