It must be nice to be unemployed ? Why, because we’d sit at home and make ridiculously useless, yet super fun things such as this monster Hot Wheels track.

One Hot Wheel car travels over 2000 feet of track and traverses stairs, jumps a ravine (jacuzzi), swirls through an endless array of loopty loops, travels down a side walk, through a back yard and murders a cat.  Okay, so we’re lying about the last part and something tells us that they’re not being entirely honest in this video either.

Take a watch and you’ll immediately notice that there are no continuous shots of the car traveling from one piece of track to the next.  Which leads us to believe that they used the same piece of track, and Hot Wheels accelerators over and over again.  So, sure, we’re sorting of calling them out and what we’d like to see is a video, in one shot that follows the entire length of the track start to finish.  We don’t need the car engaged or anything fancy, just a shred of evidence that proves that it is actually 2000 feet worth of track – with further thought we just realized that’s almost a half of mile.

Nonetheless, the video is for a good cause, as they’re trying to raise money (and awareness) for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.  So if you watched it, liked it, or if it simply made your Friday a bit more promising, toss them a donation.

Mattel ain’t no stranger to awesome advertising. This advert, though, easily takes the cake. While an explanation isn’t needed, it might be worth noting that you can’t actually drive around the loop. However they did install two giant sized children roadside on a remote straight away that is detailed in the video below.

Hot damn Hot Wheels.  Mattel is stuffing a video camera inside the the toy cars that have long stood the test of time, but haven’t seen a significant update since the product’s inception.

Inside the tiny car is a front facing camera that records the action as it drives down the ramp while a micro screen underneath the toy vehicle allows the action to be reviewed instantaneously.  Gimmick or not, this will surely attract tween boys and some girls back to the probably seemingly terminal product.  A cable is included that will allow the footage, which can be recorded at 30 or 60fps, to be transferred to a computer where it can be edited using Mattel’s own Hot Wheel’s video editor.  

Mattel plans to launch the Hot Wheel’s Video Racer this Fall for $60 a pop.

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Mattel is throwing its weight around with a totally unnecessary and hopefully ill-fated Angry Birds plastic play-set that follows the playing model of the computer game – launching birds at a makeshift pig fortress.

But what’s a fun, addictive and terribly repetitive virtual endeavor will get tiring fast. Why pick up plastic birds from across the room and hand assemble the pig fortresses when you can enjoy instant one-click restarts

Not content with just one attempt at monetizing a winning concept, Mattel is also planning an Angry Birds card-based game. How do you turn a physics-based game about throwing birds at pigs into playing cards?

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Update: Mattel has announced the Radica Mindflex Dual game.

At CES 2009 we had the opportunity to stop by the Mattel booth and checkout the hyped Mindflex game.  Jeff gave it a whirl while I grabbed video of him making funny constipated like faces, which I assure you wasn’t the problem and is further evidenced by a not so tasteful joke.  Well, Amazon is now offering the Mindflex game for $99 and it will ship October 1st.

[via i4u]

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Update: Mattel has announced the Radica Mindflex Dual game

The Mindflex from Mattel is one of those toys every adult wants to try. The included headset reads your brain waves and based on your cognitive power it either increases or decreases the built-in fan’s output. The goal of the game? Place the ball through the hoops. The knob on the front of the device controls the location of the fan. Hit the videos for a complete walk through and some solid ‘day 4 CES’ laughs (we had drank a bottle of Jack the night before and just finished an all you can eat buffet).

What is it: The Mattel Barbie B-Nail Printer is just like a regular inkjet printer only it prints images directly onto a fingernail. To keep the print in place a nonproprietary gloss (any nail gloss) must be applied.

Features: Software for managing, printing and importing custom or stock images, built-in camera, finger slot for accurate printing and more.

Availability: Summer 2009

Price: Similar price to a “Barbie Dream House”, which is apparently about $200

The days of mind control are upon us, albeit in games.  Mattel’s latest, the Mind Flex game, tests a user’s concentration by challenging them to place a ball through a number of hoops.  Sounds simple, right?  Actually, there is no game pads, just a brain scanning device.  The user wears the device, and through thought alone has to power a fan that will float the ball through the game’s obstacles.

We’ll try to make our way over to Mattel’s CES booth to get a hands on, but you can expect the product to launch later this year for about $80.

[Telegraph]