I don’t know what to make of this – real or fiction – but inventor Jem Stansfield from the show Bang Goes the Theory on BBC climbs the face of a 100′ building using a pair of home made suction gloves crafted from what appears to be a vacuum cleaner and plywood. He’s roped in (of course) so it’s hard to tell where the majority of his weight is being displaced, but the vacuum’s noise seems to imply that it’s adhering him to the building, sort of like when you vacuum between the cushions and clog the hole with fabric.
Of note, he is scaling a BBC building and the show is set to air on July 27th, so it makes for some good preshow buzz.
Miniatures are cool, but retro miniatures are even cooler. The USB Retro Vacuum measures just 8-inch tall, but that doesn’t stop it from sucking up your desk crumbs. Yup, it’s a fully functional vacuum cleaner that draws its power from a USB 2.0 port and can be yours for £7.99 ($13).
I can only imagine what the folks at PETA are saying about this video. As you’ll see, the well paid engineers at iRobot decided to retrofit one of their autonomous vacuums with a hamster, a hamster ball and some sensors. Which ever way the hamster moves so does the vacuum. I don’t hear any vacuum noise, though, leading me to believe that this is just for gimmick and won’t ever come to market. Darn it! I was really looking for another novel way to clean my apartment.