Oh yes. Some Lego junkies from Hong Kong have gone crazy with over 300,000 bricks and created the Olympic Village - in Lego! The display includes a massive 4,500 minifigures scattered around the display, bring a sense of life to everything. Perhaps the most amazing thing they have built is the Birds Nest Stadium itself, complete with the crazy metalwork on the outside. Inside the stadium there is a football field and is also full with people in the crowds.

Other amazing builds are the famous Water Cube which looks just as good inside as it does from out. They even went ahead and created the smaller places, such as ping pong tables, volleyball court, tennis court, and even roads for the mini cyclists!

I’ve added a gallery bellow of the images that came from the Daily Mail. Unsurprisingly, there is one comment that you would expect:

What about the Lego troops throwing people out of their homes or Lego troops arresting and deporting anyone who mentions Tibet?

- Mickey, Cumbria, 18/8/2008 10:05

You can’t please everyone.

I know I am a heavy sleeper. Once I am off, it takes a loud alarm clock to get me up again. Currently, I have an Alarm which beeps quicker and quicker as it goes along. And it doesn’t work, because I have got used to it. So now I am using my iPhone as an alarm to get me up, which I actually seem to be able to react to. In the extreme cases, I have my computer set to Rick Roll me at any given time. Which is very annoying, and makes you get up.

Gizmodo noticed this cool Alarm Clock over at Yanko Design, which features seperate wristbands that vibrate at a given time to wake you up, whilst making no sound. When you want to snooze it, you can just shake your wrist to make it stop, However, as you snooze more and more, you have to shake it harder to kill the vibration, hopefullly getting you up.

The clock can also be programed so that the wristbands all go off at different times, so nobody gets stuck outside the bathroom while fighting the tiredness.

This month, we have seen many people come up with ideas for suspected releases of new Apple equipment again. Some great (and some pointless) ideas have been spreading through the net as to what could potentially be launched.

I thought I would give you a low-down of the latest breaking rumours circulating the inter-web 2.0 nowadays.

1. iPod touch re-design [Article] - Yes the first rumour is that Apple are going to redesign the iPod touch to match the iPhone by placing a plastic rear cover to the touch. I hope this doesn’t come true as I myself have just purchased an iPod touch. The pros of this would be a reduction in price and less visible scratches but considering one of the reasons for the new iPhone rear was to improve the 3G reception there is no real advantage. Maybe this is the signs to an addition of GPS to the touch.
2. New MacBook [Article] - Now this is one of those rumours that is repeated at every launch date so the question is will the MacBook finally face a re-design?. Well from the suspicious leaked pictures it seems the rumoured MacBook might incorporate a touch screen element and flip into a tablet PC (Mac), for me this would be a wonderful addition. But if this does become reality then Axiotron, the company producing the Modbook, will pretty much be out of business and the MacBook will most probably increase in price. Bad times 
3. iPhone Nano [Article] - Well it seems very unlikely to me but the Daily Mail have reported possibilities of a Pay-as-you-go iPhone nano launched in time for Christmas. One question, what’s the point?.
4. 4GB iPod Shuffle [Article] - I think this is pointless. What would be the reason behind having that much memory for tracks that you would be limited in selecting (no screen). You either have the option of selecting shuffle or skipping through your vast quantity of 4GB. It’s going to take you long time. Well if your a Shuffle fan then I suppose this is maybe for you. Tell me your views.
5. Zune inspired Nano [Article] - A nano shaped Zune, well it could be a possibility. Actually I think it would be a good addition, certainly for watching videos on the nano. But is bigger, better, but will Apple actually steal a design from one of its rival company? Good, but seems very unlikely to me considering the potential slander by the media this could potentially cause.
6. Glass trackpad MacBook [Article] - Sounds cool, but is it practical? Think of the smudges! Anyway this article says the MacBook will incorporate a glass trackpad. It shall be supporting gestures (it better had) and the ideas of a new MacBook with tapered edges from the design of the new MacBook Air and iPhone 3G.

Amazing. The team over at the University of Reading, fronted by Kevin Warwick, a professor who is an expert in the field of robotics, and who brought us the excellent Real Robots series have done it again. This time, it is in the form of a biorobot called “Gordon”, who has a tiny biological brain made from cultured rat neurons. Why is it so special? Warwick’s team are experts in their field, especially regarding artificial intelligence, and this could open up many doorways into how brains work which could help progress the research and development of AI in the future.

But it also opens up to a whole different possibility for research into medical conditions, such as Alzheimer’s Disease. If they can discover how the brain works in the robot, they could develop ways of curing diseases like this which are currently devastating to those who suffer from them.

Interestingly enough, the robot uses a Bluetooth connection to communicate with it’s own “body”, with no control from humans or computers. It does however, require external stimulation for it to function.

Professor Warwick noted some interesting things about the robot while explaining the project

“Within about 24 hours, they start sending out feelers to each other and making connections,” said Warwick.

“Within a week we get some spontaneous firings and brain-like activity” similar to what happens in a normal rat — or human — brain, he added.

“Now we are looking at how best to teach it to behave in certain ways,” explained Warwick.

The great thing about this robot is that it learns from it’s sensors, like if it collides with something, it will learn from this and will help it prevent the same thing happening again. The great thing again is the robots they have developed before also exhibited the same behaviour, using ultra-sound and light sensors to detect where it was and prevent it from driving into things.

My favourite quote from Warwick, which makes “Gordon” eerily “real” in the sense, is this.

Gordon, in fact, has multiple personalities — several MEA “brains” that the scientists can dock into the robot.

“It’s quite funny — you get differences between the brains,” said Warwick. “This one is a bit boisterous and active, while we know another is not going to do what we want it to.”

Kevin Warwick is know for having a couple of silicone chip implants in his arm, which allow computers in buildings to track where he is at any time. Creepy, but he is man enough to go through with it. Keep up the great work, Kevin.

While checking out some of my feeds I noticed this nifty little gadget over at Yanko Design (via CrunchGear) which is a camera designed for those who are visually impaired. What’s nifty about it is that you hold the camera against your head which takes a photo and then converts it to braille, which you can actually feel on your head. If that wasn’t enough, a 3 second clip of sound is recorded so that you can identify each photograph later.

This camera is the brainchild of designer Chueh Lee, who works for Samsung China, and has obviously created a very cool and very helpful product. Chueh further explains the product in more detail:

“Touch Sight is a revolutionary digital camera designed for visually impaired people. Simple features make it easy to use, including a unique feature which records sound for three seconds after pressing the shutter button. The user can then use the sound as reference when reviewing and managing the photos. Touch Sight does not have an LCD but instead has a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet which displays a 3D image by embossing the surface, allowing the user to touch their photo. The sound file and picture document combine to become a touchable photo that is saved in the device and can be uploaded to share with others–and downloaded to other Touch Sight cameras.”

If I don’t see this out there something in the future, then the world is definately damned. The fact that it can be shared to other Touch Sight cameras is also a great idea.

Here is a gallery of the Touch Sight camera, thanks to the images from Yanko Design.

I have been out most of the time today, and while browsing the BBC News site noticed the nice in page links they had recently started putting in articles alsobm work nicely on the iPhone. Well, except for YouTube, which asks for Flash. And yes, there will be some real posts later :D.

The BBC News website is one of my favourite sites, and while there today, noticed that the BBC have recently begun placing in page links in their articles, allowing you to look at Wikipedia entries, YouTube videos, PDF’s from Scribd and more without ever need to leave the page, by using a cool bit of AJAX, much like the image effect we have here on TechRave.

Personally, this makes the BBC News site even more valuable for me - I’m always off searching for stuff on Wikipedia after reading articles - so why not let them do it for you? For now it is only in testing, so you’ll need to find an article that has some links already in it. This one here should do just fine.

I’ve included some images here so you can have a look at how it works.