To celebrate May the Fourth, we took a look at some of our favorite Star Wars toys and gadgets in this week’s Tech for Less. Not only that, we’re giving away one badass lightsaber courtesy of our friends at Saberforge. Check out the video above for a closer look at each pick, and don’t forget to enter below for your chance to win!
LittleBits toys are aimed at giving anyone, regardless of age, the opportunity to dip their toes in building, coding, and modifying their creations. The Droid Inventor Kit follows this same philosophy, with the added benefit of looking suspiciously similar to a certain Astromech Droid by the name of R2D2. With step-by-step instructions from the accompanying app, you’ll have your completed droid in no time. From there you can begin to tinker with different pieces, completing missions, adding skills, and learning all while having fun.
This BB-8 by Sphero, along with the Force Band, is about as close as any of us will ever get to using the force. With the band strapped to your wrist, you can control BB-8, pushing it forward, making turns, and returning to you at your will. Make an obstacle course for it to race through, program custom missions easily with an app, even set it to patrol on their own to ward off any bad guys. Every Jedi deserves a droid buddy, and BB-8 is one of the best (and cutest).
For those of us who prefer using our wheels over our heels, this BB-8 Car Charger makes for a proper road trip companion. If fits in most cupholders, and comes with an adapter for the less common sizes. With two 2.1 amp USB ports, it’s got enough charging power to juice up two tablets simultaneously. Best of all, while you explore the galaxy, it’ll occasionally make Droidspeak with you and swivel its head from side to side to take in the view. BB-8 makes for good company when podcasts just aren’t enough to liven up the trip.
Who doesn’t love a good desk decoration? This lightsaber lamp goes above and beyond that, giving you some serious mood lighting. It comes in Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker saber designs, so choose your side wisely. At 31 inches tall, this lamp definitely isn’t going to go unnoticed. It’s also plenty bright enough to set the stage for a long gaming session, YouTube video, or just on your bedside table.
Saberforge makes some of the most authentic, convincing lightsabers this side of Tatooine, and with a polycarbonate blade and aircraft aluminum, it can withstand a serious beating. These sabers are great for battling, cosplays, and just adding to your collection. They’re completely customizable, too. Using their online saber builder, you can choose your blade length, color, pommel, emitter, and so much more. There’s something extremely satisfying about wielding one against evil (or just your buddies), that words alone cannot express.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.