What in the name of all that is good, sacred, and smells of PVC is this? A deer having sex with a trailer hitch? It's just one of the worst things in SkyMall's catalog.

Actually I like it. It goes perfectly with this:

But maybe I have had too much of accelerated wine and liquor:

Head to Urlesque to see the rest of the Best/Worst of Skymall 2008, handpicked by our friend Jessica Amason. [Urlesque]

Today, Nintendo announced that they'd settled a lawsuit with Nyko over the wireless Kama controller. Along with what we're guessing was a sizable check, Nyko agreed to redesign their controller. Here's how they placated Nintendo:

From a Nyko spokesperson:

• Wider shape to fit hands comfortably
• Curved Z button to reduce finger slippage ("Kama side" image shows this)
• Grooves for a better grip
• Rubber battery cover
• New color scheme of C/Z buttons and analog stick

In other words, Nyko made their Kama more visually distinguished (in both textures and colors) from Nintendo's Nunchuk, though none of the controller's fundamental functionality was altered. Under this rubric, I'm pretty sure that we could release our own Wii pending it was covered in variegated, non-slip material.

The new controller has already been distributed to retailers, but we're guessing that you can still pick up the old version at a few spots if you move quickly. [BusinessWire]

We've seen webcam-based augmented reality before, like in NSFW Japanese dating games and the PS3's Eye of Judgment. But in a publicly distributed Mini Cabrio ad? A realtime 3D rendering is actually useful.

What appears to be little more than a black and white advertisement in three recent German automotive magazines becomes a 3D holographic model of the Mini Cabrio through a webcam and the Mini website. Sure, it still takes a good deal of effort on the user's part (they have to go somewhere other than the main ad to really see the ad), but I'd do it for the next year or so before the novelty wears thin. [MediaPost via technabob]

Electronics genius John Maushammer has a new version of his Pong game watch, one that plays Asteroids and can be controlled with a tilt sensor.

Usually, the computer plays automatically & it keeps time. But, it also has a tilt-sensor so you can aim the ship by moving your wrist around. It's not done yet, but it will have buttons for firing and engine-thrust. Maybe mind control will be next ;-)

Seriously, the Tokyo Flash people should really get this thing into mass production. [Boing Boing]

The rise of the machines is happening already: Three people were killed in Japan by an evil foot massage machine. Or maybe the machine wasn't that evil and the people were just thick.

Actually, the foot massage machine wasn't evil at all. Maybe a little bad tempered and with some personal interrelation issues, but it was just doing its job when these three individuals tried to use it to massage their neck and shoulders. The most recent death occurred when a woman strangled herself when her shirt collar was trapped in the machine's rollers. The other two happened in a similar way, so the company issued an statement on TV saying what is obvious: "Don't use the damn foot massage machine on your neck, please." [Japan Probe]