Ever since I was little, my favorite movie has been Star Wars. When LEGO started releasing Star Wars sets almost 20 years ago, it was the first LEGO sets I had bought since I was a kid. It was a way to relive some of my childhood by building ships from my favorite movie. Now, DK Publishing has released Ultimate LEGO Star Wars compiling all the creations released by the LEGO Group.
The more I use wire-free headphones, the more I wonder how I ever used wired ones. The latest pair I had the opportunity to try was the Nuheara IQBuds, a pair of buds that not only fit directly in the ear to play music, but helps enhance voices to help hear better.
I love robots, and anything that can inspire the next generation of developers is something I am a fan of. To this end, WowWee has released their Coji robot, an emoji robot to “learn to code with a smile.”
When The LEGO Movie came out in 2014, one of the lead characters (that stole the show for some) was Batman. A snarky, ego driven Dark Knight was full of fun and humor while still true to the spirit of the 75 year old character. Now, years later, Batman gets his own movie that not only continues the charming cad from The LEGO Movie, but celebrates the history of every iteration of the character.
Everything on the internet these days is about “the cloud.” From hosting servers to files, everything is put up in the cloud, but ultimately it just means you are putting your contents on someone else’s computer somewhere. There are so many services online to host and share files, all of which give basic service for free then charge a monthly fee to get more space. Instead of being chained to a monthly fee with iCloud, Dropbox, Box, etc., there is a simple option to set up your own with the Lima Ultra.
Most people think for LEGO as the bricks that started the plastic building company, but there is a second type of LEGO building referred to as technic, which uses beams and pins to construct the builder’s creations. The Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder’s Guide teaches prospective builders how to make use of the technic pieces to create more technical builds.
For many years people have utilized LEGO parts to create their own stop motion animated films, more commonly referred to as brickfilms. Two notable members of the brickfilm community are David Pagano and David Pickett, and together they wrote The LEGO Animation Book to share their knowledge with those who want to start creating their own.
‘Tis the season to be jolly, and to decorate in accordance with the holidays. Like most things, making your own decorations are more meaningful than store bought ones. And if you are going to make your own decorations, why not build them with LEGO? In that regard, No Starch has published The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book by Chris McVeigh to help decorate the tree.
Most LEGO books on the market either show you creations people have made or are books of instructions to build specific creations. 365 Things to Do with LEGO Bricks is different than most of those books by being a book of ideas of things to build without specific directions of how to build, just giving ideas.
With Apple removing the headphone jack, bluetooth headphones have become popular alternatives to using the required dongle. JLab has introduced their Flex Bluetooth Active Noise Canceling Headphones as an alternative to requiring a dongle or a lightning connector.