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Remember how Google's Project Glass wowed basically everyone who attended the recently concluded Google I/O? Well, someone was inspired by Project Glass and decided to do something about it using his own hands. Will Powell decided to cobble together an application which is capable of delivering translated subtitles in real time, and in the YouTube video that you see above, it allowed Will to carry out a conversation with his sister, Elizabeth, with the former speaking in English while the latter's tongue wagging to the nuances of the Spanish language.

What could be better than the solar system set to music in a near-perpetual homage to Bach? Little, but a three-movement choral suite inspired by Carl Sagan might be it - a magnificent mashup of Sagan's timeless words set to harmonizing voices and an awe-inspiring montage of space exploration footage. Here's to cosmic goosebumps, courtesy of Canadian composer and teacher Kenley Kristofferson.

"We thought ten people would care; instead a million people read our Storage Pod 1.0 blog post where we open sourced the Backblaze Storage Pod design and introduced the world's most cost-efficient way to store big data. The interest grew when we published our Petabytes on a Budget: Revealing More Secrets blog post that announced Storage Pod 2.0, which doubled the amount of storage and reduced the price. Since then several companies have built businesses selling Storage Pods inspired by Backblaze to hundreds of organizations around the world who are storing hundreds of petabytes of data on their own Storage Pods. Today we introduce Backblaze Storage Pod 3.0 which stores more data, costs less, is more reliable, and is easier to service."

"This system of burners, pipes, flasks and gauges looks like it came straight out of a laboratory. In fact, though, it's a prototype coffee machine-and it could satisfy the technical desires of even the biggest coffee nerd. The Laboratory Espresso Machine was dreamt up by israeli designers David Budzik and Adi Schlesinger. Its design aesthetic is clearly inspired by the contents of a chemistry lab, but it also uses science in the coffee-making process, too: it uses the Venturi effect to adjust pressures and relies on a bunch of complex thermodynamics to ensure water temperature and pressure are consistent."

Can robots work as scientists? At first, this seems like a silly question. Computers are pervasive in science, and if you walk into a large university lab today, there's a good chance you'll find a fully fledged robot working alongside the lab-coat-wearing humans. Robots fill test tubes, make DNA microarrays, participate in archaeological digs, and survey the oceans. There are entire branches of science-climate modeling and genomics, for example-that wouldn't exist without powerful microprocessors. Machines even play an integral part in abstract fields of discovery. In experimental mathematics, humans rely on computers to inspire new lines of thinking and investigate hypotheses. In 1976, mathematicians used computers to prove the four-color theorem, and machines have since been used in several other proofs.

Justin Nichol sez, "Black Flag Games is currently running a Kickstarter to produce a radical boardgame project called 'A Las Barricadas'. It is a boardgame about conflict between state police and anti-authoritarian demonstrators. It is a two-player game with each player representing one of these social forces. The theatre of the conflict is street demonstration. It has been designed to inspire tactical consideration and conversation and is being developed and designed by the Black Flag Games Collective, committed to the idea that games and interactive media can have an impact in the struggle for a free and cooperative world. We are also committed to the ideals of free culture and aim to deliver professional play experiences that enrich a participatory entertainment culture."

Inside NYU art professor David Darts' black metal lunchbox, painted with a white skull and crossbones, is the PirateBox - a tiny Linux server, a wireless router, and a battery. Turn the PirateBox on and you have a self-contained mobile communications and file-sharing device, whereby those in the vicinity can upload and download files securely and anonymously. (See this 2011 Ars Technica story for photos and details.) Built with free and open source software and openly licensed itself, the PirateBox has inspired a number of other projects, including Alan Levine's Storybox and now Jason Griffey's LibraryBox.