Pimpstar animated wheels -- "a huge leap forward in the evolution of the wheel"
At first glance, $15,950 might seems like too much to pay for animated car wheels, but when you watch this video of a clever man putting the Pimpstar's many exciting features to work in a high-speed campaign to win the affections of an otherwise hard-to-impress woman cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway, you'll be entering your credit card number into the website before the credits roll.
The PimpStar is a huge leap forward in the evolution of the wheel. With the PimpStar's built-in full color LED lights, microprocessor and wireless modem, you can display virtually any image, including text, graphics, logos, and even digital photos!Link (Via Neatorama)The included software allows you to create your own images and send them to each wheel individually or all wheels at the same time as you drive! You can even pre-load up to six images into each wheel and program them to change automatically at the time intervals you select. The wheels are environmentally sealed, so you don't have to worry about going to the car wash; and they are powered by the vehicle electrical system so there are no batteries to run out or change, ever.
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Nice to know that porn crews are finding ways around the writers' strike.
This just made me think of the satirical Hummer ad from The Daily Show: "Look at me! I'm a dick!"
for a little less than sixteen thousand dollars, an ancient Instructable
http://www.instructables.com/id/SpokePOV%3a-LED-Bike-Wheel-Images/
Dizzam.
No officer, I'm not drunk, I was just trying to whip something clever up in photoshop while I was driving...
So if I buy these can I get a girlfriend like that? =)
I can't begin to address how shitbrained that commercial is. I'm not saying the product isn't innovative, but if customers use the product as show in their own ads people are going to die.
theres nothing like a multiple car pileup in the per pursuit of getting ones dick wet.
Yep, that'd be me dead.
I'm far too easily distracted by colours and pretty things, I'd be up the first tree.
Seems like every company is making custom rap songs for their products these days...
I'm specifically thinking this, and COD4 :S ... WHY?!
worst product of the new year. it combines infantile attention-whoring and technology in a new way that even webcams can't compete with!
Chris Rock was right.
the call of duty 4 rap was so awful. i thought they stopped that custom rap song in the credits nonsense in the 90's
I'm surprised he didn't take a picture of his dick and show on the wheels. I would've.
How does this "Rewrite History"?
Making history, maybe, but I don't see the time-travel angle.
Reminds me of a 21st century mister microphone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYEXBTlWf_4
hunh. just when you think the glass ceiling was breached, they raise it again.
neat gadget, but sooooo unsafe and too expensive. just what the world needs!
buy some land, f*ck spinning rims!
@13 Obvious ... If he was well-hung, he wouldn't have bought the "Pimpstar" in the FIRST place ...
Darwin Awards recruitment video
These things are actually mentioned in William Gibson's newest novel - I thought he made them up.
Douchbag Tech FTW!
Honestly the ability to do this on the fly (yes thats TOTALLY unsafe I do recognize that) is quite amazingly cool. I mean you kind of can't be doing this slow cruising I would expect, so its useful for highways and thats about it, the stop and start of regular traffic would make the effect useless, and any sort of glare ie daytime would also eliminate its usefulness. I don't think this is a bad idea but its not the 21st century American Graffitti either.
@ LapisPezuli
Thanks for the link,I checked the notarapper site, it's pretty cool.
too bad DUB won't sell too many of these before they are illegal in California.
I wonder what Jennifer Steinkamp could do with these? :))
http://jsteinkamp.com/quicktime/html/reel.html
Hey baby, I'll be back to pick you up later!
It's a visual Mr. Microphone.
I wonder if you could amber alerts sent to your wheels? they spinnin!
I was just reading about this idea in "Spook Country". William Gibson on the cutting edge as usual. I thought he'd made it up.
I can just imagine the first "stalking by hubcaps" case to enter the court system.
"The defendant is hearby ordered to keep rolling on 20s at least 500 feet from Ms. Smith at all times."
Next time anyone asks, this is why the terrorists hate us.
I'll hold out for the anti-personnel death ray. Now THAT would be impressive.
This ain't got nothin' on my Escalade with quad window-mounted plasma screens. Normally I run hip-hop videos on them for the passers-by, but when I drive by hotties in convertibles, I cue my specially-recorded greeting with digitally-added tooth sparkles.
Once I've got their attention, I throw together some special hip-hop video mixes in iMovie using the dash-mounted Quad Xeon Mac Pro. It takes some concentration to do that; usually I have to slow down to about 70 before I can devote much attention to the dash-mounted Cinema Display.
It works, though; I've gotten lucky 43 times so far with this method, though I've also gone through 8 Escalades.
just what we need! more distractions from watching the road in front of us! woo!
This is going to get picked up by cab companies pretty quick. Flashing neon adverts on every taxi.
this is almost 2 years old, no?
#17 posted by Cheqyr , January 7, 2008 5:52 PM
Yes, yes... good point. Then again, he could pretend to take a picture of it and then put up a horse dick. I would've.
I'm torn between making a GIMP over PhotoShop reference or pointing out that it will only be a matter of time before our dubs start spewing out spam. Can't decide. Screw it, I'll go with the BSOD at 95MPH can be fatal thing...
Please tell me you can get these for push bikes!
wireless modem
Now we need someone to come up with a $20 greybox that auto-hacks these to say I'M A DUMBASS when you drive by.
Sure they are dangerous and make you look like a douche but there's something more important. The first message the guy shows starts with "please." Pimps don't say please!!!
William Gibson? How about ATHF's Hypno-Rims:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aqua_Teen_Hunger_Force#Deleted_Scenes
http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=500b007c0f021f09ba01ed06b1e35a50
Didn't Chevy Chase use these in Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation 2021?
I would totally rock these on my Camry.
Bling Bling for the Ding Dong!
"you'll be entering your credit card number into the website before the credits roll."
Unlikely. Distracting other drivers + any commercial product with "pimp" in its name = made of fail, IMO.
Makes me think that pretty soon every Escalade and Navigator is going to look like those Japanese semi's that are covered with mirrors and LEDs...
If I can put animated hamsters running inside my wheels I will buy these right NOW.
I've had the bicycle equivalent of these for years. HokeySpokes!
"Flashing lights and colorful images are common ways of attracting the attention of the females of the species in hopes of a brief encounter of non-reproductive copulation. However, when mounted on a transport device and displayed openly, they may attract competing males who will also seek to mate with the female, and as the males compete for the alpha position by displaying increasingly garish vehicular plumage (while the female presumably watches) the participants often end up in a fiery crash that precludes any subsequent sexual activity. It therefore remains unclear how the population of Earth's dominant species of primate grew so large."
-Excerpt from "The Intergalactic Guide to Mediocre Civilizations, Earth Edition"
Something like that would be criminally distracting to other drivers. And I'd hate to be shotgun to anyone actually trying to woo someone with those things, cuz I'd be the one stuck changing the designs.
@45
I've been considering HokeySpokes for a bit now. How do you like them? Are they worth the extra weight? Easy to put on/take off? Do they actually look good at speed? At low speeds?
Why isn't everyone complaining that this is old news?! I thought that was trendy. Anyway, that wasn't meant to be an implied complaint on my part - I remember seeing promotional videos for these last year, but I hadn't seen this video yet. They've stepped it up a notch, gave it a real pimp story line! What amazed me about this product from the beginning was that they actually thought it was smart to market it as being able to change on-the-fly, with no apparent warnings like 'DO NOT USE YOUR LAPTOP WHILE DRIVING,' &c... Lawsuit waiting to happen.
I'm sure these are already illegal many places, as are the distracting blue & green body light kits and junk like that.
The idiots jabbering away on their cell phones while driving are bad enough; now they're going to do graphic design while steering a truck? Hope they get arrested for reckless driving.
This will not get beyond the car-show displays. Remember what happened when some company wanted to merely make tires in colors other than black? Illegal on the street.
Really, BoingBoing?
As others have said, this is SO 2 years ago (as is the expression I just used ;-) ). How did you guys miss this one?
Kaiser, to quote Cory: I'm sorry that you hallucinated a set of editorial guidelines for Boing Boing that says that we only carry new information.
EEVEE (@49)
I love my Hokey Spokes. I leave them on all winter but take them off for the summer when I rarely bike after dark. Nobody has tried to steal them, perhaps because the standby mode flashes a red light that looks like it might be an alarm sensor. Installing them takes about 10 minutes. And they don't rattle.
Three spokes with batteries weigh about 18 oz - I don't notice the weight. They look good at low speeds and fantastic at anything over a crawl. Like an explosion in a fireworks factory. The text messaging thing only works well at reasonably high speeds.
The batteries last about one season (November-April, daily commuting about 30' each way). One trick - use a wrap of scotch tape to hold the batteries together end-to-end, otherwise they sometimes lose their connection briefly which causes the lights to switch into standby mode.
Those things are gonna be major thief magnets.
As well as extremely hazardous in operation—both to the attention whore texting and drawing on his laptop while making eye contact with the babe next to him while he is not watching where his three ton urban assault vehicle is speeding to, to any driver trying to watch his wheels instead of the road in front of them, and to anyone unlucky enough to be in the path of any of them.
And you can do this WHILE driving !!! Now that's an excellent idea... :)