A few weeks ago in a galaxy far, far away, Rebel Troops and the Empire decided to put down their starships and fight out their epic battle like men, in a foosball game. Or, at least that is what I’m guessing is going on in this impressive Lego Star Wars foosball table by Flickr user 2×4. Said to be playable, the table should allow you to settle any dispute you might have with your mates (epic or not), or at least be a fun leisure activity.

Amazingly, this isn’t the first Lego foosball table that we’ve seen around here, however however it does appear to be the first one to stand on it’s own brick-laden legs. [via make online]

New week – new iPhone app bonanza!! This time we have an appsolutely amazing selection of must-have goodies for all the design freaks and creative souls out there. Happy bookmarking and don’t forget to check 10 Platform Games for iPhone with Amazing Design

PositionApp™ | ustwo™ | Free

PositionApp™ is the world’s most in-depth, intuitive app discovery and performance tracking tool available today. Powered by historic app store data, PositionApp™ offers instant remote access to all chart positions of the Top 300 apps and their movements in all categories and all countries. PositionApp™ gives the user the power to track any iPhone app at any time, anywhere throughout the world.

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Today’s tutorial will bring you through the process of building a slick menu using a single CSS sprite image. It’s a simple, but elegant solution for most websites. This was one of the design strategies that first helped me to start using smarter markup. For those of you just getting introduced to this technique today, hopefully you’ll have some similar results.

The end goal is to create a navigation menu that loads quickly, and does not require any dated JavaScript for hover effects. If you’re still using individual images for each menu item, it’s time to upgrade.

The Goal

This CSS sprite will keep HTTP requests down and increase load speed. For a more in depth explanation of CSS Sprites, take a look at
Chris Coyier’s article on CSS Tricks. He goes into a wider variety of uses, but this tutorial will focus on getting the navigation done for simplicity’s sake.

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The fact that Twitter’s search is now often faster and more relevant than any other search engine out there is not a secret anymore. It is, however, a very limited search engine: it merely indexes a bunch of tweets. In its current state, it’s great for tracking conversations, but it will never be a competitor to Google.

This is about to change. According to CNET, Twitter’s new VP of Operations, Santosh Jayaram, said that Twitter search will soon start crawling the links included in tweets. There’s a lot of links there, and given Twitter’s huge growth, soon these links might comprise a hefty portion of the overall web, making it a much more complete search engine that it currently is. It’s a big technical leap, but it shows that the folks at Twitter are serious about search.

Jayaram gave another very interesting hint at where they’re going: Twitter Search will also get a reputation ranking system. That means that not all tweets will be equal; rank will be calculated for each twitterer, probably based on several criteria such as number of followers, number of retweets and so forth.

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“All you need is an idea and a Mac,” says Brian Storm, the founder and prime mover behind MediaStorm. On his award-winning, multimedia storytelling site, Storm has used Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and Logic Studio to establish a new paradigm for photojournalism. “The Mac is just a magic box,” says Storm. “It allows us to do so many amazing things. It’s a seamless visual environment that keeps the creative juices flowing.”

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If you’ve seen The Simpsons, you’ve seen the work of Rough Draft Studios. In fact, the Glendale, CA-based animation powerhouse has been churning out hit after animated hit for decades. And they’re just as animated about the Macs they use. Says Scott Vanzo, Director of CGI and Chief Technology Officer at Rough Draft. “The work we do involves everything from traditional 2D animation to 3D CGI to video editing. An iMac can be an office machine one day, and the next day it can be put into production. Every Mac in the studio can do what we need it to do. There simply isn’t another platform out there that can do as much as the Mac.

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DJ cum live music producer, Paul van Dyk weaves his own music on stage in real-time on a pair of 17-inch MacBook Pro computers running Logic Studio and Ableton Live. “Ever since I basically began making music, I’ve worked with Macs,” he says. “They’re in the studio as well as on the road. I’ve always had my Macs with me. They’re an essential part of my music.”

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