If you need a spot for your pet to relax that isn’t your lap while you’re relaxing, then this Rocking-2-gether Chair may be the perfect item for you and your adorable charge. Designed by Houston architect Paul Kweton, the chair combines a roofed pet house below a regular rocking chair so your pet can not only be somewhat protected from the elements, but can also be gently rocked to sleep as you are.

Consumer electronics has always been about more features, in smaller and smaller devices. The Japanese company Marudai thinks this is completely wrong, which is probably why they’ve introduced an iPhone 4 case that puts an inch of steel armor between your phone and the terrifying world outside. Forget the features of your phone; this case can stop a .50 caliber bullet.

If you ever wanted a way to dessert up your beer, or just plain keeping it colder for longer, Japanese beer maker Kirin has got the item for you. Presenting: Frozen beer foam in the vein of soft serve ice cream that sits atop a beer, keeping it cool.

Whether you’re hunkering down or making a mad dash to the country when the zombie apocalypse inevitably hits, you’re going to need supplies. Even if you already have a zombie-perparedness stash, as you should, resources are finite and you’re going to have to get more. So where do you go? That’s where the Map of the Dead comes in.

Who says print media is dead? Not Snoop Dogg, that’s for sure. He’s so fond of print media, in fact, he’s putting out a book that is literally disposable. Snoop Dogg’s new song book, Rolling Words, is made primarily out of rolling papers. Try to contain your surprise.

Video calling, although seemingly infinitely better than voice calling, has its disadvantages. Sure, you can see the person, but they still aren’t there. In a way, it sort of raises more uncanny valley issues than traditional voice-only calling does and can make people seem artifically distant, stern, uninterested, and cold. Instead of throwing in the towel and going back to conference calls, researchers David Sirkin and Wendy Ju at Stanford University tried to make video calling a little more personal by giving the screen the ability to move with you, making you seem that much closer.

If you’re in the market for a new Xbox 360 controller and like things that are shiny, you might just be in luck; Microsoft is rolling out a new line of shiny chrome controllers that are awesome in theory but probably not so great for anyone who likes to eat greasy food while gaming, i.e. everyone. Aside from the chrome-age, these controllers will also come with those tricked out twistable d-pads you heard about way back in 2010. These bad boys will cost you $54.99, five bucks more than your average wireless controller, but that’s a small price to pay for shiny, right? Right?!

Imagine, if you will, a vicious tornado. Now imagine it’s made out of fire. Now imagine that it’s several times the size of Earth. Finally, that it’s in space. Allow me the great pleasure of informing you that what you just imagine exists on the Sun. That’s right, there are mammoth fire tornadoes on the sun, enormous, flaming sun tornadoes. These absurd solar windstorms were spotted by some researchers in the UK using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly telescope mounted on the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) satellite. Somewhere, Micheal Bay is kicking himself for not coming up with sun tornadoes on his own.

OMGPOP, the creator of the wildly successful play-by-email-esque iOS game Draw Something, has revealed the followup to their successful Pictionary-like drawing game: The Street, a FarmVille style game featuring the Wu-Tang Clan. You may now wat.

Aside from tentacles, tiny cute things, and being weird all the time, Japan is also really into vending machines. So much so, in fact, that Japanese company Sanden is producing a hand-cranked vending machine that will work in case of some sort of emergency power failure. Seems silly at first, but if designed to provide free drinks in case of some sort of emergency, the machine could actually be a useful tool to help combat the effects of a disaster.