geekosystem

With the release of BioShock: Infinite, and the game's impressive reviews, there's never been a better time to rustle up odds and ends from the franchise. Case in point: A ridiculously rare functional BioShock audio diary is currently up for grabs. The eBay auction is slated to close on March 31st, though, so collectors don't have long to bid.

Google Glass, and projects like it, promise to be an exciting new future for how humans interact with technology. The problem, of course, is that the future these wearable computers promise isn't here yet, or is it? Tired of waiting, artificial intelligence researcher Rod Furlan built his own prototype of Google Glass out of components already available. The best part? He outlined his process, so now we can all give it a try.

Back in August the Internet exploded with pictures of an attempt at restoring a Spanish fresco that depicted Jesus called Ecce Homo or Behold the Man. The attempted restoration was done by an 80-year-old woman named Celia Gimenez. She is now widely considered to be the worst, but it hasn't stopped her from painting, and now Celia Gimenez just sold a painting on eBay for $1,421. What are the chances she's really Banksy?

There's good news for those of you who just can't get enough of airport security this holiday season -- now, you can build your own backscatter X-ray machine, just like the one that ensures you're not bringing anything unsafe like nail clippers or a lighter onto the airplane. It's a little more cumbersome than a pair of X-ray specs, but as the video demonstrates, it's a pretty effective tool for seeing through things. Considering it was built entirely with parts purchased off of eBay, it's a pretty serious feat of DIY engineering, and we doff our caps to inventor Ben Krasnow, who will no doubt be scanning friends and family as they come through the door for his holiday party. Anything to avoid the Christmas pat down, right?

The announcement of new corporate logos are often a dull affair. It's often meant to signal some kind of shift in business strategy, but more often than not it feels like a self-masturbatory maneuver. Yes, we see that you've grown, and it's great that you're doing well, but using a new font doesn't actually mean your company intends to go about things any differently than they have. This is the kind of environment that eBay's announcement that they have a new logo exists within. So, huzzah for them.

Anyone that has spent a considerable amount of time playing Final Fantasy titles likely knows that the numbering of the franchise was jumbled outside of Japan back during the NES and SNES days. This is mostly due to the fact that they skipped from Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy IV, but decided to go ahead and label the latter as Final Fantasy II. As it turns out, a working prototype for the game that was actually Final Fantasy II was made for the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show -- and it is up for sale on eBay.

Want to make your own next-gen Xbox game? Well for the low, low price of $11,101 (as 12:34 PM EDT) you can bid on eBay for what may very well be a development kit for the Xbox 720, a.k.a. "Durango." Rumor has it that certain developers have had access to devkits for the technically unannounced next-gen console since February, so it's not entirely impossible that this could be the real deal.

Though the original iPhone only released around five years ago on July 29, 2007, certain eBay users have felt they've waited long enough, and are now selling the original model iPhones -- new and sealed in box, of course -- as collector's items, with a hefty collector's item pricing of $10,000. Don't worry, though, if you're a collector and want to get in on the original iPhone now, there are multiple units for sale with a Buy It Now price of $10,000.

Bob Russell's 1967 Austin Healey 3000 was stolen 42 years ago in front of his Philly apartment, right after his second date with his future wife. You'd think the story ends here, with Bob living happily ever after with the love of his life. Nope. Sequels.

If you've ever had the itch to own everything ever released for the Sega Game Gear, now is the moment to strike. An eBay listing from user collectors_king claims to have the entire library of every Nintendo and Sega console, as well as some outliers, factory sealed and ready for purchase. That means they all have their boxes, instruction manuals, and that smell inside that only sealed games have. And it all can be bought for the low, low price of €999,999.99.

Right now, you can try to buy a piece of Apple history on eBay: A rare Apple WALT prototype. According to seller russel400, "WALT" stands for Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone, which is presumably an unfortunate play off of "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" methodology. Though it looks more like a credit card reader, the WALT is a phone that sports handwriting recognition, fax, address book, caller ID, speakerphone, message pad, personalized ring tones, and even runs a modified version of Apple's System 6 OS. It's like the iPhone went back in time and had a baby with a Newton.

The Raspberry Pi, everybody's favorite $25 PC, has finally gone into beta, and some of those beta boards are up for auction by the company on eBay. It is a $25 PC though, that's the selling point; how much could it possibly go for? Oh, I don't know, how about $2,714 (£1,750), and that's with 5 days remaining. For all of you who are screaming "That is missing the point!" right now, there are a couple of mitigating factors that make this all make a little more sense. First of all, these are limited edition, man. Haven't you ever taken a class in Economics? Also, 100% of the purchase price is going to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, devoted to promoting the study of computer science, so it's for a good cause.

Yesterday, a group of nine of the biggest online companies took out a full page ad in the New York Times to voice their concern over two pieces of legislation in congress that could greatly affect the way America uses the Internet. In the letter, Google, Facebook, Mozilla, Zynga, eBay, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and AOL ask that their point of view be heard regarding the Protect IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act.

As you may be aware, Kmart accidentally started selling some copies of the much awaited Modern Warfare 3 yesterday, ahead of its November 8th release date. The mistake was discovered pretty early on, and the sales were stopped, but there were still a number of copies that managed to make it out into the wild, and what happens when a commodity like this becomes available in a very limited quantity? eBay-ing, and lots of it.

Much as how Doc Brown proclaimed that if one is going to make a time machine out of a car, why not make it out of a classic, if you're going to convert a conventional car into an electric one, you may as well use a 1980 Dodge Omni. The Omni, whose soul characteristic is that it was a sporty-ish car that has not aged well, was never intended to be an electric car. However, Texas company Jet Industries took delivery of 19 Omnis in 1980, added a 23-horse power DC electric motor, and rechristened them the Jet Electricia. Oh, and it runs on 20 brand new lead-acid batteries -- 15 in the trunk, and five in the front. Despite having never been sullied by a conventional engine, the cars are still marred by terrible 1980s automobile design. And now you can buy one for the shockingly reasonable price of $3, 383 on eBay. The car in question has apparently spent several years in an Indiana museum, with fewer than 3,000 miles on its odometer. If you're an obscure car collector or a fan of boring 80s cars in gunmetal grey, this is a must-have.