Oh! Gizmo

By Evan Ackerman

Always Innovating has taken a completely different approach to the burgeoning (and some might say cluttered) netbook market with their Touch Book tablet laptop… thing. Really, it’s a tablet computer that uses an 8.9″ touchscreen, but you can also use it with an attachable (more like, dockable) keyboard and touchpad that essentially turns it into more of a laptop.

There’s more besides the versatile form factor that differentiates the Touch Book from a netbook, though. Firstly, it’s always on, like a cell phone. No booting up, no shutting down, and it’s all solid state, so there’s no noisy fans. Somehow it manages to keep itself on for 10 hours with a single charge, thanks in part to a battery in the keyboard half as well as the screen half, although the entire package still weighs under 3 pounds. As you might expect, it has b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth, plus an accelerometer and 3 external USB ports.

The only potential downside is that the Touch Book was not engineered to run Windows. It’s not just that it doesn’t come with Windows, it’s that Windows won’t work it. At all. Except maybe mobile versions of Windows. It unsurprisingly runs a custom distribution of Linux off of an SD card, which should easily provide enough functionality to do more or less everything you’d want to do with a mobile computer (web browsing, media, and light document editing). If you’re not happy with that, they’re also working on an Android version.

The Always Innovating Touch Book should be available sometime this month for $300, plus an extra $100 for the keyboard… It’s not a powerhouse compared to other netbooks in the price range, but it really speaks to what the core principle of a netbook is (or should be): flexible, mobile, inexpensive, basic computing.

[ Always Innovating ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Everything I know about golf I learned from the movie Caddy Shack, so while inclement weather can possibly lead to the best round of your life, there’s also the very real chance of something terrible happening while wandering around with what is essentially a bag full of lightning rods. So before you head out on the links, you’ll want to make sure the weather’s going to play nice for 18 holes, and that’s where the Bushnell Golf FXi enters the picture. It receives constant weather updates for over 16,000 golf courses in the U.S. via a wireless USB transmitter attached to an internet-equipped PC, and displays them on its monochrome LCD.

The weather data itself is provided by AccuWeather.com and includes everything from current, RealFeel and forecasted high and low temps, morning, afternoon and evening forecasts for up to 3 days, the UV index and even wind speed and direction. And as an added touch, the backlight on the display changes color to reflect the current temperature of your selected course so you can easily get an idea of the conditions at a quick glance. It’s a nice gift idea for a golf nut I suppose, but for $124.99 it’s kind of an expensive unitasker.

[ Bushnell Golf FXi Weather Forecaster ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While the hundred acre woods might seem like a fun place to live (Tiggers are a wonderful thing afterall) gadget fans might want to think twice because this Winnie the Pooh themed mobile phone is pretty much your only option. For about $120 you get a dual SIM, quad-band phone that supposedly has a yellow finish just like Winnie, even though the product shots tell a different story. It’s also got a basic multimedia player, a 2-inch LCD display revealed via its clamshell design, an FM radio and a 1.3 MP camera with the lens cleverly hidden in Pooh’s nose.

[ Winnie The Pooh Dual SIM Card Phone ] VIA [ 2dayBlog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

As a kid, not only did I not know anyone with a Nintendo Power Glove, but I didn’t know anyone who wanted one either. So I’m not sure why a third-party company, Reality Quest in this case, thought that someone would want a similar accessory for the N64. Like the Power Glove, ‘The Glove’ controller (as it’s so originally called) doesn’t have any motion sensing technology at all. It just features the various buttons and the analog stick from the N64’s controller engineered into a contraption designed to strap to your forearm, with a slot for the rumble pak underneath.

If you’re a hardcore Nintendo fan this might make a unique addition to your collection, but it with a ‘Buy It Now’ price of just $39.99 it’s obvious the seller isn’t expecting there to be much demand for it these days either.

[ ebay - "THE GLOVE" CONTROLLER NINTENDO N64 RARE 100% TESTED ] VIA [ TechEBlog ]

By Chris Scott Barr

There were many times during school that I would have killed to have some sort of double sit in for me. Don’t get me wrong, I was a good student and all, but some of my teachers were just downright boring. Well it seems that if you have the right amount of cash, you can actually get your very own doppelganger robot from Xian Chaoren Sculpture Research Institute in China.

The robots look real enough (I’m actually not sure which is which in the above picture) and they can do a few very simple things like move their eyes and such. Sure, it’s not going to fool anyone for a great length of time, but just imagine the sort of fun you could have freaking out your friends.

[ XCSRI ] VIA [ RedFerret ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Most average computer users don’t worry too much about how hot their computer gets. That’s because they aren’t pushing their machines to their limits. Gamers on the other hand, well we tend to squeeze every drop of performance we can out of each and every part. This means keeping a careful eye on the temperature, so as not to burn up our precious parts. NZXT has provided a nice piece of hardware called the Sentry, which not only displays the temperatures of up to 5 different areas of your computer, but also allows you to control the speeds of 5 fans to compensate. Today they announced the Sentry 2, which improves upon the original design.

The new Sentry 2 has the same basic features of the original, but this time around simplifies things by integrating a touchscreen. This should make adjusting fan speeds and checking temperatures a little easier. It’s also smaller, taking up only a single 5.25” bay, as opposed to two. One of the best changes comes to the price, which will be only $30 when it goes on sale later this month.

VIA [ NZXT ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Instructables member ‘laxap‘ has posted a relatively painless tutorial on how to turn an actual cigar into a glowing, fully functional USB flash drive. The most involved part of the build is trimming, boring and then completely sealing the cigar inside and out using a wood primer, but there’s also a bit of wiring and soldering involved in order to replace the cannibalized flash drive’s read/write LED with one that will cause the tip of the cigar to light up while the drive is being accessed.

[ Instructables - USB Cigar Flash Memory ] VIA [ Coolest Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

According to his blog, Ben Heck has just completed a revision 2 version of his Commodore 64 laptop. The updated model includes the newer version of the 1541 Ultimate SD card ‘disk drive’ and USB and ethernet ports that are now open and easily accessible on the front of the laptop. The best part though is that the laptop will actually be auctioned off for charity (the American Cancer Society he believes) and Ben promises to post more details about how you can maybe make this your own as they become available.

[ BenHeck.com - Commodore 64 Original Hardware Laptop Revision 2 For Charity! ] VIA [ TechEBlog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

So apparently Sega’s got a new projector coming out sometime in August, but according to their website they’re unfortunately they’re not releasing a heck of a lot of information about it until July 25. We do know that it will project a pre-programmed fireworks show on the ceiling or walls of your home, and that you’ll be able to design your own show from a library of 55 different virtual pyrotechnic displays. It will be powered by 3xAAA batteries so the projector is most definitely portable, and it will retail for about $160.

[ Sega's Fireworks Projector ] VIA [ Newlaunches.com ]