By Luke Anderson

I have a problem that recurs almost every winter. No one can get through to me cell when I’m driving, since I just toss my phone in my coat pocket. I usually have my music loud enough that I don’t hear the ringer, and the vibrating is useless. I’ve been better about it since I picked up my iPhone as I tend to plug it into my stereo (and thus my music is muted when a call comes in). Well if you tend to run into a similar issue of missing calls in the car, you might invest a few bucks in one of these Mathmos Badges.

These are actually meant for attaching to a bag or piece of clothing, however, I think with a bit of work you could affix it somewhere in your car. Sure, it might be a bit cheesy looking, but if your calls are important it just might be worth it. You can pick one up for about $9, the only catch is that they don’t work with 3G phones.

[ FindMeAGift ] VIA [ UberReview ]

By Luke Anderson

Is it just me, or do drinks taste better when they are carbonated? Take grape soda for example, that’s much better than your run-of-the-mill grape juice. Now granted, one of those two is probably healthier for you than the other (depending on if it’s real juice), so why not add a little carbonation to it? I’m no science whiz, but apparently all it takes is some baking soda, vinegar and one of these funny little u-fizz contraptions.

Apparently you can carbonate just about any liquid you’d like with one of these little suckers. I’m pretty sure that the first thing I’d try would be Jell-o. That would be some pretty cool stuff right there. If your kid needs a science fair project, or you’re bored with your current non-carbonated drinks, then this $7 kit will get you started.

[ ScientificOnline ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

UpTempoAir.com currently has this rather uninspired pair of Boba Fett Nike High Dunk sneakers for $99.99. I guess the dark army/team red color scheme is reminiscent of Boba Fett’s armor, but where are the hidden rocket launchers, grappling hooks or throwing knives? It makes me wonder if this is just a quick licensing cash grab by Lucasfilm, but does that really seem like something they’d do?

[ Nike Dunk High Premium SB Boba Fett ] VIA [ TheForce.Net ]

By Evan Ackerman

Unlike most external displays, the D-Link SideStage USB monitor is able to both connect to your computer via USB, and power itself via USB… Just one cable does it all. The SideStage has a 7″ LCD with a resolution of 800 x 480 and can be formatted either horizontally or vertically. It weighs about a pound and a third, and is only three quarters of an inch thick, making it something that you could rationalize carrying around (without the base, of course) to add some extra desktop real estate to your netbook.

The SideStage comes with software that allows it to operate painlessly with most other monitors, and you can designate it as the default display for specific applications. D-Link hasn’t released a price yet (rumor puts it at around $100), but it should be showing up by the end of this year.

VIA [ CNET ]

By Evan Ackerman

There aren’t very many smaller (or cheaper) ways to add 802.11 b/g/n connectivity to your computer than this minuscule little wireless adapter from Buffalo. It measures 16mm x 33mm x 8mm, and features easy push-button connectivity to many routers, and should be available this February for about $25.

[ Buffalo (Translated) ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Evan Ackerman

This is exactly the desk accessory you need if you’re bored at work on a Thursday and want to waste a little bit of time pretending to pilot your own futuristic fighter jet, the FF-22 (that would be the “FRaptor,” I guess). Vrrrrmmmmm PEW PEW PEW! Why on earth this thing isn’t a wireless mouse, I’ll never know. It’s $17 in a bunch of different colors from who else but Brando.

[ Brando ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By Luke Anderson

The floppy disk has been dead for years now. I still remember working in retail and having to explain to customers why their new computer wouldn’t include a floppy drive. I believe the last time I had to use one was when I installed XP on a SATA drive. If you miss the sight of those ugly black disks, you could always get these Floppy CD-R discs.

What’s interesting here is that someone has decided to take a dying format and disguise it as a dead piece of technology. I’m not necessarily implying that we’re going to stop seeing CD’s in the near future, but I can count the number of times I’ve burned a CD in the last year on one hand. I usually just copy files onto a flash drive, or email the file if it’s small enough. With their relatively small (200MB) size and $10 per disc price tag, they aren’t good for much more than nostalgia.

[ DesignBoom ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Luke Anderson

There’s always been something that bothered me about toothbrushes. You use them to clean your teeth, but how often do you actually clean the toothbrush itself? Sure, you rinse it under the water, but just how good is that? Well if you’re worried about the germs that are leftover on those bristles, you can ease your mind with the VioLight Zapi.

This toothbrush sanitizer, uses powerful UV rays to kill off any germs that may be lurking around. When you’re done brushing your teeth, just set your toothbrush in the little egg-shaped device and it will clean it in minutes. It comes in 4 different colors and will run you just $30.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Sometime’s the simplest of demonstrations can be the easiest way for a booth to extol the virtues of their product. And while we already know that SSDs have many advantages over traditional hard drives, Crucial wanted to drive home the fact that their solid state drives were particularly well suited for even the most bumpiest of computing conditions. So they created the ‘Shake-O-Matic’ torture test, pictured on the left, that uses an industrial looking sawzall to shake the crap out of an SSD while it was actually being used by a nearby laptop to play a movie.

The line graph on the LCD display in the background is showing a measurement of around 220G’s, but during the demo I saw that peak to upwards of 430G’s without affecting the video playback on the laptop whatsoever. And while you can’t quite make it out on the picture, the ‘Shake-O-Matic’ also had a large dial on the front with settings that included wake, flake, shake, bake, quake, break and ache. But they never turned it past ‘wake’, since the device was deafening even at that lowest setting.