By Luke Anderson

I haven’t done an excessive amount of flying in my life, but enough to discover that the seats aren’t very comfortable. It would be nice to fly First Class for once, but those seats are always out of my price range. So instead of paying big bucks for an upgrade, now you can buy a product that promises to give you the comforts of First Class, while still sitting in Coach.

Essentially this 1st Class Sleeper is a blow-up pillow that is supposed to give extra support for your lower back and shoulders while cradling your head and neck. It is only roughly the size of a fold-up umbrella when deflated, and you’ll need to bring your own hot air to fill it with. For $30, it might be worth trying if you do a lot of flying.

[ Skymall ] VIA [ RGS ]

By Luke Anderson

I’ve seen a lot of interesting ways to recharge batteries in the last few years. Most of them involve some form of solar, wind or some other alternative energy source. Never have I seen a battery that get a charge from me peeing on it. Okay, you don’t just pee on it, but it does recharge using urine.

The Nopopo batteries use a combination of magnesium and carbon that can be mixed with a variety of fluids (including urine) to produce a charge. These batteries only last around 500mAh, which is far less than your average alkaline AA battery, but at least you won’t have to kill the earth to recharge them.

[ HimeyaShop ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Luke Anderson

Backing up your important files is something that everyone should do. In the old days that meant using expensive media like tape drives and Zip disks along with hard to use software. Nowadays you can just pick up a cheap external hard drive or flash drive for your storage needs. As for software, there is quite a bit to choose from. One company has taken a slightly different approach to their backup solutions.

The ClickFree Transformer USB cable allows you to plug in your choice of USB hard drive or flash drive, and gives you access to their backup software. All you need to do is push the button on the unit. Once you set up the easy-to-use software, all you ever need to do is plug in a drive and click the button. Seems pretty simple to me. The $60 price is a bit steep, but at least you can use it on up to 10 computers.

[ GoClickFree ] VIA [ EverythingUSB ]

By Luke Anderson

Everyone needs a little more gaming decor in their house. Well maybe not everyone, but I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to the idea. One company has created an awesome coat rack that uses classic joysticks to hang your stuff. It’s a nice looking design that won’t cry out “geek” to everyone that passes by, but the gamers that stop by will surely notice. There is no word yet on how much these hangUP coat racks will set you back, but I’m sure you could probably make one on the cheap yourself.

[ Surface Tension ] VIA [ GearFuse ]

By Luke Anderson

For those of you eating your breakfast when you read this, I apologize. How many times have you gotten done in the bathroom and feel like you’re ten pounds lighter? You know that feeling I’m talking about, when you’re convinced that you can now fit into jeans that are a size smaller than the ones you’re wearing. Well have you ever been curious how much of a load you just let off into the toilet? Well what you need my friend is a Toilet Seat Scale.

This concept toilet seat (I never thought I’d ever see a concept for a toilet seat) has a built-in scale. It is supposed to be designed for those keeping close tabs on their weight. However, we all know what this thing would get used for if it got put into production. There would be running tallies between friends to see who took the biggest crap. I’m just wondering when they’re going to get around to actually making this thing.

VIA [ Yanko ]

By Luke Anderson

I know what you’re going to say, “this isn’t a very complicated gadget”. It’s true, but this little toy was worth mentioning. After all, who wouldn’t want to see a robot humping a dryer? Just why is this robot going to town on a household appliance? I’m sure you could guess.

If you don’t recognize this immediately, then you probably haven’t watched Robot Chicken. It’s a rather hilarious show on Cartoon Network that uses stop-motion to poke fun at just about everything. There’s no washing machine included, so you’ll have to find other objects for your robot pal to hump when you wind him up. It’ll only cost you $17 to have every small gadget in your house defiled by this creature.

[ BigBadToyStore ] VIA [ FoolishGadgets ]

By Luke Anderson

How many times have you needed to send someone to your house to pick something up at the last minute, but had no way to get them a key? Sure, it’s not something that comes up all the time, but when the situation does arise, it can be frustrating. With the new LiNK door lock system from Schlage, you can unlock your house from anywhere.

This fancy door lock has three different ways of being opened. You’ve got the standard key, a number pad for entering a PIN, or you can send it a text message. What is really cool is that you can assign up to 19 different PIN numbers for each of your family members, and it will keep track of just when each person entered the house. All of this is accomplished by the use of a special wireles bridge which interprets the commands and unlocks the door. This can also be used to automate lighting and other electronic devices throughout your home.

Be prepared to set back some cash for this system, as a starter kit will set you back $300. That gives you everything you’ll need to control one door and a single lamp. While that might be worth it, the $13 per month subscription fee for the LiNK web service (which is the brains of the operation) would get old quick.

[ Schlage ] VIA [ Dvice ]

By Evan Ackerman

Back in September, we wrote about Chinavision’s projector phone. We stumbled across what appeared to be this exact phone on the show floor yesterday, except it was called the Logic Bolt, by a company called Logic Wireless. According to an article at PC Mag, Logic Wireless found “an existing company that made a prototype of the projector-phone. [They] took over the exclusive rights and redesigned all the features of the phone.” I’m not sure what they mean by “features,” but it kinda looks exactly the same as a Chinavision model except with tweaked guts that do include an upgrade to quad band GSM (from tri band) but no other changes that I can easily identify.

Anyway, here’s the specs: quad band GSM, QVGA (320 x 240) touchscreen, VGA (640 x 480) integrated projector and speaker, 3 mpx camera, 4 gigs storage expandable with microSD, 3 hours talk time and 2 hours projection time, accepts inputs from VGA and RCA sources with included adapter.

From the sound of things, the current version of the Bolt isn’t exactly a production model, although it will be for sale. A much smaller/better version is in the prototype stage and will be unveiled at CeBit Germany later this year. It may include a physical keyboard and will likely run either Windows Mobile or Android. So, um, yeah, don’t buy one of these anytime soon I guess.

Rumor has it that the phone is going to be available on T-Mobile, and that it’s going to cost $100 (subsidized) or $400-$600 straight up. Or you can (still) get a kinda the same model from Chinavision for $265.50.

Thanks to PC Mag for the additional info

By Evan Ackerman

Most people don’t have homes that are wired with ethernet and A/V cables. This sucks if you need to move lots of data (say, streaming high def video) around your house. Yes, all kinds of wireless solutions exist, but they tend to be relatively complicated and slow compared to a physical cable. Luckily, you’ve already got perfectly serviceable wires connecting every room in your house, with electricity running through ‘em. HD-PLC (High Definition Power Line Communication) uses these existing wires and piggybacks high bandwidth data along them, turning every outlet in your home into an ethernet port. Just stick a transmitter into an outlet and plug your router into it, and then plug a receiver into any other outlet in your house and out pops the internet.

HD-PLC is an alliance of a bunch of companies, including Buffalo and Philips, who are working on improving this technology. They have a variety of products either coming to market or on the market, including surge protector routers, wireless network extenders, and even TVs with integrated power line HDMI receivers, which lets the TV access HDMI streams simply by plugging it into a wall socket (which you have to do anyway to turn it on):

Power line data transmission has a bandwidth of up to 100 megabits, which is easily enough to carry three concurrent 1080p video streams plus internet, all of it encrypted. You can use surge protectors and stuff with this technology, although you have to be careful not to use surge protectors that are too good, or else they’ll cut the power line data bandwidth. As far as prices go, you can find some of this stuff in stores (and on Amazon) now, starting at under $100.

[ HD-PLC ]