Softbank has finally released their 1-Seg TV Tuner accessory for the iPhone 3G, and DVICE has posted a first look at what they feel is now one of the best accessories for Apple’s phone. Unlike most add-ons, the Softbank tuner doesn’t attach to the iPhone like a sleeve, but is a separate device that’s styled to look like the phone itself. And while it connects to the iPhone via a sync cable, it actually transmits the 1-Seg TV signals it pulls in via wifi. So in order to actually watch TV with the iPhone, you need to be in range and connected to a wifi network.
Overall, DVICE was definitely impressed with the $108 (9,850 yen) accessory, though locating the accompanying software in the iPhone App Store was a chore unto itself, and they found that the tuner tended to drain the iPhone’s battery after just an hour of watching TV. So you better make sure there’s a power outlet nearby if you’re hoping to watch a movie with it. Oh, and you better hope you live in Japan as well.
As if the health and physical problems weren’t enough, people with diabetes also have to deal with testing their blood sugar on a regular basis, which usually involves pricking a finger to get a blood sample. The SEVEN system from DexCom however uses a flexible, platinum wire-based device that goes under the skin to continually read glucose levels for a period of seven days. The sensor is currently the smallest on the market (about the size of a quarter) and it attaches to your skin via a waterproof adhesive patch so you can wear it non-stop for an entire week without any special care.
The sensor also features a wireless transmitter which sends information about your blood glucose level to a receiver every 5 minutes, providing a more comprehensive record of your sugar levels on an hourly basis. The SEVEN receiver, which is about the size of a cellphone, has a large LCD display which can be used to show graphs of your blood glucose level over 1, 3 and 9-hour periods. It also has a set of high and low blood glucose alerts that can be customized to your needs, and a Hypo-Safety-Alarm that will alert you when your glucose falls to 55 mg/dL or lower. Since the transmitter on the sensor runs on a minimal amount of power, the range between the sensor and the receiver is limited to about 5 feet, so you’ll always need to keep it on or near your person. But if you can get a prescription for it from your doctor, and it’s reasonably priced, it could be a far better alternative to pricking your finger every morning.
According to the resident OhGizmo marine biologist, the thing in the video above is what’s called a siphonophore. Although it looks like one single totally bizarre alien fish thing, it’s actually a colony of different individual invertebrate animals that live together as one single organism. Some of them sting, some of them glow, some of them digest, and some of them push it around and look all tentacley. Each part has become dependent on the other parts working together, making siphonophores a sort of weird hybrid between individuals and a single animal. That’s pretty cool, I guess, I just really hope I don’t ever find one crawling up out of my toilet.
I remember back when the iPod first came out. While they were revolutionary at the time, they certainly did have their drawbacks. Namely, they were rather large, and were only compatible with a Mac. Well if you still have one of those clunky old relics, here’s a great way to put it to use again (and don’t worry, it’ll be compatible with more than just a Mac).
Someone got the great idea to turn a pair of old iPods into a set of speakers. After all, with the sleek new iPhones and current-gen iPods, who would need something that archaic to store their tunes? It took around $100 for all the necessary parts, but in the end they managed to make two perfectly working speakers. What better to play music from your iPod, than with a pair of iPods?
Flashlights are the sort of things that pretty much just sit around on a shelf or in a drawer until they are needed. This is usually inconvenient when the lights go out, but who really wants to stare at a boring old flashlight all the time? Well I think it’s time that we start making flashlights that also function as art. It seems that I’m not the first to come up with such an idea.
This Transformative Robot LED Torch/Nightlight almost looks like some sort of action figure or toy, but don’t let that fool you. While this might look like some sort of vicious creature, it is actually just a flashlight that’s meant to look a little different. I wouldn’t mind having one of these sitting out on my desk, honestly. You can pick one of these up for around $20 (but they’re on sale for $10 until Sunday).
I’ll admit that my refrigerator generally isn’t stocked with tons of the most wholesome foods. There is almost always plenty of room for my Mountain Dew, and any other canned beverage that I might want to keep cold. However, if you have several people in your family, there’s a good change that you need every cubic inch of space that your fridge can offer. Well here’s a handy little device that should help free up a little room.
These Door Can Caddies can be very useful for storing extra cans of your favorite drinks. I know that the door in my fridge pretty much goes to waste, so I can see these coming in handy for other people. You can pick these up for around $10 each.
You might think that gerbils have no innate musical talent. You’d be wrong. Maybe. The real problem is just that we don’t give them the opportunity to express themselves with little tiny guitars and keyboards and drum kits. Sega Toys has come through with the Live Dream (“No Music No Live!”) rock band stage, featuring tiny little instruments on a tiny little stage complete with speakers and coordinated lighting effects. The instruments include guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, and drums with the rock set, or sax, bass, piano, and drums with the jazz set. You select what song you want to hear with the remote control, and then decide what instruments you want to play when by placing them on the sensor enabled stage:
Each set comes with a bunch of songs on an SD card (in a proprietary format, of course) including classics such as Eye of the Tiger and Ghostbusters, and more are downloadable over the internet if you just can’t get enough. I honestly have no idea what the appeal of this is or why you would want one (unless you have pet gerbils), especially for the price of $307.
Did you know that 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions come from cement? Me neither. That’s more than the entire aviation industry. It kinda sucks. But, the Brits are (as per usual) looking out for the rest of the world, and an engineering firm called Novacem has developed a more eco-friendly type of cement. Novacem’s new cement mix uses magnesium silicates that absorb, rather than emit, CO2. As the cement hardens, it actually absorbs as much as 60% of its weight in greenhouse gas, even accounting for the processes used to make the cement in the first place. The Novacem cement is currently undergoing testing, and is expected to be on the market within 5 years.
In what scientists call the ‘Home Alone Effect’, people seem to think that while they’re vacationing in Florida for a month they can fool bumbling burglars into believing they’re actually still at home home by leaving a light or a TV on. I tend to give those who are planning a B&E a bit more credit, and would instead opt for something like these House Sitter timers.
They plug into a standard power outlet and feature a simple switch that can be set to ‘Continuous’ allowing you to operate the connected device as normal, or ‘Security’ which will automatically turn the connected device on and off in intervals ranging from 9 to 34 minutes. Frankly, the timer seems a bit big considering what little it does, but at just $14.99 a pop from Smarthome it’s not that expensive to install a few of these around your home the next time you plan to be away.
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