While they’re far from being the smallest earbuds on the market, the Philips Tapster stereo headset takes advantage of bluetooth to cut the cord between your earbuds and your MP3 player or smartphone. It supports Bluetooth HSP and HFP profiles for making calls and is A2DP compliant for streaming stereo music. Their overall size is no doubt a by-product of the Tapster’s batteries, but on the plus side the large surface is touch sensitive, and doing things like adjusting the volume or answering calls is accomplished with simple taps or swipe gestures.
And while the Philips website makes it look like the Tapster headset is a shipping product (there’s even a ‘Buy’ button on the page), from what I can tell that’s not the case just yet.
For those who never got around to mastering the multiplication tables comes this talking calculator that should help hide your shame. It reads aloud all digits, functions and calculations you enter in addition to displaying them on a generously sized LCD display. But the calculator also includes a headphone jack, or at the least a permanently tethered set of earbuds allowing you to keep your basic math calculations secret from your co-workers. It’s $29.98 from Full Of Life, but I suspect you could probably find a free software alternative if you looked hard enough.
It’s probably pretty silly to try and stuff an optical drive (even a small optical drive) into a netbook. But, that doesn’t mean that sometimes, perhaps even frequently, it can be nice to have the option of playing a CD or a DVD. The most convenient way to do it is a slim drive about the size of a disc that operates off of USB bus power so that you only need the one cable. There are quite a few reasonably priced options out there, but this drive from FastMac manages to stuff CD-R/W, DVD±R/W DL, and a Blu-ray reader into one small USB drive for under $100. For $299, you can add a 1x Blu-ray burner, and $399 bumps that up to 4x.
Considering that an external slim USB DVD burner will probably cost you at least $60 or $70, the extra 20 bucks isn’t much at all to throw the additional option of Blu-ray into the mix.
Designed to accompany your Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite set (pictured above) the DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software might not be as fun as Rock Band, but it looks like a better learning tool if you have drumming aspirations beyond just getting a new high score.
With the HD-1 drum kit connected to your PC via an included USB-MIDI interface, the Drum Tutor software provides an easy to follow notation screen complete with a bouncing ball, timing check and indicators for what your left and right hands should be doing. And if you’ve found that Rock Band makes practicing for hours on end a little more enjoyable, the Drum Tutor software even has a Tetris clone game where you learn proper drumming techniques while trying to rack up a high score.
The DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software will be available come March for about $75, while the HD-1 V-Drums Lite are available now, and can be found at sites like Amazon for around $800.
I’ve got an old VCR that I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with for some time. I purged my movie collection of all VHS tapes a couple of years ago, but never got rid of the player itself. I’m really not sure if I was expecting the format to make a comeback or what, but it’s still taking up valuable space in my closet. Well now it seems that my inability to part with old technology will finally pay off. No, tapes aren’t making a comeback. Rather, I might just take a cue from this awesome toaster mod.
If you think about it, the slot for your tape does sort of look like a giant toaster slot. I’m actually a bit surprised that this is the first time I’ve seen a mod like this. It makes perfect sense. This guy even went so far as to have it burn in the letters ‘VHS’ on toast. Brilliant. The guy was nice enough to provide a tutorial on how to make your own, though he warns against doing so for safety reasons.
When I was a kid I always thought it would be cool to bury a time capsule with a bunch of my favorite toys and such. Unfortunately my parents weren’t so keen on the idea of me digging a hole in their back yard and burying a bunch of junk. Maybe if I’d been able to show them this Backyard Safari Underground Time Capsule I would have had a better shot.
This probably isn’t the best time capsule ever made, but for a kid that’s going to just bury a few things for a decade, it might do the trick. You won’t be burying it very deep, as there is a fake rock that will stick out just a few inches above the capsule itself. The rock is removable, allowing you to add more objects over time. You should be able to find these for about $20 in stores soon.
Amy Tenderich over at Diabetes Mine recently reviewed a unique scale specifically designed for those living with diabetes. Now there’s nothing particularly high-tech about the Insight Foot Care Scale besides an oversized and easy-to-read LCD display, but what makes it useful for diabetics is a unique illuminated mirroring system that makes checking the health of their feet a lot easier. Particularly for the elderly.
The scale can support and weigh persons up to 400 pounds, and includes something called ‘Cue Light Technology’ which reminds users to check their feet on a daily basis. According to the Insight website there are over 75,000 amputations every year in the US among diabetics, and half of them could have been avoided with proper foot care. So while the Foot Care Scale isn’t cheap at $99.99, it could definitely be considered one of those worthwhile splurges.
Hey guys, Federated Media (our advertising partner) is testing out a new widget and they’ve asked us for a little help. It’s a little poll that they’re running simply asking what your favorite wireless carrier is. Mind you, it’s not who you’re currently mortgaging your soul to they’re after, but really rather who your “favorite” carrier is. I don’t want to get into a metaphysical argument about what it can mean to have a favorite you don’t currently patron patronize, so instead I’m just asking you guys to click on a little button.
It’ll make us plenty happy… but of course feel free to skip if this is not the sort of unsolicited nagging you thought you signed up for. Just remember: we don’t do refunds.
The poll is below, and I’m going to leave it up for 4 days.
We saw this bird alarm clock (or something just like it) in the international hall at CES this year, but I was forcibly prevented from taking a picture of it by a product rep. Go figure. Now it look like it’s coming to the US, so I can finally write it up. HA!
The Early Bird alarm clock has a bird on top of it that pulses and glows and chirps to help wake you up.
Phew, glad I finally got that off my chest, it’s been killing me. The Early Bird alarm clock will be available for $25 later this month.
Related Tags: Audio, Bluetooth, headphones
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By Andrew Liszewski
