Umbrellas are fairly simple contraptions. You press a little button (or move a slider) and out pops a uniformly shaped piece of fabric that works to keep you dry. Sure, some umbrellas might have a few more sides than others, but they still keep that roundish shape. Well regardless of whether yours is an octagon, decagon or some other ‘gon, it’s still not the most efficient shape out there.
I’m sure that at some point most people have been out in the pouring rain, only to have their umbrella buckle under the pressure of high winds. There are only two good ways to prevent this. The first is to just stay inside where it’s dry, and the other is to get an umbrella that’s a bit more angular. The SENZ umbrella takes advantage of its unusual shape to withstand 70mph winds. If this thing starts to give way, you’d better get your ass inside, lest you be physically carried away by the wind. You can currently pick one of these up in three sizes ($55, $69, and $83) and a variety of colors.
Last year I finally saved up my cash and bought my first DSLR. While I’m still a novice at best, I’d say my money was well spent on my Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Sure, I don’t have a lot of fancy accessories aside from my two lenses and and nice tripod, but it still shoots far better than any of my old crappy digital cameras. One thing that I thought would be cool is a remote that would let me snap pictures with just a press of a button. To quote one of those silly Apple commercials “there’s an app for that.”
It hasn’t gone live yet, but soon you’ll be able to download a cool little application that lets you control the aperture, white balance, shutter speed and the shutter with your iPod Touch or iPhone. Granted you’ll need a laptop to act as the middle-man, but still a cool app nonetheless. Hit the jump for a full breakdown on how it works.
Digital photo frames may seem boring, but anyone who takes lots of digital pictures will find that the gadgets are a great way to do something with all those pictures other than letting them sit on your computer or memory card. The price of digital photo frames are coming down as well making them more affordable.
Samsung has announced a new digital frame that is under an inch thick and sports an 8-inch screen. The screen has a resolution of 800 x 480 and a contrast ratio of 500:1. Despite the small size of the frame, it packs 1GB of memory inside.
The only time I like wireless mice are when they are for notebooks. When it comes to my desktop computer for gaming, I want a wired mouse. Wireless mice need to be charged too frequently for my tastes when used with desktop computers.
One of the biggest things that bugs me about wireless notebook mice are the big USB adapters that you have to plug into the notebook for connectivity. Those long adapters stick out so far from the side of the machine that it can be easy to break them off when it comes time to pack up your notebook and go.
Traditional video cameras tend to be really, really annoying in that in order to use them, you’re constantly looking through them and pushing buttons and stuff. So you miss what’s actually going on. Yeah, you’ve got it all on tape or whatever, but you’re missing the experience of the moment. This is why hands-free, wearable video cameras might be a good idea, and this one from Thanko stands out because of its compact size and ruggedness.
At only 2.5 inches long and weighing at under an ounce, this camera is seriously tiny. It’s small enough to wear around your head without noticing or, alternatively, duct tape to any number of things (an R/C car, a model rocket, your cat, etc.) to capture some unique footage. The camera is waterproof to an impressive 65 feet, and will record QVGA (320 x 240) vids without sound for up to 2 hours on 2 gigs of internal memory. The battery is integrated, and it both recharges and transfers data via USB. It costs $135, which is a bit much for such low resolution and lack of audio, but the serious waterproofing might make it worthwhile.
I totally appreciate how awesome this video is, but it seems to me that an aircraft might not be the smartest place to be in the middle of a lightning storm. But hey, what do I know, I’m just one of those weird people who likes not dying.
Actually, aircraft are quite safe from lightning. It is estimated that each commercial aircraft gets struck about once a year, but the lightning gets safely conducted over the skin of the plane and never makes it inside. Much better than standing under a tree.
Here’s another interesting take on the Rubik’s Cube which turns it from a puzzle into a graphic design tool. It was designed by Jas Bhachu as part of a project at the Liverpool School of Art & Design where students were challenged to produce a visual representation of the word ‘move’. So instead of colored squares, the Rubik’s Font Generator features a set of stamps on 4 sides of the cube allowing the user to create their own basic pixel font by re-arranging the shapes.
For many people when it comes time to exercise they simply walk out their front door and go for a walk. Walking is one of the most popular forms of exercise and there is all sorts of gear designed to help people who like to walk get the most out of their workout.
A new software offering for the Nintendo DS and DSi is being announced called Personal Trainer: Walking. The software works with the DS or DSi portable consoles and includes a pair of wireless activity meters that can each store about 7 days worth of data.
I have yet to jump on the SSD bandwagon and most consumers are probably the same way. I have tested netbooks with SSDs inside and while the performance gains installing applications and booting the systems are noticeable, they aren’t enough to justify the extra cost in my book.
The price of SSDs is coming down, albeit slowly. Kingston has a new SSD upgrade kit that is now available called the SSDNow M Series that comes with all the gear you need to install an SSD inside your desktop computer or notebook.
Related Tags: Outdoors
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