By Shane McGlaun

I remember when I was in school, the summer was all I waited for all year and three weeks into it I would be so bored that I almost (ALMOST) wished school would start back up. You can only watch so many movies and play so many video games in one day.

I bet that there are some people out there right now wishing they had something to do. Blockbuster has a good way for you to spend $10 and keep yourself entertained for a week. The company is offering a summer escape pass that sells for $10 and is good for a week. The passes are being sold for a limited time and allow customers to rent unlimited games and moves over the week.

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By Evan Ackerman

Computer mice come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and styles, but generally, they have one characteristic in common: a flat surface on the bottom to keep the mouse stable. I mean, you want your mouse to be stable, right?

Right?

Don’t you?

NO. NO YOU DON’T. IT’S BAD, STABLE IS BAD. Or at least, a stable object that you use repetitively has the potential to maybe cause you some mild discomfort or pain. The Tru:Motion mouse from Smartfish can help alleviate repetitive stress injuries by wiggling around to better conform to your natural hand and arm position. The mouse pivots on its base (a stable base) from side to side and front to back to allow you to keep your wrist more relaxed.

I’m hoping that the mouse in the picture above is just a prototype design, ’cause a mouse like this is targeted at hardcore computer users, most of whom probably expect more than two or three buttons. Personally, I need a minimum of five to be productive.

Smartfish also makes a wiggling keyboard and a wiggling game controller, and they’re somehow working on a PDA, a laptop, a touchscreen keyboard, and power tools that incorporate the same actively ergonomic technology.We’ll see the mouse out at the beginning of August for $60, and the keyboard will follow at the end of August for $150.

[ Smartfish ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Unless you’re running a Mac (yes, I went there), it’s almost a necessity to be running some sort of anti-virus on your machine. There are plenty to choose from, most of which cost a decent bit of money for a yearly subscription. Free ones also exist, but they always seem to be lacking a few important features. Well it seems that there will soon be another company tossing its hat into the ring of free anti-virus providers.

Microsoft is currently gearing up for a closed-beta of their new free anti-virus service, code-named Morro. It is described as a stripped-down version of their Live OneCare service. It’s hard to say a lot of bad things about a free anti-virus, so provided that Microsoft doesn’t find some way to royally screw things up, it should likely appeal to those that wouldn’t otherwise bother installing such software. No word on when they are planning to officially launch Morro.

[ Reuters ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Monster Cables is a company well-known for suing other people for uttering the word “monster” when not referring to their products. Oh, and they produce overpriced cables. Unfortunately it would seem that the poor economy and sheer amount of lawsuits over trademark infringement have really taken their toll on the company. As you can see from their latest product, the MCC AV50 Home Theater Controller, they had to let go their entire design team.

Normally I wouldn’t bother writing about a $50 universal remote, but this thin is too hideous to pass up. Sure, if it were coming from some unknown company out of China, I wouldn’t have given it a second glance. Yet somehow this is being sold by Monster Cable. I suppose if you needed a remote to fit in with your living room which has been modeled after the original Enterprise, then this might do.

[ Monster Cable ] VIA [ BoingBoing ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Oh crappy convergence products, I’ll never grow tired of seeing you. I mean what would the world be like without products that took two useful things and combined them into one bad device. See, in order for the idea to work, you have to have two things that you would logically use at roughly the same time. Even still, that doesn’t guarantee that you won’t end up with something really stupid. Sure, I might staple things at my desk, but I don’t need a mouse that’s also a stapler. Just like I might want something to drink when I’m sitting down, but I don’t want a cushion that holds liquid.

That’s right, the Sippin’ Seat not only keeps your butt nice and comfortable, but it provides you with a nice beverage. Seriously, who comes up with this crap? I’d just like a quick show of hands here, how many of you want to drink something that has been millimeters from your ass for several hours? That’s what I though. For the guy in the back that held up his hand, it’ll set you back around $30.

[ BaronBob ] VIA [ FoolishGadgets ]

By Evan Ackerman

Changing water and filters becomes a thing of the past with this aquarium, thanks to a floating garden that creates a miniature mostly-closed ecosystem along with the fish living in the tank below. Tank water, which inevitably has a bunch of fish poo in it, gets pumped up to the floating garden, where it passes through a layer of sand containing bacteria that convert the poo into nitrates. Then, the nitrate water flows into the plants, and they absorb the nitrates as fertilizer. Finally, the clean water gets send back into the tank to keep the fish happy.

It’s a very neat and tidy system, and it not only makes your aquarium more interesting, but it makes it easier to manage as well. The design comes from Benjamin Graindorge and Duende Studio, and will be available for purchase early next year.

[ Duende Studio ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

By Evan Ackerman

Somewhere in your house, you have some small object that desperately needs to be levitated. Desperately. Me? I’ve got a single serving box of Cheerios that’s crying out for liftoff. The Levitron Revolution is capable of lifting up to 4 ounces of anything you want. The little bowl on magnetic fields, slowly rotating, illuminated by lighting from the base, forever. Or at least until you shut it off; I’m assuming it’s got an electromagnet in there somewhere. Yeah, you have to put your thing in a special bowl to get it to levitate… A machine capable of levitating small objects (like frogs) sans a magnetic platform is a wee bit more complicated.

Although there’s no specific pricing or availability yet, it should be out sometime before the holidays for (my guess is) somewhere between $50 and $100.

[ Fascinations ] VIA [ BBG ]

By Shane McGlaun

The digital transition finally happens tomorrow. I am looking forward to it because that will mean that those analog airwaves will be available for the wireless companies to start building out that nationwide broadband plan they talked about. I would love to get off my crappy DSL provider and onto a faster network.

The transition was originally supposed to happen back in February but 5.8 million homes weren’t ready for the transition leading President Obama and the government to postpone the transition until tomorrow. Despite the delay, there are still a huge number of homes in America unprepared for the transition.

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By Shane McGlaun

I’m not a particularly heavy texter myself, but my wife is. I am here to tell you that when the wife or significant other likes to text, you will be answering lots of them and becoming much more of a texter than you might want. You may as well get a decent texting phone and make it easier on yourself.

Verizon Wireless has announced a new text optimized mobile phone from Motorola called the Rival. The device is a boxy slider design that has a full QWERTY keyboard. The handset comes in silver or purple colors and has a touch dial-pad (whatever that is). Messages are organized by contact and displayed in a chat format.

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