By Andrew Liszewski

Dark Roasted Blend put together a collection of miniature spy guns, and while most of them were designed by government agencies for real-life spies, the SwissMiniGun pictured above is still made today and is available to anyone willing to shell out about $6,000! The double action revolver is just 5.5cm long but still has all the same features as a full-sized handgun thanks to the expertise of Swiss watch and jewelry makers. It also shoots 2.34mm caliber ammunition which of course had to be specially developed for the gun. And if you were wondering, the SwissMiniGun can not be imported into the US, though oddly enough it can be brought into Canada with a proper import permit.

[ SwissMiniGun ] VIA [ Dark Roasted Blend ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Before Rock Band, banging on pots and pans was the closest thing wanna-be drummers got to being a rock star. So these MIX STIX from Fred seem like such a logical synergy that you have to wonder why no one made the connection before. It’s a simple set of wooden spoons, perfect for whipping up your world-famous pasta sauce, but flip them around and you’ve got a bona-fide set of drumsticks for Gene Krupa-ing your way through the cupboards. Designed by Ignacio Pilotto & Jason Amendolara, the MIX STIX should be hitting the shelves of your local Urban Outfitters sometime this Fall.

[ MIX STIX ]

By Evan Ackerman

A NAS (network attached storage) drive is quite a handy thing to have on your home network. You can stuff it back behind your router (assuming it’s not a part of your router, that is) and forget about it, except that it’ll always be available to any computer on your network… It’s an easy way to add flexible storage for things like media that multiple people want to share. Or, it should be an easy way, but it often turns out to be expensive and troublesome.

This little box from Hitachi is called SimpleNet, and it’s able to turn any external USB drive into a NAS drive. From the look of things, you plug your router into one and a USB drive into the other, and that’s it. $80 might be a tad steep for this convenience, but there’s a lot of possibilities with this little device, and it gives you the flexibility to hot swap as many USB drives as you like. I haven’t run the numbers on this, but my guess is that you’ll probably save money (and headaches) if you get SimpleNet and some regular dirt cheap external USB drives, as opposed to a couple external drives designed with integrated ethernet ports. Yes, you’re going to take a speed hit with the 10/100 ethernet port (plus the USB) on the SimpleNet, but I bet it’ll work great for backups and light media access.

The Hitachi SimpleNet USB NAS adapter should be available now(ish) in retail stores.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m a sucker for indoor flying toys, and Mr. Sky Armor here from Bandai not only passes that test, but he’s a toy robot too! So bonus points for him. He stands just over 6 1/2 inches tall and uses a set of rotors (awkwardly sticking out of each shoulder) to get off the ground and keep him from spinning out of control when flying. And on a 30-minute charge using the remote you can expect to log about 4 minutes of flight time. Sky Armor will be available in Japan for about $45, so keep your eyes on your favorite import shop if you want to get your hands on one.

[ Journal.Mycom.co.jp - Sky Armor ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Hand-made in Brooklyn, these EXOvault metal iPhone cases look like they can protect your investment from everything from a drop on the floor to heavy machine gun fire. And speaking of investments, the cases are available in your choice of aluminum or brass for $95, or you can splurge and go for the titanium model which will set you back $300. Each one is custom machined from a solid block of metal in two pieces, and surprisingly even though the cases are built to order, their website claims that most orders will ship within a week.

[ EXOvault iPhone Cases ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I always thought it would be cool to own a pair of night vision goggles. I mean, you could do all sorts of spy stuff, like sneaking around outside in the dark, or in dark rooms. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be called upon to save the world by seeing things in a really dark place. Well if this has always been your dream, and you’re looking forward to Modern Warfare 2, then I’ve got some awesome news for you. You’ll be able to get both of these awesome things in one package.

The “Prestige Edition” of the game has been confirmed to contain a fully-functioning pair of night vision goggles. Yeah, these things really work. We don’t know anything about price, but with the “Hardend Edition” running $80, you can bet that it’s going to be a good bit more than that when it drops November 10th.

[ Infinity Ward ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I’m not much for the game of golf, though I do rather enjoy a good round of putt-putt. Well when you’re stuck in the office and wanting to practice your short-game, here’s a sneaky way to do it. Use your coffee mug. Sure, your regular cup isn’t going to make a great target, so that’s why you should use the Golfers Mug.

When you’re done with your morning cup of Joe, just lay the mug on its side (preferably after you’ve rinsed it out) and you’ve got yourself a target. Now all you have to do is figure out where to hide you putter. You can pick one of these up for around $13.

[ Red5 ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By David Ponce

You can consistently count on Japan to come up with products that get us scratching our heads. Or maybe get us a little queasy. This here is a pack of, well… what looks like little plastic bags full of urine that may or may not take care of your foot fungus. Yeah… it seems urine has foot fungus curing abilities.

We don’t have a whole lot of details on this, other than it’s being sold in Japan and perhaps also using the product will be “easy and surprise”. Oh, and no guessing just who’s urine that is.

One more picture after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

By David Ponce

It’s kind of hard for flash drive manufacturers to stand out these days. They’ll try anything. So when they’re not making them out to look like a spoonful of cereal or kitten ears, they sometimes give them higher capacity or make them really freaking small. The IronKey S200′s claim to an undisclosed chunk of your wallet is security. It’s the only flash drive on the market to meet FIPS 140-2, Level 3 validation for cryptographic modules mandated by government agencies. That means it’s really, really secure so it should at least make you feel like your porn your sensitive documents are safe from prying eyes.

It comes in 16GB capacity and is compatible with Windows XP, 2000 and Vista as well as Mac OS X and Linux. There’s no word on price or availability yet.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Electronista ]