By Evan Ackerman

While sheer paranoia isn’t the best thing to have dictating your gadget purchases, there are some instances where paying a small premium for that extra level of comfort and security might make sense. Freecom’s Hard Drive Secure is a run of the mill external HD, except that you can’t access the data on it without swiping an encrypted RFID card the size of a credit card past the drive. Swipe the card again and the drive locks itself. It’s not too terribly expensive at $120 for a 500 gig drive, although $410 for a 2TB drive it just a little crazy.

What Freecom doesn’t make clear is just how the encryption on the drive works… It sort of sounds like while the encrypted keycard locks and unlocks the drive, the data on the drive itself is not actually encrypted. This sort of system might keep your porn stash safe from your kid brother, but anyone with a mediocre amount of computer experience (which your kid brother probably has) will just remove the drive from the case and access it directly. Even having the locking system on the drive itself won’t thwart someone who is casually determined. And irrespective of the encryption on the drive, having to swipe your card a second time to lock the thing is just stupid. It should be set up so that if the RFID card leaves, the drive locks itself. And of course, I won’t even get started on the security flaws in RFID.

So yeah, there are some instances where paying a small premium for an extra level of comfort and security might make sense, but this is probably not one of them.

[ Bit-Tech ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Remember last week when we showed you that awesome Modern Warfare 2 bundle? Well we finally got a little more info on it. It seems that the “Prestige Edition” which includes the night vision goggles will retail for $150. That’s $80 more than the Standard, and $60 more than the Hardened bundle. What’s really interesting is that this particular edition will only be available on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Apparently PC gamers are too cool to get night vision goggles. It’s alright though, after countless hours of gaming in the dark, we can see just fine.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

Today is the 40th anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, and Google has added a new moon feature to Google Earth, allowing you to zoom around the moon and take tours of the landing sites narrated by the astronauts themselves. If you have Google Earth 5.0 installed, you can get to the moon by clicking the planet button on the top toolbar and selecting the moon. If not, you can download Google Earth for free, here.

If you weren’t lucky enough to be alive on July 20, 1969, you can experience the landing in real time at http://wechoosethemoon.org/. The site takes a little while to load, but it’s streaming live radio transmissions from Apollo 11, timeshifted by 40 years. It’s awesome… And not just the “wow, that’s awesome” sort of awesome. It’s the sort of awesome where the “awe” really means something.

Apollo 11 lands in 45 minutes.

By Andrew Liszewski

Ok, it’s cool that we’ve managed to shrink digital video and camera equipment to the point where it can be hidden almost anywhere. But just because we can, doesn’t mean we should! Case in point, this somewhat innocuous looking Bic-esque lighter hides a 640×480 25fps video camera and a 1280×1024 digital still camera. While you could probably get away with snapping the occasional covert photo while lighting up a smoke, how are you supposed to nonchalantly capture a video with this thing? Not to mention when someone inevitably asks you to borrow a light and discovers the USB connector hidden under the cap. Oh and the fact it doesn’t actually produce a flame. $49 from Gadget.brando.com.hk.

[ Fake Generic Lighter Spy Camera Camcorder ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Looking for a GPS device that can take a licking and keep on tick… err, tracking a satellite signal? Well look no further than the pocket-unfriendly Solara Field Tracker 2100. The electronics and durable housing allow it to operate in a temperature range of -40C to +65C, and that includes the color LCD display which has been tested to -42C. If dropped in water less than 2 meters in depth you’ve got about an hour to remove it before any damage will occur, and it should keep functioning fine up to altitudes of 40,000 feet.

Best of all though, the FT 2100 connects to the Iridium satellite network allowing you to send and receive text messages, custom or pre-defined, no matter where you are on Earth. Sure, it’s only got enough storage to keep the last 10 messages received, but something tells me if I was trapped on a mountain I’d happily overlook that limitation. $880 plus $29.99/month with a 3-year contract for text messaging privileges.

[ Solara Field Tracker 2100 ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Worried about plugging your laptop into a sketchy power outlet when traveling but don’t want to carry around a bulky surge protecting power bar wherever you go? These tiny ElectraShields connect between your laptop’s power cord and power brick and feature an indicator light letting you know it’s protecting your hardware from power surges.

When the light’s gone out, you’ll know that a potentially harmful surge has occurred, but instead of sending your laptop in for repairs you’ll simply have to replace the ElectraShields since they don’t feature a reset button. But at just $9.95 each from X-treme Geeks that’s not so painful.

[ ElectraShields Laptop Surge Protectors ] VIA [ The Gadgeteer ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we got cuddly and drunk with a dancing hexapod ferret octopus beer robot thing, watched some snake robots wiggle in all kinds of different ways, rocked and rolled with a round steerable mass robot made with LEGOs, reached the limit on our cute meters with Penbo the robotic pengin for girls, got depressed over how robots are doing in the current economy, watched an Albert Einsten robot learn how to make facial expressions, learned why you don’t talk to robots, responded to some simulations of needy behavior by Willow Garage’s PR2, celebrated our 1,000th post (W00T!!!), announced a contest to name a group of robots, and finished out the week with a press release informing us that a robot fueled by biomass doesn’t actually eat dead people.

So far this week, we’ve posted about a giant gundam statue in Japan, photographic proof that Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually a Russian Terminator robot from WWII, the most annoying robot toy ever, more vids of CMU snakebots, and a robot controlled by a zombie moth head.

We’ve also got last weeks Bot With Stuff for you, right after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Chris Scott Barr

My iPhone can do a lot of awesome things. There’s even an app that turns the screen into a virtual lighter, for when a particularly great song comes on during a concert. What it can’t do is actually light something on fire. In fact, until this Lighter Phone from Seabright came along, I didn’t know of any that could achieve such a feat (unless you count the occasional battery overheating).

This strange little phone has a small slider on the back, which reveals what appears to be a small strip of metal (or coil) that heats up. Stick your cigarette in the hole and light up. This GSM phone might not pack a lot of other features, but if you have a habit of losing lighters, it might just come in handy. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to obtain pricing information from the company website.

[ Seabright ] VIA [ CoolestGadgets ]

By Chris Scott Barr

There’s nothing wrong with a little cosplaying at a big show like Comic Con, or any number of other cons. But what if you want something that you can wear a little more often? Sure, you could go with a cool Star Wars hoodie. But if you really want to turn some heads, you might just check out this Dark Knight Leather Motorcycle Suit.

This is an officially licensed design that will actually be on the market sometime in the near future. It is made from molded leather and Kevlar armor sections with a Cordura mesh base and heavy-duty 4 way stretch spandex inserts. This thing should be enough to protect you in a small crash (with a good helmet) or when you’re out prowling the streets taking out bad guys. Given the quality and materials of this thing, expect to pay a small fortune for it when it finally does hit stores.

[ Universal Designs ] VIA [ Gearfuse ]