You probably still won’t be able to bring it through airport security (not that you’d need to) but if you’re like me and enjoy minimally filled pockets, this knife that folds up into a key-sized footprint is a handy accessory. You won’t be opening any bottles, filing your nails or picking your teeth as a Swiss Army knife allows, but for just $24.90 I’m sure you’ll find a way to cope.
I never actually owned one, but the Big Trak (or Bigtrak for our European readers) is one of those toys that makes me long for the 80′s and what I consider to be the glory days of toys. (Yep, I’ve reached that age when things were definitely better when I was a kid.) The 6-wheeled Big Trak featured a displayless keypad on the back that let you program up to 16 different commands like go forward x number of lengths, pause and turn left or right x number of degrees. By today’s standards its functionality is a bit limited, but I’d wager that kids would still have fun with it.
And thanks to the company that brought back the Stylophone, today’s kids will have their chance to play with one! The new version will be known as Bigtrak Jr. and while it won’t be that different from the original model, it will be able to recall up to 32 different programs. It will also have an optional digital camera and rocket launcher accessory, though the latter won’t be available until 2011. The Bigtrak Jr., however, should be available this Summer for around $48 (£29.99) while the digital camera will be an extra $24 (£15).
Don’t let a little inclement weather put a damper on your next photography outing. Think Tank Photo’s Hydrophobia Flash 70-200 SLR rain cover can accommodate a professional sized SLR camera with up to a 70-200 f2.8 lens attached, protecting it from rain, snow and even blowing sand. It’s got a clear flash tower that can be popped up allowing you to still use a strobe, a handy retainer loop for securing a hanging strap, a clear back window for chimping your digital camera’s LCD display and even oversized sleeves on each side for keeping your hands and forearms dry during operation. And depending on how much your camera cost, the Hydrophobia’s $145 price tag will either seem like a drop in the bucket or a hefty (though completely worthwhile) investment.
This looks, at first glance, like an incredibly useful charging accessory: it plugs into a USB port and has adjustable teeth to charge any of those blocky, unfriendly, proprietary custom camera batteries. Any maybe it still is an incredibly useful charging accessory… But when we wrote about it last July, we were hoping that it would come along with some of Energizer’s universal power packs. Why? Because the 5 volts that comes out of your USB port isn’t enough juice to charge DSLR batteries, which generally need something like 7.4 volts.
It doesn’t look like that’s how it’s going to go down, since Brando is selling this, not Energizer. Oh well.
If you have one of those wimpy cameras that takes 3.7 volts or whatever (not that you should be ashamed of that), this accessory could certainly come in handy, since in addition to being able to charge many different kinds of batteries from a USB port, it’ll also work with all of those portable USB charger gadgets out there. At only $12, it’s a pretty good deal, just not as good of a deal as it could have been.
The red carpet has been rolled out for the most important launch of year 2010 – the Apple Tablet. In a recent statement, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has said “[The Apple Tablet] will be the most important thing I’ve ever done”. Coming from the man behind the iPhone and the iPod, this is a strong message and perhaps a sign of Apple’s heavyweight expectations for its due-to-be-launched-soon Apple Tablet or iSlate (as Internet rumors name it).
Apple has closely guarded the tablet’s specs and it’s well worth doing that for a product which is slated to be a game changer!
If you think people spending thousand of dollars to add LED lighting systems to their cars is a bit absurd, then you might want to look away. According to a thread on the M3Post.com forums by ‘Big Windy’, a German by the name of Jakob Michel runs a private business called ‘Modell-Lichtsysteme’ which retrofits die-cast 1:18 scale model cars with complete lighting systems including everything from dashboards to headlights, taillights and turn signals, to even interior trunk lights if you so desire.
The full package installed on Big Windy’s BMW M3 model (pictured above) which includes interior and exterior lighting cost about $254, or 180 Euros, but cheaper packages that add just interior or just exterior lights are also available. I have to admit the attention to detail seen in the video I’ve included below is phenomenal, particularly given the car is less than a foot in length, but such luxury is just too rich for my blood. I guess any 1:18 scale drivers who take my models out for a spin will have to stick to well lit streets and highways.
Don’t ask us how it works, because quite frankly we’re not entirely sure, but the next time you’re running around the kitchen frantically trying to prepare a gourmet meal you won’t have to worry about constantly stirring your sauce. With its 3 stainless steel legs and silicone rubber feet the Autonomous Saucier stands in your sauce pot and takes care of the stirring for you, continuously spinning and revolving around the pot mixing the ingredients.
One of the feet even features a mini silicone spatula which scrapes food off the bottom of the pot and ensures nothing burns while you’re distracted with other food preparation. The Saucier is powered by 4xAA batteries that keep it stirring for up to 4 hours (depending on which of the 3 speeds you’re using) and it works in sauces as deep as 4-inches and temperatures up to 572º F. $39.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer.
Epson’s recently announced BrightLink 450Wi ultra-short throw projector is able to produce an image from 55 to 102-inches in size depending on how far it’s mounted from a wall, and whether it’s running WXGA or XGA resolutions. For example, at a distance of just 18 inches it’s able to project a respectable 60-inch diagonal image, but for compact spaces it can be mounted as close as 2.8 inches, though that will result in a considerably smaller image.
But that’s not the only trick it has up its sleeve. The BrightLink 450Wi is also an interactive projector, and includes a set of digital infrared pens allowing the presenter to doodle or annotate directly on the image being projected. The best feature though is that when the projector becomes available sometime in Spring 2010 it’s expected to sell for under $2,000.
Great eyesight is not something everyone is fortunate enough to possess. Heck, even people with great vision have difficulty reading some of the super fine print legal mumbo-jumbo stuff that you see on certain things. If you need to get a closer look at something, you might reach for a magnifying glass. But in this day and age, there’s always a better way to do everything. In this case, you can use a handy gadget to project that tiny text onto your big screen TV.
The Wireless Page To TV Magnifier does exactly what the name implies. You have a small device (which greatly resembles your average computer mouse) which views the text (or images) underneath and transmits it wirelessly to a base station. The base station is hooked to your TV where it is enlarged 25x. While it may come in handy when you’re reading through the finer points of your credit card statements (and that occasional issue of Playboy, which you read just for the articles) I doubt many people are going to justify the $150 cost.
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By Gaurav Kheterpal
