By Andrew Liszewski

You might think $600 is a lot to spend on a case designed to protect and transport only a single bike, but keep in mind that we’ve reported on professional racing bikes that can cost as much as $42,000, so spending $600 to protect one doesn’t actually seem so crazy.

The Helium bike case’s unique design allows it to be opened 360° making packing your bike’s frame (it’s compatible with road bikes up to 64cm size or a full-suspension freeride mountain bike), 2 sets of wheels and other accessories like a helmet, shoes, and pump particularly painless, and when empty it can be collapsed small enough to stow in the trunk of a car. But the most unique feature is a set of inflatable partitions positioned on either side of the frame which not only increases the protection of the various bike components packed inside, but the increased rigidity makes the whole thing easier to transport.

[ Biknd Helium Bike Case ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I don’t know if it’s my gung-ho personality, always driving forward at top speed, but I’m pretty sure I’m involved in far more than my fair share of corner collisions with random strangers. So while the idea of seeing this Corner’s Communication device installed on every blind corner in the country some day is a little far-fetched, I still like it. It’s nothing more than a motion sensitive alarm that lights up and emits a warning sound when someone is about to round a corner, giving the person on the other side a heads-up so they can avoid an embarrassing collision.

The idea did win a Red Dot Design Concept Award, so there might be some interest in seeing it become a real product, but like I said, you probably shouldn’t count on seeing them on every corner one day.

[ Corner's Communication ] VIA [ Yanko Design ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Even though they’re oddly available from a company called Jailbreak Toys, these app icon fridge magnets don’t require you to mess with your fridge in any way. They come in a set of 18 different magnets that each measure 7/8″ square, and pretty much appear to be an exact copy of the iPhone’s default application icons. The cardboard packaging even looks like an iPhone, though the set costs just $12.99 without a 2 year contract.

[ App Magnets ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By Chris Scott Barr

No one wants to get a trojan on their computer, for quite obvious reasons. Thus one is careful about the sites they browse, the links they click and the software they download. Generally doing these things will keep your computer free of such malicious bits of software. But have you ever considered that your hardware might be hiding something nasty?

Apparently the Energizer DUO USB Battery Charger has been carrying around a nasty little trojan that can wreak havoc on your system. CERT has issued a warning and stated the following:

An attacker is able to remotely control a system, including the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs. The backdoor operates with the privileges of the logged-on user.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

My favorite netbook company, MSI, has just announced the retail availability of their latest and greatest extra portable and extra cheap laptops: the Wind U160. Besides a redesigned svelte exterior, the U160 brings along a 1.66 GHz Atom N450 and a shocking 15 hours of battery life. Even if you figure that you’ll only get 50% of that in normal use (which, in my experience, is what it works out to most of the time), that’s still a solid day’s worth of juice. The rest of the specs are what you’ve come to know and tolerate from netbooks, including the gig of ram, 250gb HD, LED backlit WSVGA screen, crappy integrated graphics, and blah blah blah. Oh, and Windows 7.

On a personal note, the only reason I’m not buying myself a U160 is that my U100 is still running like a champ after a couple years and multiple oopsies. I can only hope that the U160 offers a similar amount of dependability (plus relatively easy access to the HD and RAM) in this new form factor.

The MSI Wind U160 is available now at Fry’s, and online at Buy.com and Newegg, for $380.

[ MSI Wind U160 ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Clearly designed for strictly playing homebrew SNES titles, and definitely not ROMS you’ve acquired from the internet, the new NEO SNES/SFC Myth Cart plugs into your Super Famicom or Super Nintendo console like any standard game cartridge, but does just a bit more. It connects to your PC via USB allowing you to copy ROMS directly to the cart, or copy/backup save game files to your computer, and according to the NEOTEAM it supports up to 99.5% of all Super Famicom/Super Nintendo games. At $169 it will probably only appeal to those who’ve turned their nose up at the Wii’s Virtual Console, or those who still have an SNES hooked up at home… like me.

[ NEO SNES/SFC Myth Cart ] VIA [ DCEmu Forums ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Is there anything more embarrassing than accidentally placing the salad fork where the fish fork belongs at dinner? Or mixing up the bread plate and the soup plate? You might as well disappear from the social scene altogether if you make a faux pas like that.

But rest assured, if you use these place setting placemats, which provide a detailed blueprint of where everything is supposed to go, you’ll never have to deal with those disapproving stares from your guests during dinner again.

From what I can tell they’re available for about $27 each (19.95 €) which is a little steep, but I imagine you can just order one, set a place setting, and then pull the old ‘tablecloth out from under it’ trick and repeat the process.

[ Donkey Products - Place Setting Placemats ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

With a price tag of around $118,000 you probably won’t want to use the Phantom HD GOLD high-speed digital video camera for capturing your child’s first steps, but on the other hand, it could make for a baby video that your friends and family might actually want to watch. The camera has a max resolution of 2048×2048 pixels, and it can capture about 555 frames per second at that setting. And as you decrease the resolution the fps capabilities obviously increase, all the way down to a 16×8 pixel icon which can be captured at 100,000 fps.

It comes with 32GB of onboard storage, though if you’re capturing at 2K resolutions you’ll probably want to add a couple of the swappable Phantom CineMags which expand that storage by 256GB or 512GB at a time. And if you’re planning to use the camera as a more affordable alternative to film for that indie flick you’ve been planning, the Phantom HD GOLD can will give you 35mm depth of field in either 2K or HD resolutions, and comes with a PL lens mount, though other lens mount options are available.

[ Phantom HD GOLD ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By Evan Ackerman

At the end of last month, Nokia filed a patent for a “piezoelectric kinetic energy harvester” for mobile phones. If they get it to work, it will enable mobile phones to charge themselves. Brillliant! Why didn’t I think of that?

I’ll tell you why I didn’t think of that. It’s because a “piezoelectric kinetic energy harvester” works by generating electricity from crystals which are compressed by movement. So, the catch is (of course there’s a catch), you have to be moving for the phone to charge. As in, not sedentary in front of the computer. This means that people like me will have dead cell phones 99% of the time, with the remaining 1% of uptime due to bedroom to bathroom transitions plus trips to the fridge. Maybe I’ll just strap it to my cat and bust out the laser pointer for a few hours, that should do the trick.

Cat or no cat, it’s always good to see big companies trying to innovate when it comes to green energy and infinite phone calls. Or at least, it’s good to see them take the first tentative steps in the form of a patent.

[ Nokia Patent ] VIA [ New Scientist ]