Backup batteries for your phone can be great to have when you’re away from an outlet for extended periods. However, when you’re going about your daily life, the charger generally just sits in your bag like a useless lump. This new charger from Richard Solo tries to at least make your spare charger a little more useful when it’s not needed for juicing up your phone.
Sure, a laser pointer and flashlight aren’t the most useful devices in the world, but I always tend to keep a flashlight in my bag. It’s like a towel, you never leave without one. The charger itself is small and sleek, with the ability to charge your iPhone (or Blackberry) one full time, with a bit of juice left over. They’ll include the connector to hook it up to your phone, plus a USB charger, USB car charger and wall charger in the box. The $70 asking price seems reasonable for what you’ll get.
Last year we had a brief hands-on with Unisen’s wireless compact keyboard & touchpad device, and while it’s served its purpose well, we’ve already got the hankering to upgrade to this little beauty from Brando. The Rii mini wireless keyboard looks like a display-less cellphone, but it’s designed to control a Windows or Linux based PC via a wireless 2.4GHz RF connection with a decent range of about 30 meters.
All of the keys are backlit, making it particularly useful in a darkened home theater, and the rechargeable lithium-ion battery has a standby time of around 500 to 700 hours, though there’s no mention of how long it will last with regular use. The square shaped touchpad allows it to be used in either a horizontal or vertical orientation, but there’s also a miniature 4-way directional pad that most likely doubles as your standard arrow keys. And if you’re using it in a business or office environment to control a slideshow, there’s even a built-in laser pointer which is a plus for any gadget. Now the $92.00 price tag from Brando is a bit steep, so I imagine a lot of people who might be interested in the keyboard will be holding off until someone posts a review confirming it works as claimed.
There are watches that are kinda ugly. You know, like, you probably wouldn’t buy one ugly. Then there are watches that are really ugly, as in, you wouldn’t wear one if someone gave it to you for free. And then there are watches like the newest Casio G-Shock, which are so ugly that even looking at them can cause physical pain. Apparently, this watch is called MAN BOX; feel free to amuse yourself trying to figure out why that is. And when you’re done with that, you can start pondering just who would be crazy enough to spend $225 on one of these.
Paying tribute to the classic Kit-Cat Klock, this updated Homer Simpson version forgoes the wagging tail in favor of animated arms holding a donut in one hand, and a can of Duff in the other. His eyes move back and forth and each arm moves up and down while he contemplates the eternal question of which one he’ll eat first. Powered by 2xAA batteries the Homer clock is available from Perpetual Kid for $29.99.
As much a kinetic sculpture as it is a timepiece, the Oblique Clock reinterprets the hands of a traditional analog clock, adding extra geometry and structure that results in a constantly changing design as it ticks away the minutes throughout the day. And to make it as mysterious looking as possible, the custom engineered mechanical elements that drive the clock are hidden behind a rather large frame, leaving no question that this is first and foremost an art piece.
Here’s a few examples of how you actually read the time using the clock, and from what I can tell you mostly want to pay attention to the darker brown hands since the lighter colored pieces will just confuse you. To fully appreciate the clock’s movements, I highly recommend taking a few seconds to watch the video below where you can see it in motion.
And there’s good news for those of you who feel you must have one of these for your home or office. The Oblique Clock is being produced in a very limited run of just 20 pieces, and one of them can be yours for just $3,900 CAD.
As SlashGear points out, due to recent court-related shenanigans pursued by Apple, many of us who love our iPhones may not be as in love with the house that Steve built. So over on Hack N Mod there’s a tutorial on how to restore a bruised and battered iPhone, but it has the lovely side effect of removing all the branding and verbage on the back of the phone. It will take some elbow grease and a combination of wet and dry sanding, but the results look totally worth the effort.
For those of us who missed the Olympic festivities in Vancouver, particularly members of the press, here’s another reason to be bummed. Apparently Canon was giving out these cool travel mugs that look like one of their 70-200mm L-series lenses at the Olympic Press Center, and Microsoft’s Josh Weisberg managed to score one. Sadly, since I don’t seem to see any of them listed on eBay, it seems the lucky few who got one aren’t willing to part with them, even for a profit.
Back when I was still in high school, like any teenager, I had porn on my computer. I was smart enough even back then to cover my tracks in the browser and to hide my files where no one could find them. Any smart teenager these days would probably do well to hide their collection on an encrypted flash drive or something. Among many other reasons, it should help defeat this supposedly magic Porn Detection Stick from Paraben.
This flash drive is supposed to scan all of the images on a computer, and use a complex series of algorithms “analyze flesh tones, shapes and curvatures, face detection, body part separation, and more to alert you to images likely to contain pornographic material.” When you think about it, that’s actually some pretty cool technology (provided that it works). They say that it’s for protecting your children or employees, but heck, it would be a great tool for finding more porn to add to your collection. Oh come on, you were thinking the same thing! The $100 price is probably going to be enough to make most parents and employers find a different way to sniff out porn.
There’s one reason I don’t have a hypothetical swimming pool in my apartment, and it’s this: it would take up all the room I need for my hypothetical badminton court. Hydro Floors has solved my hypothetical problem IRL with a swimming pool that completely disappears, giving you a solid floor to work with when you want one. The swimming pool (water and all) is still there, there’s just a floor (which is sometimes the floor of the swimming pool) on top of it. In addition to providing space for your badminton court, this also cuts down on heating costs by keeping the water insulated when you’re not in it.
Only problem is, I can’t buy one of these with all of the hypothetical money I have saved up. The website doesn’t say how much a Hydro Floor costs, but figure on absurdly expensive. So realistically, the only people who will likely buying these are evil geniuses looking for an absurdly slow death machine.
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