It looks like New Potato Technologies has officially found their niche, or raison d’être, in turning the iPhone into a miniature version of the Wii with endless, and mostly useless, ‘appcessories’ as they call them. The first was the Jackpot Slots that turned your iPhone into a slot machine, the second was the considerably more useful LiveRider bike computer, but this time around I’m afraid they’ve taken a step back in terms of usefulness.
For $39.99, available sometime soon, you get a miniature pinball machine that houses your iPhone while it’s running their free Pinball Magic app. The flippers, credit/select button and plunger all work in the game since the pinball housing attaches to the iPhone’s dock connector, and the light-up backbox adds as much authenticity as can be added to a pinball machine the size of your phone. It even takes advantage of the iPhone’s tilt sensor, so you’ll want to make sure not to bump the game too hard lest you face the consequences.
It isn’t the first calculator spycam I’ve written about, nor will it probably be my last, but this model has something very important going for it. It’s built into an actual Casio DS-5500 desktop calculator, which is probably the best office camouflage you could ever imagine, since no one, not even accountants, will ever give it a second glance.
When not capturing 640×480, 30fps covert video via the pinhole lens you can see on the side, this DS-5500 works like any other calculator. It’s even solar powered, though the video electronics are powered by a rechargeable li-ion battery on the inside. There’s 4GB of memory on board which is good for capturing about an hour and a half of footage (the battery’s good for 2 hours) and the video files can be offloaded via a miniUSB port hidden inside the battery compartment underneath. ~$40 from Chinavasion.
While enroute to superstardom, a musician might find themselves performing in smaller venues for a while, like say a subway station, or a busy street corner. And while busking might provide a steady stream of audience members, the venues aren’t always ideal with lots of ambient noise and usually no place to plug in equipment. And that’s what led Australian Laurie Nicoll to invent the guitar SHamp, which is short for ‘sound hole amplifier.’
It’s a combination of a speaker and a 4-watt amplifier that installs into a guitar’s sound hole, and thanks to a couple of vent slots it doesn’t affect the natural sound of the guitar when it’s not in use. It’s sized to fit snugly into most standard guitar holes, and since it’s made from lightweight woods and PVC pipe, it won’t affect the guitar’s balance either. And even though the SHamp is self-contained, there is a single split lead coming out that connects to both the guitar’s pickup jack and an external battery back which houses two 9-volt batteries good for up to 6 hours of playtime.
The SHamp has an RRP of about $265 ($299.00 Aus) and is available from their website if you’re in Australia. However, anyone outside Australia interested in buying one will have to contact them directly first.
I’m sure that we have more than a few parents out there that are reading the site. If you have kids who are just starting to drive, then you no doubt worry about how safe they are being. Namely, are they speeding, braking suddenly or just going places that they shouldn’t be? Wouldn’t it be great if you had a device that would tell you all of these things? I’m sure it would be even better if you could get one for free, right?
This week we will be giving away a SafeDriver from Lemur Monitors. This two-part device has a sensor that plugs into the data port of your car, and a key fob that displays the car’s maximum speed, number of sudden stops and distance traveled since the last reset. Don’t worry, you’ll have to enter a PIN to reset it, and the device will alert you if either the sensor or the fob has been tampered with.
So what do you have to do to win? Like many of our contests, US residents can drop a comment below to enter. Next Friday we’ll select a winner at random from the comments left. Good luck!
Last month we brought you our review of the Psyko Audio 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones. These are still to date the best PC gaming headphones that I’ve had the opportunity to use. Their unique design creates the most realistic audio experience possible. Creating these took years of development, and the people over at Psyko have decided to give us an in-depth look at just what went into this process.
If you’re an audiophile, or just enjoy learning the science behind new technologies, then you might want to give this recently-released Audio Technology White Paper a look. It discusses not only the methods they used in their headsets, but also contrasts it against other types of headphones on the market. Check out the white paper here (warning, PDF) and learn what makes this $300 headset stand apart from the rest of the crowd.
Dropping $160 on this steampunk or “Victorian Futurist’s” monorail building set is kind of a hard sell since you can get a decent stash of LEGO bricks for that much money. But I know there are those of you out there who refuse to let the steampunk fad die, going as far as to force your kids to wear aviator goggles and knickerbockers, or play with a toy like this. I’ll admit the monorail’s engine and car do look the part, and the 550 piece set includes a track that “can run as long as 20 looping feet.” Alas all those miniature valves and pipes are just for show though, since this thing runs on a set of 4 decidedly unsteampunkish AA batteries. $159.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer.
You’re probably not going to want to drink it depending on where you live, but these Petal Drops from Quirky are a great way to re-use plastic bottles, particularly the 2 liter variety. As long as the bottle has a standard thread, the Petal Drops simply screw on and turn the bottle into a miniature, and aesthetically pleasing, rain collecting barrel that can be used to water plants or even not die in an extreme survival situation. $5.25 each available directly from Quirky, bottle not included.
Celebration V (like Comic Con, but 100% Star Wars) recently wrapped up in Florida, and besides the announcement of the Star Wars movies coming to Blu-ray, it also opened the flood gates for mountains of new Star Wars merchandise. And while electroluminescent clothing isn’t the novelty it once was, this Darth Vader t-shirt with its light-up chest plate is probably the perfect use for it. Like most EL garments the glowy bits are removable so you can machine wash the tee, and you’ll have to deal with a small battery back floating around in there somewhere. But it’s available right now from the StarWarsShop.com for $39.99.
Even though it’s squarely targeted at consumers who are new to the DSLR game, the Nikon D3100 has some new tricks that have us pretty excited for what the company is cooking up as a replacement for the D90. For the moment, the DSLR PR race seems to be focused on video capabilities, so the D3100 gets a bump to full 1080P video recording at 24 fps, captured as H.264 AVCHD files, and a 720P mode that allows you to shoot at 24 or 30 fps if you’re after that coveted ‘video look.’ But more exciting is the D3100′s ability to continually auto-focus while shooting video, or in Live View mode, and Face Detection technology that can automatically track up to 35 human faces at once.
On the still camera side of things the D3100 sports a 14.2-megapixel CMOS sensor with ISO settings that range from 100 to 3200, which can be expanded to a Hi-2 setting of 12,800 for particularly low-light shots. It’s also got the D3000′s Guide Mode which basically holds a new user’s hand when it comes to choosing non-Auto settings, and an intriguing ‘Quiet Shutter Release’ mode which “substantially reduces the sound of the mirror while shooting” if you’re trying to remain less conspicuous like at a wedding or when snapping a sleeping child. The D3100 kit will come with an AF-S NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens and should be available around mid-September for $699.95.
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