I’m not particularly worried about cellphone radiation given how many amazing superpowers have been attributed to being exposed, but based on how many studies about mobile phones and radiation get funded, I assume some users are. But even if I was worried, I would probably just suck it up if this was the only alternative. The details are lacking to say the least, but the Zip Earzee is essentially a Bluetooth earpiece you wear as a wristband.
Presumably it’s got a built-in mic you speak into, but in order to hear an incoming call you have to pull out a small tethered speaker and hold it up to your ear, kind of like those old-timey wall-mounted phones of yesteryear. Why this is a better alternative to just popping in a small Bluetooth earpiece as needed is beyond me, though I guess it does keep those evil Bluetooth rays away from your brain.
Remember the ‘Making Future Magic‘ video (I’ve included it below to refresh your memory) that was making the rounds a few weeks ago? It was a collaboration between Dentsu London and BERG London that resulted in what appeared to be floating 3D text holograms created by taking long exposure photographs of a special animation played back on an iPad. Understanding how it worked wasn’t that difficult, but creating the 3D animation needed to pull it off was a bit tricky, particularly for someone not familiar with the software.
But thankfully there’s now an app for that too! Holo-Paint is now available from the iTunes App Store for just a buck, and lets you easily create the necessary animations to spell out any piece of text in 3D. The long exposure photography is still up to you though.
The app lets you see the text as a live preview while you adjust settings like letter depth, letter angle, frame rate, color, font, smoothness and size, and you can store an unlimited number of creations, well limited to your iPhone or iPad’s available memory that is. The app seems pretty robust actually and the results aren’t that far off from what was seen in that original video. So bring on the Flickr galleries!
It looks like it would be impossible to stack in your freezer, it produces odd-shaped ice cubes and it’s been incorrectly identified as a battleship, but this silicone tray is still oddly appealing. It’s just $11 from Kikkerland, making it the perfect kitchen accessory to sit in a drawer alongside the LEGO brick ice cube tray I also never use.
I’m often disgusted at the appearance of my keyboards, and I’m the only one who uses them. So I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to deal with them in a multi-user environment like a hospital, which is probably the worst case scenario. According to Falcon Innovations, an average multi-user keyboard has 3,295 microbes per square inch, but thankfully their scare tactics don’t come without a solution.
Their Germ Genie is another germ killing keyboard sanitizer that uses UV light, but instead of having to remember to place it in some sanitizing box every night, it sits above the keyboard providing ‘always on’ protection. And of course by ‘always on’ I mean ‘only when someone isn’t typing’ since UV light can be harmful to skin, so the Germ Genie includes a motion sensor to turn off the light whenever someone’s actually using the keyboard. It retails for about $220, but the company seems keen on selling then en masse to large facilities, so I suspect it gets cheaper the more you buy.
I’m normally not a big fan of the whole digital photo frame trend, but since I’ve been using my iPhone 4 more and more as my day-to-day digital camera, I like this prototype that Panasonic has on display at their booth at CEATEC. Instead of having to transfer photos to an SD card to load them up on the frame you simply dock your iPhone or iPod touch which is probably already chock full of galleries. Other details are pretty sparse, and since it’s a prototype who knows if it will ever see the light of day. If it does though here’s to hoping they find a way to better integrate that dock, since this side-by-side setup looks a little awkward.
While it’s nothing more than just a concept brought to life via some nifty 3D renders, I think there’s a lot of potential in this Mobile Wind Turbine that can be moved and deployed almost anywhere it can be driven. I’m not particularly inclined to go through the proposed ‘specs’ since because it’s a concept I’ve no idea if they’re even plausible. But in an ideal world the Mobile Wind Turbine could be driven and setup by a single operator, and would feature an on-board stash of batteries for storing power when it’s not windy enough for it to generate any of its own.
The vehicle itself would also be electrically powered keeping with the eco-friendly theme of the concept, though a backup gas generator on board would provide power to the electric motors ensuring it would never get stranded even when the batteries were depleted. And besides coming to the rescue in emergency situations, the Mobile Wind Turbine would also probably come in handy at music events, concerts, carnivals and maybe even the circus could bring one along. Though the cost of renting/operating the turbine would have to end up being a far better bargain than traditional fossil fuel burning mobile generators.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got old computers just lying around. You keep telling yourself that you’re going to repurpose them as some sort of media box, server or whatnot. But really they’re just cluttering up the back of your closet, or some corner of the garage. Today you’ll learn to put one of them to good use. You’ll fashion some of the parts into a laser capable of cutting through things. Why? Because that sort of thing is awesome.
You’ll just need a DVD burner (16x or higher) some heatsinks and the PSU from an old computer. There are a few other items you’ll need to get, but those are the main components. In a short while, you’ll be able to cut through small objects, and light others on fire. That’s right, you can burn those ants without needing to mess with a magnifying glass or depend on the sun. Just remember not to be an idiot.
On this, the first Tuesday in October, let’s leave the land of PCs and monitors for a little bit and explore an instrument that allows us to get images onto said monitors. The one year-old Canon PowerShot G11 10-MP camera is described thusly by DigitalCameraReview:
The G11 is a wonderful combination of a lens with very good optical performance, good auto focus and shutter performance, and lowered resolution on the same physical-sized sensor that produces excellent noise performance for a compact digital. Image quality from the G11 is the best overall of any compact digital I’ve ever reviewed – at 100% enlargements the images are quite clean. [However] the viewfinder is poor for image composition due to its inaccuracy (77% coverage), but that’s about the end of the gripes for this camera.
Now you can get a $30 coupon from LogicBuy and have the camera delivered to you for $419. Clickety links are below.
Designed to let you enjoy music during a hike or camping so you can still hear what’s going on around you and make sure your fellow adventurers haven’t been abducted by a grizzly, the Music Strap attaches to the shoulder straps of any backpack and pumps out your tunes through a set of 1W speakers powered by a pair of AAA batteries. It includes 20 inches of audio cable for connecting your music player of choice, 27.5 inches of speaker cable and even a pair of velcro straps to keep everything looking neat and tidy. $29.99 available directly from Lucky Bums.
Related Tags: Bluetooth, Cellphones, Health
Permalink | 
No Comments
