The prospect of one day being able to recharge your gadgets with nothing more than a spoonful of H20 is very tantalizing, and the PowerTrekk Fuel Cell Charger could be the closest thing to that dream you can get your hands on today. Or very soon at the least. It’s a combination portable battery pack and fuel cell that promises to provide all the juice you need when you’re away from an outlet, since it turns regular old water (at least the hydrogen portion) into electricity.
You just need to insert one of their PowerPukk fuel packs, add about a tablespoon of water, and instantly the power will start to flow. But of course the success of the PowerTrekk completely relies on these replaceable PowerPukks, and at the moment I have a lot of questions the company’s website simply does not have the answers for. Like how much the pucks cost and just how much power they each provide. And even though they have to be recycled when spent (the pucks are considered electronic waste afterwards) does the PowerTrekk end up being more efficient and/or eco-friendly than just hauling around a few extra rechargeable battery packs? Hopefully these questions and more will be answered next week as the official worldwide launch for the PowerTrekk takes place at the Mobile World Congress show.
When the Feds are knocking on your door with search warrants, the last thing you want to be doing is feverishly feeding incriminating documents into a paper shredder one sheet at a time. But Swingline, best known for their iconic staplers, has totally got your back with their new Stack-and-Shred office toy.
While it can be operated like your normal cross-cut shredder by feeding pages in one at a time (credit cards too) lifting the lid reveals a compartment that can accept up to 100 pages at once, including staples and paperclips, so you can save yourself the tedium of hand feeding. Now I doubt it’s able to just rip through all 100 sheets in one go, it probably just takes over the feeding duties for you, but it still seems like a useful timesaver. Available now at various online retailers for ~$200-$250.
Though this may kind of look like a space alien upon first glance, this mega controller actually makes access to various buttons easier and faster. Not to mention that it make hair triggers customizable and all of your buttons on the face of the controller.
This is not a whole controller, but an external shell that fits over an existing Xbox 360 gamepad to make things easier on its user. With adjustable levers, you use your middle fingers to control face buttons so you don’t have to rely solely on your thumb and index finger. The Avenger gives you access to all nine functions and can help you become a well-oiled machine of death. It has an introductory price of $39.99, but has a planned increase of going up to 59.99, so if you’re going to get one, the time is now.
While it doesn’t run on batteries or need to be plugged into an electrical outlet, I’m hesitant to refer to this Carnivorous Clock as ‘eco-friendly’ since it basically traps and ‘consumes’ flies as its power source. The long white belt is covered in sticky honey which of course attracts the flies with an unfortunate end similar to them landing on flypaper. But instead of them being left to just die, the belt slowly rotates, sending the stuck flies towards a blade that scrapes them off into a microbial fuel cell on the bottom, which breaks down the organic matter into electrical energy.
The Carnivorous Clock is currently sort of an art piece/prototype so the fuel cell only produces enough power to run the LCD clock underneath it. (8 dead flies provide enough juice for 12 days.) The electric motors that run the conveyor belt of death draw their power from an external source. But if they find a way to make this run on mosquitoes and cook a hot dog then I do believe I’ve found the perfect camping accessory.
*Update: Thanks to everyone who entered. Once we’ve determined who the winner is, and successfully contacted them, we’ll announce it in the very near future.
Bundling up in layers of sweaters, coats, gloves, mitts and scarves is only so effective when it comes to battling the frigid temperatures that have descended upon many parts of the country. The best way to deal with the cold is to simply not deal with it by staying inside and waiting for Spring’s arrival. But then you run the risk of going stir-crazy, unless you have something to occupy your mind… like a new toy! So we’re teaming up with AT&T to provide one of our lucky readers with a brand new HTC Inspire 4G. If all this isn’t enough to distract you until warmer temperatures arrive, then I’m afraid nothing will:
- Enjoy the speed of the robust 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, and store the documents, pictures, music, and video you need using the 4GB internal memory and included 8GB microSD card.
- The 4.3″ super LCD capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 480×800 for beautifully sharp images.
- Running on Android 2.2, the Inspire 4G can be customized with thousands of applications from Android Market.
- You can capture important moments with the powerful 8 MP camera equipped with autofocus, dual LED flash, and HD video recording.
- The HTC Hi-Fi Experience enriches your multimedia with dual mics for noise cancellation, Dolby®, and SRS® WOW HD surround-sound effects.
- HTC Sense 2.0 provides a custom user interface for enhanced social networking, navigation, and integration with connected services from HTCsense.com.
- The Inspire 4G includes Mobile Hotspot** support when used with a DataPro with Tethering plan, allowing you to share your connection with up to five devices.
But what’s inspired AT&T to be so generous to one of our lucky readers? Well that’s a good question. As you’re probably already aware, a certain Cupertino-designed phone has recently become available from another carrier in the United States. And while there are some advantages to using the iPhone on Verizon’s CDMA network, the siren’s call isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
If you’ve been using an iPhone on AT&T for a number of years now you’ve probably grown accustomed to talking to people while surfing the web at the same time. Well unfortunately that luxury is only available on AT&T’s network with the iPhone, and if you think that’s something you can’t live without, AT&T would like you to head on over to their Talk and Surf Challenge on their Facebook page and let your voice be heard. So not only are we giving you the chance to win an HTC Inspire 4G, but there’s also the chance of you garnering a little web publicity from AT&T’s million+ Facebook fans.
You’ll find the contest specifics after the jump, including how to enter, but those of you who’ve participated in our giveaways before should already be familiar with what it entails. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s another one of those really simple ideas that vastly improves an existing product. These Multi Lines cables not only serve as extension cords bridging the gap between electrical appliances and just out of reach wall outlets, but as powerbars as well. But instead of having all of the outlets bunched up in a brick on one end, the additional sockets are distributed along the length of the cable. Now obviously it’s not the ideal solution if you needed to power a cabinet full of home theater gear, but if you could use a few extra outlets distributed around the bedroom, it sure beats having to tear apart the drywall. $16 to $22 ranging from 6.5ft to 16.4ft, available from Connect Design.
Listen, I know in the morning there’s not always a lot of time to squeeze in a healthy breakfast. But if you absolutely have to have a cup of coffee to get you prepped and awake for work, just do yourself a favor and set your alarm back 10 minutes so you have enough time to brew a cup in the safety of your kitchen.
I mean it’s not that I think that this fine automobile-based appliance isn’t up to the job of boiling 20 ounces of water, soups or even re-heating meals. There’s just some weird nagging voice inside me that thinks that trying to boil a pot of water and mix up a cup of coffee while sitting behind the wheel of a car in traffic could be dangerous. Just maybe… $24.98 from TYNKE.
Well Palm, you had a pretty great run. You showed the world that a PDA didn’t need to have a battery sucking color display in order to be useful, and while the fantastic Pre didn’t end up being the saving grace you wanted/needed it to be, the fruits of your efforts will live on, even if your brand doesn’t. Yesterday HP revealed one of the reasons they bought Palm, in the not surprising form of their first non-Windows based tablet, the TouchPad.
Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU 1.2GHz processor the TouchPad sports a 9.7-inch 1024×768 capacitive, multitouch display and for all intents and purposes isn’t remarkably different than the current generation iPad. It does sport a front-facing 1.3MP camera for making video calls, has Wifi, Bluetooth and cellular connectivity and all those fun, interactive toys like a gyro, compass and accelerometer. It will even ship with a beta version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1.2 for those who still think that’s relevant.
But one of the more unique features that will make the TouchPad stand out in an already crowded market is the next generation of the Touchstone technology. It originally facilitated the use of an induction charging base with the Palm Pre, but with the TouchPad and new Pre3/Veer (also both revealed yesterday) the Touchstone technology will let you simply tap your smartphone on the tablet to share a URL between them. Hopefully it can be used to share other info like contacts and even the contents of your clipboard too, but that remains to be seen.
Pricing and availability for HP’s new toys are all TBA at this point, though with the iPad 2 looming hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.
Last year we brought you the CoolSculpting system which disposed of fat cells under the skin by non-invasively freezing them. The LipoControl system is essentially used for exactly the same purpose, but uses the ‘pewpew’ power of lasers instead. To be specific, a 980nm laser diode is used to bust up fat deposits under the skin (it’s still an invasive procedure to a degree) but the system provides real-time visualization and feedback of the area being treated. It even tracks the speed of the doctor’s cannula, applying more or less power to the laser as they move it faster or slower so that it’s always at the optimal treatment level.
And since I’m no fatatician I don’t feel like I’m qualified to question how effective the procedure is, but it looks to me like after 3 months the machine has only really succeeded in adjusting that woman’s undergarments. Still though, if you’ve ever tried to adjust them yourself you know how difficult that can be and you’ll realize what an important innovation this really is.
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By Andrew Liszewski
