Spring hasn’t even arrived yet, but what feels like the longest Winter in recent memory has me excitedly awaiting the arrival of Summer. So before I’ve even packed away my ‘Winter’ coat I’m already in the mood for warm weather gadgets like this arc sprinkler from Gilmour. Now I know that sprinklers don’t usually make the list when it comes to Summer gadget guides, but I like what Gilmour has done with this particular model.
The perforated arch that moves back and forth when the water is flowing is actually made from a flexible material instead of stainless steel, so you can bend the ends around to create a custom coverage pattern. They claim it can hydrate an area up to 4,000 sq. ft., which roughly converts to keeping 4 or 5 kids occupied for at least an hour on a hot Summer afternoon. $44.95 from Amazon for this version featuring a die-cast zinc base, or just $19.29 for one made of plastic.
They say a watched pot never boils, and at least while in school the same theory applied to all the clocks on the walls. Staring at the second hand seemed to slow down its progress to the point where I was convinced that everyone outside the school had aged 10 years in the time it took to finish one class. It also had the effect of causing me to not pay attention to the teacher, which wouldn’t have been a problem had this Vague Clock, designed by Sejoon Kim, been on the walls instead.
The hands of the clock are hidden behind a layer of stretchy fabric, and remain invisible as the time ticks away. So if you actually want to see the time you have to get up and press your hand into the fabric so that it stretches over the hands, making them visible. The clock’s also equipped with GPS hardware so that the time is always accurate, and so that there’s no buttons or dials allowing it to be manually adjusted.
If your home is being overrun with empty boxes from FedEx, UPS, Amazon and countless other online purchases, and you have kids, Rolobox will let you kill two birds with one stone. It might be an old joke, but I’ve never known a kid whose eyes didn’t bug out of their heads at the sight of a large, empty box. It’s like a blank canvas for an active imagination, and thanks to this Rolobox kit, they can now be used to make more than just forts and castles.
Of course a cardboard box can easily be turned into a race car with nothing more than a crayon and a crude ability to draw circles, but these Rolobox wheels will actually let your kids take it for a spin around your house. They attach to a box using a set of plastic nuts and bolts, and except for the fact that they require you to punch 4 holes in it, I don’t see why these wouldn’t be a great office accessory for moving around boxes full of files and crap. But I guess it all comes down to how much weight they can actually support and the structural stability of the box itself. $13.95 available from Amazon.
When I stop and think about it, between laptop touchpads, touchscreen phones and tablets and my Wacom tablet, I very rarely use a mouse these days. And if a company called Celluon has anything to say about it, the mouse as we know it may soon be extinct. Using similar technology to those projected laser keyboards, the evoMouse sits on your desk just above where you’d normally be pushing a mouse around, and instead tracks the movements of your fingers. Those movements are then translated into cursor movements on screen, allowing you to use just your fingers for everything from scrolling to dragging files to even accessing context menus.
The evoMouse itself is barely larger than an actual mouse, seemingly making it ideal for traveling, and you can connect it to your computer via USB or via Bluetooth if you’d prefer to keep things wireless. It’s even compatible with styluses if you’d like to use it as a portable drawing tablet, or want to take advantage of the evoMouse’s handwriting recognition technology. Pricing and availability are still TBA.
What a difference a weekend can make. I came across this mobile power unit last week and kind of put it on the back burner, but after the events that have unfolded in Japan over just the past few days it seems like it could be one of the most useful tools for many parts of the country. Created by OS, a Japanese company with an expertise in retractable projector screens, the GSR-110B uses flexible solar cells developed by Fuji Electric Systems to create a mobile power unit that can be deployed in just seconds.
At just 3kg the GSR-110B is lightweight and easy to transport, but thanks to its retractable solar panel it can be set up anywhere, providing up to 40W off power in the right weather conditions. (16W directly from the solar panel itself, plus an additional 24W from the unit’s built-in rechargeable battery.) That’s enough juice to keep a netbook running for about two hours, and is definitely enough to charge a mobile phone. But if you need even more power, two of the units can be connected together for a combined output of 80W when needed. The GSR-110B started shipping back in January, and sells for ~$730 (¥60,000).
It’s always a nice touch when a racing game includes a DIY track builder, because at some point or another every racing fan feels they could design a better course. But in practice, I’ve found I usually don’t have the patience to sit there for hours at a time laying out straightaways and hairpin curves. So does Red Bull’s new iPhone racing game make things any easier when it comes to designing your own circuit? That’s debatable, but at the least it does go about it in a unique way.
If anything the app definitely scores top marks as a marketing/advertising tool since you first need to get your hands on a bunch of cans of Red Bull. Designing your own course is then as easy as arranging them in the shape of your circuit, photographing the front of one of the cans for calibration, and then photographing the tops of each can, one by one, as you make your way around from the start to the finish. The app will then generate a virtual version of the course you’ve laid out, allowing you to race it in the game, or share it with Red Bull’s online community if you think you’ve created the next Nürburgring.
Kinetic-powered watches that harness the movement of the wearer to wind a spring and keep the mechanical movements running have been around for ages. But watchmaker Ventura has designed a new timepiece, the SPARC MGS set to be unveiled at BaselWorld 2011 in a few weeks, that uses the same mechanisms to power its LCD display and other digital bits.
According to Ventura, throughout an average day the wearer’s movements will turn an oscillating mass (which is visible above the display) about 4,000 times, and via a set of connecting gears these rotations are used to repeatedly tension a spring. Every time the spring is fully tensioned, it releases its force to a built-in micro-generator which generates electricity, keeping the electronic bits running. And while the details are a bit vague at this point, the SPARC MGS apparently also has a slick and improperly spelled EasySkroll system which allows the wearer to navigate the UI by simply moving their wrist. (Which also cleverly encourages them to keep the watch moving and of course powered.)
Remember the Aerobie? It was a red ring throwing toy popular in the 80′s and 90′s that was the first real competitor to the Frisbee’s throne. When it came to distance it could really outperform your traditional throwing disc, but that also served to be its downfall. As kids we loved playing with the Aerobie, but ‘playing’ only accounted for about 5% of our day. The other 95% was spent trying to retrieve the Aerobie from neighbor’s fenced-in backyards, or off the roof of our house. So I can’t help but look at the Hela Disc with a little bit of skepticism.
Unlike the circular Aerobie, the Hela Disc has more of an oval shape with an arched airfoil design the company refers to as the FlexFoil. The far ends are also slightly weighted, so when thrown there’s a sort of centrifugal effect that flattens the disc out in flight, increasing its stability. In fact it apparently makes the Hela Disc more playable in windier conditions, so you don’t have to put off playing just because conditions are blustery. Of course there’s no reason to think the Hela Disc won’t spend just as much time trapped on roofs given it’s boasted to have a 150 foot throwing distance, but since they’re just $18.95 each, it won’t break the bank to keep a backup on hand.
Even though I have the opportunity to play with new high-techery week in and week out, it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate those simpler gadgets that have just as much potential for improving our lives. And I’ll be honest, I have just as much gadget lust for this brilliant Chopula spatula as I did for anything I saw at CES earlier this year.
The clever pun of a product name pretty much sums up the Chopula’s greatest strength, a unique head shape which allows you to use one edge to ‘chop’ food in the pan. It’s probably no match for meats or vegetables, but with eggs or other softer fare it saves you from having to reach into a hot pan with a dedicated cutting utensil. The head’s also made from flexible, premium-grade silicone with a multi-curved design making it easy to scrape every last bit from a pan. And if that wasn’t enough to sell you on its design, its even got a built-in kickstand which keeps the head off the counter when not in use. ~$15 from Dreamfarm.
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