In an attempt to make getting online as easy and affordable as possible for people living in emerging markets, Vodafone has created the Webbox, which is an all-in-one, plug-and-play keyboard computer. As you can see it’s completely lacking a display of any kind, and that’s because it’s designed to plug into any television using its built-in A/V cable, kind of like a modern version of the Commodore 64. And by taking the display costs out of the equation, the Webbox, which is now available in India (it was originally launched in South Africa) only costs around 5800 Rupees, or about $130.
Internet access is provided by a Vodafone SIM card supporting 2.5G and EDGE data networks, and according to TheNextWeb, the cost of the device includes 12GB of data usage. (We’re assuming that’s not monthly.) In addition to browsing the web using the Opera mini browser which minimizes the data load, the Webbox also includes apps for checking email, text messaging, an FM radio, a photo album, a music player, calculator, calendar, games and even a basic text editor. A built-in microSD card slot presumably serves as the devices main storage, which is handy because whatever’s not stored in ‘the cloud’ can be easily shared, in theory, by swapping microSD cards with other Webboxes.
When you’re lacking long fingernails, getting a key onto a keyring can be one of the most difficult tasks life throws at you. But thanks to Scott Amron, we no longer have to settle for a pocket full of loose keys. His new Carabiner Key design features a pivoting latch, not unlike the one used on real carabiners, that makes it ridiculously easy to clip a key anywhere. Particularly a keyring. When it’s available this Fall it will be sold as a standard key-shaped blank, meaning any locksmith or machine can easily cut it with their existing equipment. And given Scott’s previous key invention, the Keybrid, sells for about $9 these days, you can probably expect a similar price tag for the Carabiner model.
Sometimes all it takes is a clever packaging and marketing approach for an every day product to become a best seller. Case in point, parmesan cheese. It’s certainly delicious in its own right, but at the same time it’s not the most exciting looking thing at the grocery store. At least until Germany-based ad agency Kolle Rebbe put a clever spin on it for food cooperative, The Deli Garage.
Instead of having you go at a regular block of parmesan with a grater, it packages the cheese as large ‘pencils’ that you grate with an included pencil sharpener. The shavings not only look decorative, but in lieu of graphite the centers of the ‘pencils’ feature three different flavorings: truffles, pesto and chilli. The back of the Parmesan Pencil packaging also shows the calorie count in relation to the length used, as well as a guide for how much is recommended for a given recipe. Sadly they were only created in a limited run of 500 sets, which sold out in just 2 weeks.
It’s not the only solution for connecting your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to your car’s entertainment center. But Scosche’s new sneakPEEK auto cable does a lot of things right. It’s designed to be wired into your car’s electrical system, as well as connecting to your stereo’s composite video inputs. So videos from your iDevices will be piped through the LCD displays in your ride while they recharge in the process.
But if you want to enjoy your video content privately while still topping off your iDevice’s battery, a switch on the cable turns off the video connections. And while most cables like this only come with enough slack to connect and leave your iPhone or iPod in the glove compartment, Scosche’s sneakPEEK auto has a generous 9 feet of cable so anyone in the car can use it. Unfortunately it also comes with a Monster Cable-like price tag of $74.99.
Writing for the DOTD column is beginning to make me feel like the people who work at Walmart, “always rolling back prices”. Sounds cheezy, but that is exactly what happens with these machines over time and these deals are the mechanisms by which they do. Take today’s for example. It’s Dell’s Inspiron 17r laptop, which we wrote about not two weeks ago. Back then, the base Core i3 Sandy Bridge model started at $549. Today, that price after rebates stands at $499 with free shipping. Features on this 17-inch laptop are, like last time: “HDMI v1.4, two USB 3.0 ports, 8-in-1 card reader, 1-Megapixel HD webcam and more.”
If you’re a Formula 1 racing fan your eyes have probably already lit up at the sight of this 1:1 full-sized scale replica of the steering wheel used by Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa in the 2011 F1 season. It’s hand built from real carbon fibre and the switches, paddles and buttons all move, though technically they don’t actually do anything. But the rest of us are left scratching our heads as to why someone would spend $2,151.07 on a steering wheel they can’t actually use for anything other than some quality imagination time. Although given the real things are rumored to cost in the $30-40,000 price range, if not more, this one’s a real bargain. Too bad there’s only 250 up for grabs.
And today’s award for ‘Display Technology That Will Most Certainly Never Catch On’ goes to Mitchell F. Chan’s The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha art piece which uses rings of water vapor as pixels to spell out Miguel de Cervantes Savaedra’s book of the same name. The rings are generated by an array of ultrasonic transducers in a bucket of water controlled by an Arduino. The sounds they produce are out of the range of human hearing, but produce tiny airborne water droplets which are then propelled upwards using another set of speakers producing subsonic sounds instead.
The video below shows the whole thing in action, but be warned, it’s not terribly exciting. Since it can only produce a single letter at a time, Mitchell says it will take approximately an entire year to spell out the entire book.
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia. Did you know that from 2002 to 2005 Victorinox made a couple of Swiss Army Knives that featured built-in lighters? Something that would come in far useful while trying to survive in the wilderness than a corkscrew bottle opener. But, because the lighters only require a single action to ignite the flame, they were deemed too unsafe for sale in the United States. So if you had any interest in picking up either the SwissFlame or CampFlame models, you had to live in Europe or Australia, where apparently lighter regulations are far more lenient.
But if you’re determined, and happen to have a friend or P.O. box in Australia, you can still find them from online sellers like ‘Army Surplus Stores‘ for $129.50 AUD, which works out to about $137 US.
HP Singapore, in collaboration with local telco SingTel, medical device maker HealthSTATS Int’l and Frontier Healthcare have just started an 8 week long, 100 patient trial of their new Mobile Health Monitoring Solution. Now you might be thinking that you’ve seen fitness watches like this before, but you haven’t. Most watches that monitor your heart are only keeping track of your pulse, letting you know if you’re truly getting an effective workout. But HP’s new monitor uses technology developed by HealthSTATS International that actually lets the watch measure blood pressure or CASP, central aortic systolic pressure.
This measuring technique is actually considered a far more accurate indicator of a patient’s cardiac health because it measures pressure in the aorta, but until now it’s required invasive surgery. HealthSTAT’s non-invasive BPro EVBP Technology instead measures something called the pulse wave from a patient’s radial artery at the point of their wrist, and using proprietary algorithms is able to produce results as accurate as the surgical method. Of course HP’s implementation of the technology goes one step further, allowing a patient’s stats to be remotely monitored via cellular data networks so they don’t have to continually visit hospitals or clinics to have their BP measured.
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