By Andrew Liszewski

This ArchRuler design is so brilliantly simple that I have to assume it’s been thought of before. But, it’s new to me, and I’m going to assume new to at least a handful of you too. As someone with the unfortunate habit of biting their fingernails, picking flat or thin objects off a flat surface is next to impossible. Dropped change often has to be abandoned, and in grade school rulers had to be slid off the edge of a desk lest they be imprisoned on top forever.

Those problems I had to deal with as a student though would not have been so difficult had I been issued an ArchRuler at the start of the school year. As its name suggests, it arches upwards in the middle, making it easy to pick up off a flat surface. But it’s just as easy to use as a regular ruler by pressing down on the middle when you need to draw a straight line or make a measurement. Available from the Japanese online store Rakuten for ~$6.50, and probably a lot of other places too.

[ Matomeno - ArchRuler ]

By David Ponce

Royal Philips Electronics is Obsessed With Sound. Seriously. I know this because they’ve told me and they’ve shown me and now, six months after this episode started, I finally get it. I get their message. I get what they’re on about. The pieces of the puzzle have fallen in place.

And I like it.

Back in March, I told you’d I’d soon be talking about my trip to Amsterdam to check out the Metropole Orchestra. It took quite a while longer than expected, but here we are. In this article, I’d like you to come with me behind the scenes of a Philips production of a musical piece called I’m No Prototype. In the process you’ll be introduced to an awesome musical visualization technique they developed and you’ll also hear about an ambitious musical talent competition Philips is sponsoring.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

Of all the PC peripherals that gobble up your precious desk space, the flatbed scanner has to be the worst offender. If there happens to be one on your desk right now, I’m sure it’s buried under a mountain of papers and other crap that has to be cleared off on the rare occasion you actually need to scan something. So LG has done a real solid for anyone who hates desktop clutter. Their new LSM-100 Smart Scan mouse has a scanning head built into it, so it just takes a couple of passes back and forth whenever you have a document to scan.

It’s obviously not as easy as just slapping a page on a scanner bed and hitting go, but I’m assuming it comes with the necessary software to automatically stitch several passes of a scanned document together for you. It’s also got some OCR capabilities, which is a must have for any scanner, and the ability to spit out documents to a wide variety of formats. The $150 price tag (available at the end of August in Europe and internationally a little later) might not appeal to everybody though. Particularly since I’m going to assume this mouse has some extra bulk and heft to it, which can’t be fun to push around all day.

[ Gizmag - LG’s LSM-100 mouse that doubles as a scanner set for release ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Just the other day I was having a discussion with someone about how difficult it must be to keep vehicles with a matte paint finish clean. And then I came across this. In an attempt to make their Ferrari F430 stand out from the crowd (because, you know, the streets are filled with them) someone with questionable taste wrapped one in leather grain vinyl. Removing a bird dropping is hard enough on a vehicle with a gloss paint finish. Even moreso with a matte finish, and probably just a huge pain in the butt on something like this. On the plus side though, there’s now less risk of someone going and painting this particular Ferrari yellow. (Shudder…)

[ GTspirit.com - Ferrari F430 with Leather Wrap by Dartz ] VIA [ Jalopnik ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Instead of mocking the ridiculousness of a company that sells $12 colored pillows designed to prevent a boiled egg from rolling off a table. I’ve realized I should be commending the company for successfully selling $12 colored pillows whose sole purpose is to prevent a boiled egg from rolling off a table. So congratulations to you Vacu Vin. You saw what Apple did with their stupid iPod Socks and realized you could also make money by slapping some stylish pastel colors on a product no one really needs.

[ Vacu Vin Egg Pillows ] VIA [ Motley Food & 7Gadgets ]

By David Ponce

Dell’s U2212HM is a nearly 22-inch display that usually sells for $279, but today you can have it for $237.15 after a $41.85 rebate.

Also features built-in 4-port USB 2.0 hub, anti glare with hard coat 3H surface, LED-backlighting, 8ms response time, 250nit brightness, 2,000,000:1 (typical) dynamic contrast ratio, EPEAT Gold rated, plus DVI + VGA connections, Height-Adjustable stand,tilt and swivel and built in cable-management.

[ 15% Off Dell 21.5 Inch LCD ]

And HP’s line of ENVY notebooks has been generally very well reviewed, with superior case materials and impressive performance specs. Today we look at the ENVY 17 Core i7 configuration, where you’ll get 30% off.

The 1.25″ thin, 7.25 lbs ENVY 17 features brushed aluminum chassis in carbon relic (metal) and powered by 2nd Generation Core i5 or Quad Core i7 processors. Also equipped: 1 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, optional Blu-ray, dual hard drive bays (SSD available), backlit keyboard, TrueVision HD webcam, Triple Bass Reflex Subwoofer, mini DisplayPort, HDMI 1.4, Beats Audio and optional high-resolution Full HD 17.3 HD+ LED (1920 x 1080) display.

[ 30% Off HP ENVY 17 ] VIA [ LogicBuy ]

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Carbonite. All opinions are 100% mine.

It’s been said over and over but it bears repeating.  Our lives are becoming increasingly digital and all our important documents are moving from an analogue world into a hard drive somewhere.  Gone are the CDs, the Polaroids, the cassettes, the paper folders with documents in them.  They’re replaced by MP3s, digital photos and word processing documents.  Care has to be taken to preserve them.  And while backing your documents to an external drive is a good idea… what happens if your house burns down?  Off-site backups add another layer of protection and Carbonite is a leader in the field of computer backup  As long as your computer is connected to the Internet, Carbonite backs up your files in the background, making them accessible from virtually any device with Internet access.  Once setup, you simply forget it’s there and the backups happen automatically.  They even offer free mobile apps so you can access, enjoy and share your files from your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android or Blackberry Smartphone.

Unlimited backup for the PC of Mac is $59 a year, but there’s a 15 day free trial (no credit card required) and 2 months free if you purchase, if you use the coupon code BLOGAD.

By Andrew Liszewski

When it comes to compact P&S digital cameras it’s not easy to innovate. Sure, you can make it smarter, cram a bigger sensor in there and generally improve the specs year after year. But improving the form factor isn’t as easy when your goal is to make something compact and easy to pocket. Samsung, however, has come up with a simple but very useful improvement on their new MV800 P&S. The massive 3-inch capacitive touchscreen display on the back can be flipped up 180 degrees making it easier to take photos from low-angles as well as self-shots. It also serves as a handy support or makeshift tripod if you want to prop the camera up somewhere.

The 16.1MP snapper also features 5X optical zoom, dual image stabilization and a host of software based features like filters, easy panoramas, photo touch-ups and effects, faux 3D and in-camera cropping. Oddly enough it seems to use microSD/SDHC cards instead of the far more common SD/SDHC, most likely to help shrink the camera’s body. So keep that in mind if you were hoping to use the mountain of SD cards you’ve collected over the years. Available soonish, most likely well before the holiday shopping season, for $279.99.

[ Samsung MV800 ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The original VooMoteOne from Zero1 expanded the functionality of the iPhone and iPod Touch by turning it into a universal remote. Unfortunately at the expense of having to use a fairly hefty sleeve case. So Zero1 put it on a strict diet, resulting in their new VooMote Zapper which is being officially revealed at IFA today.

The bulky sleeve has been reduced to a colorful paperclip sized dongle (with optional matching case) that attaches to the dock connector of any iOS device. All you need to do is then download the free VooMote app and setup the devices you wish to control. The minuscule dongle certainly makes the VooMote Zapper more appealing than its predecessor, but it’s the highly customizable app, letting you arrange the buttons however you want and even create multi-function macros, that will appeal to most home theater junkies. Unlike the original VooMoteOne the Zapper does require you to hold your iOS device upside down when using it as a remote, but I think that’s a reasonable tradeoff. Available sometime this Fall with pricing TBA.

[ Zero1 ]