Oh! Gizmo

By Chris Scott Barr

Have you ever wished that you could be notified when your snail mail arrives? In the age of instant email notifications, the hit-or-miss nature of checking your postal mail can be an annoyance. Even more so if your mailbox is located a great distance from your door. Nothing is more annoying than walking five minutes, only to not find a single letter. Did the mailman come yet, or was there just nothing for you today?

Well now you can solve this age-old problem with a gadget from Thanko. Just pop the Mailbox Sentry into your mailbox, and set the receiver in your house. When a piece of mail goes into your box, you’ll get a notification. The device works up to 100m away, so distance won’t be an issue. $95 is a lot of money to spend to let you know that you have bills waiting for you.

[ JapanTrendShop ] VIA [ RedFerret ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Using a 2.4GHz signal this wireless adapter set from Thanko lets you connect your guitar to your amp without being tied down by an unsightly cable. The transmitter and receiver plug into the 1/8th 1/4 inch jacks on the ax and the amp, giving you about a 66 foot range indoors, and about a 98 foot range outdoors. They both charge via a miniUSB port located on the side, and on a single 2 hour charge you should be able to rock out for about 3 to 6 hours. Get it from Geek Stuff 4 U for about $218. (¥19,990)

[ USB Wireless Guitar Tansmitter & Receiver ]

By Andrew Liszewski

At first glance I worried that this adapter plate from Thanko that allows you to perch your laptop atop an unused tripod could lead to a nasty fall, turning your expensive hardware into a pile of unusable electronic bits. But I guess professional photographers do the same thing with high-end DSLRs that can be considerably more expensive than even the most-tripped out laptops. So it should probably work just fine, as long as you don’t cheap out on the tripod that is.

The adapter looks to be nothing more than a metal plate with a standard tripod mount on the bottom, as well as a set of elastic straps to serve as a seatbelt for your laptop while it’s sitting on top. So while you could easily build one yourself, the $21 (¥1980) price tag almost outweighs the trip to the hardware store and the half-hour or so of DIY required to assemble your own version.

[ Thanko Laptop Tripod Stand Adapter ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m not going to postulate what manner of web activities require a webcam that’s not embedded into a laptop’s screen or even tethered to a USB cable, but suffice to say this wireless webcam from Thanko comes with minimal restrictions. The 2.4GHz signal is apparently only capable of transmitting a 320×240 image @ 15fps, though it does have a decent wireless range of about 32 feet. Its battery is rechargeable via a miniUSB connection on the back of the camera, and on a single charge you can expect to get about 5 hours of use. Geek Stuff 4 U is selling it for ~$103, though it won’t actually be available until the end of April.

[ Thanko Wireless Webcam ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A good podcast starts with a good microphone, and Thanko’s new XLR to USB mic cable (or ‘mike’ cable as their website puts it) allows you to easily connect even the most high-end of mics directly to your PC. It’s both Windows and Mac friendly, with some degree of plug-and-play compatibility I assume, and the 5 meter cable means you don’t have to sit right in front of your computer or laptop to use it. ~$55 (4,980 yen) available from Thanko.jp.

[ USB To XLR Mic Cable ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Evan Ackerman

24 USB 2.0 ports, you say? Some people might call that excessive. I am not one of those people, because 24 USB ports is not enough for me. I mean, after I’ve plugged in my volcano, Christmas tree, lunchbox, chameleon, missile launcher, microwave, light bulb, mouse wheel, chainsaw, ethernet hub, sunglasses, wireless HDMI adapter, cat ears, slouch meter, transfer cable, foot switch, spoonful of cereal, digital microscope, race car email notifier, am/fm radio, travel mug, micro display, shortwave radio, and Whack-A-Mole, that doesn’t leave any room for other things that may come in handy in for some specific tasks… Like, a mouse. Or a keyboard.

So obviously, it’s necessary to get more than one of these. How many, you ask? Well, if you go back to the early days when we were just a wee little blog (and for the record, at that point, I personally didn’t even know what a blog was), it turn out that OhGizmo has a total of 1,073 posts about USB stuff of varying degrees of usefulness.

Make that 1,074.

So if you want to plug all of the USB stuff that we’ve written about in at once, you’ll need 45 of these 24 port USB hubs. At $70 each, that’s $3,145. Better start saving; you can find them at USB Fever.

[ USB Fever ] VIA [ RFJ ]

By Evan Ackerman

I don’t know how they do it, but somehow, Thanko manages to keep coming up with gadgets that are silly and borderline useless for most people and yet are potentially just perfect for just enough people that I don’t quite feel comfortable making fun of them. And even then, this USB radio is a more useful than most, considering that it receives AM, FM, and shortwave.

There’s an external antenna jack, and the actual tuning is done via software. You can record anything you’re listening to directly to MP3, and you can even schedule different recordings on different frequencies, sort of like a really cumbersome and old-school Podcast. But I guess if you don’t have internet, then it could be a great solution for you.

‘Course, if you don’t have internet, then you’re not reading this, so what do I care?

$45 at Thanko.

[ Thanko (Translated) ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Evan Ackerman

Traditional video cameras tend to be really, really annoying in that in order to use them, you’re constantly looking through them and pushing buttons and stuff. So you miss what’s actually going on. Yeah, you’ve got it all on tape or whatever, but you’re missing the experience of the moment. This is why hands-free, wearable video cameras might be a good idea, and this one from Thanko stands out because of its compact size and ruggedness.

At only 2.5 inches long and weighing at under an ounce, this camera is seriously tiny. It’s small enough to wear around your head without noticing or, alternatively, duct tape to any number of things (an R/C car, a model rocket, your cat, etc.) to capture some unique footage. The camera is waterproof to an impressive 65 feet, and will record QVGA (320 x 240) vids without sound for up to 2 hours on 2 gigs of internal memory. The battery is integrated, and it both recharges and transfers data via USB. It costs $135, which is a bit much for such low resolution and lack of audio, but the serious waterproofing might make it worthwhile.

[ Thanko ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Andrew Liszewski

With a breakthrough that’s sure to have far-reaching ramifications, Thanko’s latest USB card reading pen includes not one, not two, not three, but four SD card slots! Now I find it kind of odd that I didn’t see this headlined on CNN last night, since it’s been theorized that pen-sized card readers could be built to maybe handle two cards, three at best if certain laws of physics were re-written. But four? Almost unthinkable. Until now that is. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, what a time to be alive…

Brando, the ball’s in your court. I know you’ve got the know-how to make a five SD card slot pen, but have you got the guts?

[ Akihabara News - Thanko's Latest Four SD Slot Pen ]