Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

Thanks to hundreds of cable specialty channels with thousands of hours to fill every week, I get to watch reruns of all the classic sitcoms and TV shows I grew up with back in the 80’s. For the most part I’m left feeling that the first 18 years of my life could have been considerably better spent, except when it comes to a particular show about a crack commando unit that was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit.

That’s right, while MacGyver couldn’t use a paperclip and an elastic to make his show withstand the test of time, I’ll never tire of the A-Team, even the crappy final season where they ended up working for the man. I’m sure the crazy homebrew gadgets and vehicles they cooked up on a weekly basis were part of the appeal, but let’s not forget that badass GMC van that’s so much a part of the show that Universal created this over-the-top DVD packaging based on it. Goodbye shelf space, hello Hannibal, B.A., Face and Murdock.

The 25 disc set will be officially released on June 8, but you can pre-order it now from Amazon for $89.99.

[ A-Team: The Complete Series ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Teva, a company I once mistakenly associated with quality footwear, is coming out with a pair of sandals called the ‘Illum’ which feature LED flashlights on the straps, supposedly making it easier to traverse the beach at night. Now I’m sure the sandals are well-made, and it’s nice that the LEDs can be removed and attached to a keychain as needed, but seriously? I can honestly say I’ve survived many a walks at night in sandals without the aid of miniature headlights strapped to my feet, not to mention that I can’t think of a more inconvenient place to put a flashlight. “What was that?! Did you see it?! Here, let me balance on one foot and point my sandal into those bushes for a better look!” $60 a pair, available sometime in May.

[ Boing Boing - Flip flops that double as a flashlight ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Imagine how more inspired you’d be to get everything done on that Post-it note to-do list stuck to your fridge if it was your wife or significant other’s face screaming at you to get it done. I’m sure that was the inspiration behind this Digital Video Memo Recorder which features a 1.44 inch LCD display and a front facing camera allowing you to capture video reminders instead of just writing them down.

Now I’m a little confused as to why the video is captured at 320×240 at 20fps, when the 128×128 pixel display doesn’t come anywhere close to that. Not to mention at that resolution the built-in memory can only hold about a 30 second clip, which kind of makes the $66 price tag from Geek Stuff 4 U a bit ridiculous. Give me a pad of 20 of these for that amount of money and we’ll talk.

[ Digital Video Memo ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Andrew Liszewski

So maybe you’re not a cameraman on a budget, and DIY hardware like the Nintendo DS based Open Camera Controller we posted earlier doesn’t appeal to you. In that case you might want to check out Gitzo’s new toy. The company is known for their brilliant carbon fiber tripods, monopods and other photography gear that’s well out of my price range, and I’m sure their new Athena remote camera head, which was shown at the CP+ 2010 Exhibition in Yokohama this past weekend, will continue in that tradition of awesomeness and expensiveness.

According to Gizmag, the remote controlled Athena allows photographers to mount their camera in places too dangerous or inconvenient for them to stand. The gimbal is controlled via software running on a PC, which not only lets the photographer adjust the camera’s various functions and settings, but also lets them remotely pan, tilt and roll the head. Of course having a modern DSLR with live-view capabilities is pretty much a requisite if you want to remotely reframe a shot, but odds are if your job requires gear like this, you’ve also got the budget for the latest and greatest in camera equipment. Official pricing and availability hasn’t been announced yet, but I’m sure it will be posted to Gitzo’s website once it’s back on its feet.

[ Gizmag - Gitzo's Athena: the cameraman that can go anywhere ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When it comes to being a robot vacuum the G182, available from Chinavasion, does everything you’d expect a reasonably equipped model to do these days, like automatically dock with the charging base when the battery gets low, and it comes with a wireless IR virtual fence to keep it from wandering into places it shouldn’t go.

But the inclusion of a remote controlled pan and tilt IR-equipped webcam, which has the unfortunate side effect of ensuring it won’t fit under most couches, means the G182 also doubles as a remote cleaning tool and surveillance unit that can be controlled and monitored from anywhere in the world you have a net connection. It connects to your home wi-fi network providing both a live video and audio feed, and the whole setup is perfect for anyone who’s ever worried that someone might break into their home only to be horrified to find the floors are dirty. How embarrassing! ~$500.

[ Intelligent Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Wireless IP Camera ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’ve ever lusted over one of Wacom’s LCD/tablet Cintiqs, but could never justify the $1,000+ price tag, perhaps $220-240 plus a little bit of elbow grease might seem like an affordable compromise. TabletMod.com is currently selling a DIY kit that turns a small collection of Wacom tablets, like the Intuos2 9×12, the Intuos3 A4 or the Intuos4 Large into fully functional Cintiq-like devices, minus all the polish and anti-fingerprint magic of the real thing.

The whole conversion process looks a little intense, and I’ll be honest, when you factor in the price of a large Wacom tablet, the kit itself, and the extra hardware you’ll need to buy like a laptop LCD display which isn’t included, you’re probably better off to just spring for one of the lower-end Cintiqs, instead of voiding a whole whack of warranties.

[ TabletMod.com ] VIA [ Hack a Day ]

By Evan Ackerman

Less than $100 probably means $99.99, but that doesn’t change the fact that the 2.5″ Onyx SSD from OCZ is actually in the realm of casually affordable, a first for SSDs. We’re used to seeing SSD drives that offer incredible performance, but at a price point that makes most of us just sigh sadly. The OCZ Onyx, while offering only modest speeds (125 MB/s read and 70 MB/s write) relative to other SSDs, is still fast enough that you’d notice a significant difference in load times if you stick your operating system on it. Unsurprisingly, the drive only has a capacity of 32 gigs, so your operating system may be the only thing you can stick on it, but that’s okay.

Even if the speed and size aren’t that impressive, don’t forget about the other benefits of SSDs: they’re light, shockproof, durable, and use up a heck of a lot less power than conventional drives since they don’t have anything inside them that needs to be kept spinning at several thousand RPM all the time.

$100 is not going to get you some kind of incredibly awesome SSD drive. But it will get you this SSD drive, which, for the cost, is way better than no SSD drive at all.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ HotHardware ]

By Evan Ackerman

The FCC, in a remarkable display of optimism, has decreed that as part of the national broadband plan that they’re about to present to congress, 100 million Americans will have 100 Mbps internet by, um, 2010. Good luck with that, fellas. Anyway, it’s not like the FCC is going to start offering you high speed internet packages for cheap; rather, they’ll be trying to get congress to pass legislation to prod telecoms into pulling the US out of a glorified dial-up age.

As part of that process, the FCC would like to know how fast your internet is. By finding out where broadband service is the worst (or doesn’t exist), they’ll know where to focus their resources, with the welcome side effect of exposing the differences between the kind of services that telecoms promise, and what they actually deliver.

So obviously, the most productive thing you can possibly do is to download a bunch of movies as you’re running the test, since the worse your internet is, the more likely that the FCC will pay attention and get somebody to do something about it.

Eventually.

[ FCC Broaband Test ] VIA [ Wired ]

By Chris Scott Barr

You know what I don’t see enough of these days? Bandoliers. It’s already been proven that they are stylish, I mean just look at Chewbacca, Rambo and Worf (at least I’m pretty sure that thing was considered an ornamental bandolier). What’s that, you’d like to wear one, but just don’t have a good enough reason?  Well have I got a surprise for you. The Dew Quiver iPod Shoulder Strap is exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Alright, in all seriousness, this thing is the fanny pack for the 21st century. No, that’s not some sort of compliment to the designers. Sure, it’s got a place to run the cord for your earbuds and build-in volume control. But this thing boils down to being the equivalent of a fanny pack. It’s not stylish, it’s just a big ugly pocket. Make that a big ugly expensive pocket, as it will set you back $85.

[ SmallDog ] VIA [ Coolest-Gadgets ]