By David Ponce

Keyboards are really some of the most disgusting items in your household. You’re constantly flaking off dead skin cells and finger oil and it all falls through the cracks where it builds this layer of bioscum, which is a wonderful nesting ground for bacteria of all kinds. The only thing dirtier is maybe paper money. Now, when you’re at home, you just learn to give your immune system a good workout, but in medical settings, a dirty keyboard can mean someone dying. That’s why it’s a good thing the Vioguard has gotten clearance from the FDA to be marketed as a self-sanitizing alternative. It features a proximity sensor that will eject the keyboard when you need it. Otherwise it’s housed inside its UV resistant receptacle where it’ll not only be away from circulating air, it’ll be exposed to strong UV rays that are known to destroy viruses and bacteria (even the scary MRSA). The Vioguard uses 80W when actively sanitizing (a process that takes 60-90 seconds), and 3W on standby. The lamp is good for 40,000 disinfection cycles while the mechanism stands up to 300,000 uses.

There’s no word on price but as this looks like a medical application, we’re thinking it ain’t cheap.

[ Product Page ] AND [ Press Release ] VIA [ MedGadget ]

By David Ponce

You can’t buy these anymore, it looks like. And even if you could, you probably wouldn’t want to spend the $317 they used to cost. But these cereal bowls that show the silhouette of an animal only when filled with mils (or any opaque liquid) sure are pretty. They were made by one Geraldine De Beco, but there seems to be no way to purchase anything on her website. Or at least, not these.

Hit the jump for a few more pictures.

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By David Ponce

Infographics are like bite-sized food: they beg to be consumed. So I’m putting a long-ass one after the break that details a bunch of interesting stuff about the largest consumer electronics’ show on the planet. I’m going this Sunday and I’ll be bringing you guys as much coverage as is humanely possible… or at least as much as is possible for me. Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to let you all know that Energizer is sponsoring my way there this year. The only part of this sponsorship that will affect you guys is you will see two articles about them. That’s two out of the couple dozen that will come out, so rest assured the floor is yours. Tell me what you want to see, or even better, how you’d rather have me cover this. I’m thinking live Tweeting from the show floor and having the tweets appear here as a short series of posts, in conjunction with 5 regular articles. What do you think? Any interest in livecasts?

In any case, hit the jump for some data on the show.
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By David Ponce

Getting up in the morning is all fine and dandy, but not when it also involves waking up the entire house with you. With the Chirp alarm clock currently in pre-production at Quirky, you simply attach the vibrating click onto your pillowcase and hope that the little rattling is enough to wake you, and only you, on time. From my understanding, the clip stops vibrating when you insert it back in its base but the nice thing about the setup is that if you fail to do so within a certain time, an actual audible alarm will sound as backup.

This product has been upcoming at Quirky apparently since September and we still don’t know when it’ll be available. But its projected price when it is will be around $18.

[ Product Page ]

By David Ponce

This should help out with those new years’ resolutions. Until you smash it to the ground in frustration, of course.

$10.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ The Fancy ]

By David Ponce

There are these gadgets that are just so boring to write about because, lets face it, all they ever do is gradually improve on their specs: smaller, faster, cheaper. I’m not a big fan of slow evolution in consumer electronics, but then again not everything can be revolutionary. It’s interesting to see manufacturers trying, and the BryteWerks ModelOne Projector is a stab in the right direction. It’s really just a nice projector with a full fledged media center machine fuzed to it. The media center part comes with a “Core i3, i5, or i7 CPU and it also packs in a slot-loaded Blu-ray player, up to 2 terabytes of storage – including a 500 gigabyte Solid State Drive, plus built-in Wi-fi and Ethernet.” The software is handled through a customized version of XBMC, which I’m a big fan on. On the projector side you get “ultra-wide 105 mm adjustable prime lens, an ultra-high brightness of 6,000 – 11,000 lumens, a 1000:1 True Contrast Ratio, a 1:1 throw of 1 foot to 50 feet, and it’s capable of producing a full 16:10 widescreen HD 1080p resolution.” There’s a small 720p touchscreen on the back though most interaction with the machine is probably done right on your projection screen. Rounding out the specs and justifying its price tag you have “dual HDMI and USB ports and 5.1 individual analog surround sound outputs.”

Now for the sticker shock: $2,449.00, $2,999.00, $3,999.00 and $5,999.00. Available from January 9th, right when CES kicks off.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By David Ponce

As much as I enjoy the visual bounty of full HD resolution, I still feel a little disenchanted to discover just how wrinkly, pimply and otherwise unsightly people on television really are. It’s almost as if they’re as real as the rest of us, and that makes me sad. You too can broadcast your imperfections to anyone who will dare look at your mug over Skype’s 1080p capable video calling feature. But you’ll need Logitech’s HD Pro C920 to do it. The C920 also does 720p with other IM clients, like Windows Live Messenger. Resolution of course isn’t everything, and you’ll be pleased to know that the webcam offloads a lot of the video processing from the PC and does it right in the camera, instantly compressing to H.264 and adjusting a bunch of variables to give a smooth, clear image. Carl-Zeiss optics and a 20-step autofocus round out the specs.

$100.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By David Ponce

The cold is upon us but that doesn’t stop us from drinking. Up here in Canada, we like to go outside with beer in hand now and then so what better way to stave off frostbite than with the Scandinavian Skuuzie, a purpose made beer holder/mitten hybrid.

$29.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ LikeCool ]

By David Ponce

Something has to be said about comfort and ease of use. When doing presentations, you need to be able to control what’s on screen, and the more seamless the task gets the more you can concentrate on not pulling a Rick Perry. The Genius Ring Presenter does everything a mouse does but fits right into a finger. If you think about it, it’s a very natural way of doing something like this. Is even got a laser pointer.

You receive full access to control power point slides, Play (F5)/Exit, Last/Next Page, Left button and Laser pointer anywhere in the room when doing a presentation. In addition, Ring Presenter also comes with the in-air mouse function so you can use actual mouse functions like cursor movement, left/middle/right buttons, dragging and 4-way scrolling.

The Genius Ring Presenter uses Bluetooth and a small USB dongle to connect to your PC.

It’s $60.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]