Bundles are almost as fun as all-in-ones; you get a bunch of stuff for one price, usually discounted, resulting is significant savings. The above bundle sees a Dell XPS 8300 desktop computer and a 24 inch monitor going for the reasonable price of $949 after $498 in savings. Of course, that’s still almost a thousand dollars, so what do you get for the price? Aside from the 24 inches of viewing real estate, there’s a Core i7-2600 3.4GHz Quad-core processor along with 8GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive, two USB 3.0 ports, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS, 1GB Radeon HD 6450 graphics, 15-month McAfee SecurityCenter, Multimedia Keyboard, Laser Mouse and more.
This post brought to you by Scotts®. All opinions are 100% mine.
Well, the long, cold winter is over, and in its wake it’s left many lawns looking a little frazzled. Or a lot frazzled. The next few weeks will be spent either ignoring the issue and hoping it’ll take care of itself, or in a buzz of activity involving among many things, fertilizer. Scotts has developed a new system that makes spreading fertilizer on your lawn a lot easier. It’s called the Scotts® Snap® Spreader System. It consists of the spreader itself, which is a two-wheeled apparatus made specifically to accept the Snap-Pac bags of fertilizers. These feature a special bottom that simply snaps into the spreader, locks right in and lets you roll around your lawn, spreading the stuff in a matter of seconds.
The system will set the proper flow rate automatically so all you have to do is walk a bit. There’s even an edge guard feature, to confine the spray within your lawn and avoid having it go on your driveway or anywhere else you wouldn’t want it. And when you’re done, you just remove the bag and it seals itself; no need to tape it shut or whatever else you might have been doing with the bags in the past to keep them fresh.
Scotts is running a bunch of promotions right now, which they call Snap perks on Facebook , and to enter you just have to like their Facebook page. Relevant links are at the bottom.
The Japanese seem to have a thing for pretty humidifiers. It’s not the first time we’ve covered one, although this time we have a tiny bit more information on the product. The above is called the PlusMinusZero Humidifier Version 3, by Naoto Fukasawa design. It looks like a fancy bedpan, but will keep your nostrils hydrated and your sinuses free of pain instead. Coming in brown, red or green, this particular humidifier will break the bank at a cool $352. Of course when you’re serious about decking out your living space with unique looking things, money can quickly become the least of your worries.
If you’re looking for an external keyboard and a case for your iPad 2, the above might be a good all-in-one solution for you. Not only will it nestle and protect your tablet, it contains a Lithium-Ion battery that will give you some extra juice as well. The keyboard will connect through Bluetooth, and there are USB and Micro-USB ports on the side. We’re not sure how these will interface with the iPad seeing as its not exactly setup for USB use, however if you’ve jailbroken your device and installed iFile then you’ll basically have jerry-rigged a full blown laptop. Granted, iOS will still limit the things you’re able to do, but it’s as close as you’ll get without spending the extra dough.
The Notebook Case for iPad is $75 through Japanese retailer Rakuten, which means its US-based partner buy.com could have it in stock in the near future.
Ergonomics, some say, is important. We would personally find a way to work even while hanging upside down, so it isn’t of much concern to us. But among those who don’t see it like we do is Philips, who has developed a computer monitor that can help keep a good posture while working. A camera on the front of the 24 inch ErgoSensor monitor makes sure that you keep the right distance from the screen, that your head is not tilting forward and even gives you an occasional reminder to get the heck away from your desk and take a break if it notices you’ve been in front for too long. This same presence detection ability is also a good energy saving feature, since the screen will go to sleep when it notices you’re not around.
The ErgoSensor is currently on sale in Europe for 285 euros, though there’s no word on whether it’ll ever make the jump over the pond.
You might argue that going out into the wild and being outdoorsy involves leaving your electronics behind. You know, get away from it all and all that. But lets face it, that won’t happen. And if you’re away from the grid for a prolonged period of time, you’re gonna want to do something about getting those gadgets charged up. The PowerPot is a special cooking pot that contains thermoelectric materials. This means that it will generate electricity as you’re heating up your dinner. There are two versions, which generate 5W and 10W of energy.
The Regulator Cord on both models has a high-temperature connector which plugs into the backside of the PowerPot, and three feet of flame-resistant cabling leading to the USB plug. This makes the PowerPot usable on open wood fires in addition to stoves
The basic PowerPot V, which contains 1.4 litres of liquid and generates 5W starts out at $125 while the larger 1.9 litre PowerPot X generates 10W and goes for $200. They’re currently projects on Kickstarter and if they reach their goal, they should ship in June.
These optical illusions were discovered at Harvard, and demonstrate a phenomenon they’re calling silencing:
Play the movie while looking at the small white speck in the center of the ring. At first, the ring is motionless and it’s easy to tell that the dots are changing color. When the ring begins to rotate, the dots suddenly appear to stop changing. But in reality they are changing the entire time. Take a look.
SILENCING demonstrates the tight coupling of motion and object appearance. Simply by changing the retinotopic coordinates—moving the object or the eyes—it is possible to silence awareness of visual change, causing objects that had once been obviously dynamic to suddenly appear static.
As was pointed out to us last time we discussed exsanguination, applying a tourniquet is not always the smartest thing to do. It should only be done when someone’s life is seriously at risk. And you should always be mindful that there’s a chance they could lose a limb is it’s kept on for too long. Of course, if you’re bleeding profusely from somewhere and don’t do something about it, you might die. Applying pressure to the wound is one solution, but the ITClamp goes about it slightly differently:
Inspired by a simple hair clip, Filips designed a device called the ITClamp. The ITClamp is essentially a sterile, plastic clamp approximately five centimeters in length, with curved needles along the “jaws” of the device. In a trauma situation, the responder clamps the device along the wound. The curved needles and the shape of the ITClamp draw the wound up into the device and anchor it with even pressure, allowing the blood underneath to create a clot around the wound and help stop the bleeding until the victim receives further medical attention.
Yeah so… the teeth basically bite into your flesh and then the clamp sucks it up and clamps it shut. Ouch! But hey, beats dying.
The company expects the product to sell for around $65 sometime in late 2012, pending regulatory approval.
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By David Ponce
