Powerzoa is a little cube that sits in between a wall socket and your electronics. It has the magical ability to turn power on and off all by itself while monitoring energy usage, and each Powerzoa cube includes some kind of wireless internet connection that interfaces with a website that lets you track how much power you waste and gives you the option of turning each individual cube’s power off. Powerzoa touts these features as a great way to “save electricity, lower energy costs, and help the environment.” And that’s, you know, great. But for me, the big appeal is the ability to turn individual appliances and lights and stuff on and off over the internet.
Powerzoa is almost identical in principle to the Visible Energy UFO, except at the level of an individual socket as opposed to a power strip. While the Visible Energy UFO is supposed to be ready to go by the end of this year, Powerzoa is still in the prototype phase, but if it’s cheap enough and easy enough to set up, it could be quite a bit handier thanks to a small form factor.
If I had a shirt like this, I’m sure I’d be happy as this strange looking boy is. Totally Absurd Inventions insists that this is an actual US patent, although I haven’t been able to find it on the USPTO website, so I can’t do much besides relate what they say about it:
The Gerbil Shirt wraps your torso in plastic tube passageways, making your bod a super highway of fun for Binky and Bart. The interior surfaces are textured for traction and have air vents for easy breathing.
The inventor suggests you can clean the Gerbil Shirt by attaching it to a faucet (remove pets first please), and you should avoid collisions and falls that could cause pet panic.
So if you thought 2D mandelbrot images were a sight to behold, you should head on over to Skytopia where they’ve got a pretty impressive gallery of 3D mandelbrots including the elusive ‘mandelbulb’ which is sure to make its way onto college dorm walls in poster form very soon.
This USB TV Card Player might be a super easy way to play photos, music or downloaded videos on your big-screen TV, but don’t expect greatness from it. On the plus side it has a built-in card reader for non CF-sized flash card formats as well as a USB port for connecting flash drives or even external card readers, which is the only way it will read an SDHC card. It supports the most common media formats like DIVX, MP3, WMA, JPGs etc. and even comes with a compact IR remote for “long distance operation abilities.” However, on the negative side the fact that it only has a composite video connection means no hi-def for you, which then also makes the $53.99 price tag seem a bit unreasonable.
At just 1.2 x 0.5 x 0.1 inches in size, and weighing just 1/20 of an ounce, Active Media Products claims their new 16GB USB Wink flash drive is the smallest on the planet. And thanks to the electronics being encapsulated in a waterproof COB unit, which is then covered in a high-impact polymer outer shell, the Wink can survive a dip in the drink, or most of the daily abuse you can throw at it. Just don’t expect it to be the fastest flash drive you’ve ever used. The 16GB version of the Wink has a price tag of $37.95, but the drives are also available in 8, 4 and 2GB capacities for $19.95, $10.95 and $7.95 respectively.
Remember when you were a kid, and you got back to school from Christmas vacation and everyone would try to impress everyone else with all the presents they got? Well whatever kid finds this under their tree would instantly win that debate. The term ‘go-kart’ just doesn’t seem to apply to this 2/3-scale replica of a 1956 Corvette C1. Powered by a 6.9HP, 107cc four-stroke engine the Junior Corvette can reach speeds of up to 35mph and features an automatic transmission with forward, neutral and reverse. It can support 2 riders up to 330lbs making it compatible with kids grown-up kids alike, and is available from none other than Hammacher Schlemmer for $32,000.
Tempo Tags are tiny little clip-on watches. They tell time. And they’re small. Made out of stainless steel and powered by a replaceable watch battery, they’ll remain useful until people stop caring what time it is. For $18, you get two of them, one with a clip on the right side for you boring people, and one with a clip on the left side for us awesome people. Or, alternatively, $15 gets you versions that tell temperature. They’ve kinda got an anti-fancy thing going on that is pretty appealing, and you can find them over at Vessel.
Being the frustratingly indecisive and demanding consumer that I am, I find Consumer Reports to be an invaluable resource for major purchases. Their winter 2010 electronics buying guide has hit the shelves, chock full of handy and ad free advice on what to buy and where. One of the more helpful tidbits is this chart, which tells you when to repair stuff and when to replace stuff based on the advice of market analysts and engineering experts and taking into account improvements in new models.
Of course, much of this information depends on what kind of user you are… If you’re a hardcore gamer, you might not be able to survive for more than a year or two without upgrading your system. It’s also worth mentioning that for computers (both desktops and laptops), upgrading while repairing (or just upgrading) is often a viable option. It’s a slightly easier process with desktops than with laptops, of course, but even with laptops, it’s often possible to upgrade hard drives (to improve the speed or capacity) and RAM. And you can do it yourself, for pretty cheap… Usually, all it takes is a screwdriver and a little perseverance.
If nothing else, this chart is a handy way to justify upgrading some of your gear. Hey, if Consumer Reports says I should replace my plasma TV with something new after I accidentally smash my crappy old one with a hammer, who am I to argue? Not that I actually own a plasma TV, of course. Or, for that matter, a hammer.
It’s getting hard to remember life before YouTube. Before our favorite video streaming site existed, we had to scrape by with America’s Funniest Home Videos and the occasional gem on Newgrounds. These days not only do we get to watch millions of stupid (and once in a while educational) videos, but they’re also available in 720p. Of course in this age of high-definition TVs, YouTube knows it could do better. And starting this week, they will.
That’s right, this week the site will allow users to upload videos in 1080p, and play them back in the same resolution. It seems that some videos that were previously uploaded in 1080p have already been converted. The above video has been confirmed to be streaming at full 1080p. It looks great (in comparison to SD), loads fast and has no stutters when streaming for me. What do you guys think?
Related Tags: Eco-friendly, Household, Power
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