Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

In Japan you have to be 20 years old to legally buy cigarettes. While the age limit makes buying smokes from an honest shopkeep difficult, vending machines have traditionally sold cigarettes to anyone and everyone with the right amount of currency. But earlier this year the Tobacco Institute of Japan instituted a new system that requires smart vending machines to check the buyer’s ID before allowing them to make a purchase.

So if you’re 20 or older and want to buy cigarettes from a machine in Japan, you need to get a tobacco passport age-verification card which is how they confirm you’re age. The circuit-embedded cards also feature electronic money capabilities allowing you to simply swipe the card to verify your age and complete your purchase. Obviously the system is far from foolproof, since there’s nothing stopping someone with a tobacco passport from simply handing the purchased cigarettes to an underage smoker, but if they somehow combined these machines with those giant Gundam bots I think they’d have a pretty good deterrent.

[ Japanese Schoolgirl Watch: Tobacco Vending Machines Block Underage Smokers ] VIA
[ Geekologie ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Over the years there have been many studies on the dangers of radiation and electromagnetic fields from cellphones. Some have said it’s perfectly safe, while others feel it’s really dangerous. But why listen to someone else’s findings when you can conduct your own research and come to your own conclusions with this handheld EMF detector. It measures both radio frequency radiation as well as extremely low-frequency magnetic fields and should give you a pretty good idea of which electronics in your home are the worst offenders. Of course the readings given by the CellSensor don’t exactly fall into a ’safe’ or ‘not-safe’ category since I’m pretty sure there’s no definite guidelines yet. But don’t let that stop you from publishing your own research on the dangers of cellphones and see if it makes the 6 o’clock news like so many before it.

The CellSensor is available from X-Treme Geek.com for $29.95 and runs off a single 9V battery which is not included.

[ CellSensor EMF Detector ] VIA [ IT Rush ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When a friend comes up and subtly offers you a mint or piece of gum, it’s unfortunately too late to avoid the embarrassment of bad breath. But with this Etiquette Checker you’ll never have to deal with that situation again, because you’ll know your breath is offensive before anyone else does. You just blow into the sensor and the backlit LCD display will give you a breath quality reading on a scale of 1 to 6. Scoring a 6 means you better find a toothbrush, and fast. I particularly like the anime-esque faces that help you understand the severity of your breath reading. But why does the face on #6 have X’s for eyes? Is there such thing as a lethal dose of bad breath?

The device is also able to measure your blood alcohol level, and will provide a reading in 0.5 increments so you know if you’ve enjoyed yourself too much to get behind the wheel of a car. You can find it at Japan Trend Shop for $59.

[ Etiquette Checker ]

By Andrew Liszewski

My family has a history of diabetes, so I’m no stranger to having my blood sugar tested. By now I’m used to the small prick from the lancet, but I’ve always hoped for a better solution. The Pelikan Sun is an electronic lancing device that claims to be virtually pain-free and results in minimal bruising and scarring. It also uses a proprietary 50-lancet disk that ensures you get a new needle for every test that’s clean and sharp. The electronically controlled lancet trajectory can be set for 30 different levels of depth, and the precise firing mechanism means it’s only penetrating the skin as deep as you need.

Once you’ve pricked your finger you’ll still need to test the blood sample with a separate glucose meter, but if you’re testing your blood sugar on a daily basis, I’m sure it will provide some level of relief. The Pelikan Sun can be purchased directly from the company’s website, but I have no idea if the $199 price tag is covered by health insurance. And keep in mind you’ll also need to buy replacement lancet disks “…at comparable prices to other high quality lancets currently on the market.”

[ Pelikan Sun Electronic Lancing Device ] VIA [ Boing Boing Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

We’ve all heard or even seen the hour-long TLC specials about surgical instruments being accidentally left inside a patient. But even something as simple as a sponge can lead to a deadly infection if forgotten, and that’s why every single sponge has to be accounted for. But instead of relying on a nurse to manually count the sponges before and after an operation, the Safety-Sponge system from SurgiCount employs special bar codes printed on every sponge that are scanned into a PocketPC computer before and after they’re used.

Essentially, the system works much like a grocery store check-out counter – every laparotomy and gauze sponge is pre-labeled with an individual and unique bar code (in this instance, a 2-D data matrix label) and a scanning SurgiCounter is used to read the labels. Unlike other technologies, there is no major change in a hospital’s established AORN manual counting practices and procedures. And no other technology can offer documented time stamps of when every item was counted in and out.

Since every single sponge has a unique bar code, the system can even alert the operating room staff if the same sponge has been scanned twice. I guess as long as the special barcode-branded sponges aren’t considerably more expensive than a regular sponge, there’s no reason for a hospital not to adopt a system like this. But then again I’m not a doctor, I just pretend to be one on the internet.

[ SurgiCount Safety-Sponge System ] VIA [ 7 Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A kitchen scale is the best way to control portion size when you’re trying to shed a few pounds, but the Salter Nutri-Weigh & Go scale goes one step further for those who are seriously counting their calories. Besides the mass, the scale will also calculate the nutritional values of the food based on its weight including calories, protein, carbohydrates, total sugars, total fat, saturated fat, fibre, sodium, cholesterol, net carbohydrates, G.I value and percentage of calories from fat.

It has a database of over 1400 foods and a ‘word prompt’ feature for quickly finding the item you’re weighing. It will also keep track of your daily food intake for up to 7 days and has all the features you’d find in a regular food scale including aquatronic liquid measurement, add and weigh, metric/imperial conversion and auto or manual shut off.

It’s available from Scalesexpress.com for about $77.

[ Salter Nutri-Weigh and Go Dietary Computer Scale ] VIA [ Shiny Shiny ]

By Andrew Liszewski

As far as I know there’s no real cure for Tinnitus, but a company called Neuromonics claims to have created an effective treatment that will reduce the symptoms almost immediately and provide some level of long-term relief. At the core of the treatment is the Oasis audio device which plays specifically designed music that’s embedded with a “pleasant acoustic neural stimulus.” These sounds, which are customized for every patient based on their audiological profile, stimulate the auditory pathway to promote neural plastic changes. And over time it’s these new connections that help the brain filter out the tinnitus disturbance. So as far as I can tell the process doesn’t cure the problem, it just trains your brain to ignore it.

The treatments usually last for 6 months, and during the first 2 months you’ll need to listen to the device for about 2 hours or longer every day. During the last 4 months that duration will gradually decrease, and once the treatment is over you may never need to use it again depending on your results. The Oasis device isn’t FDA approved since it’s basically just an audio player, but you will need to be referred by your doctor in order to receive the treatments. And if it’s not covered by your health insurance you’ll need to fork out between $3,500 to $6,000 for the treatments.

If you’re curious what Tinnitus sounds like you can actually listen to some samples on the Neuromonics website. However I recommend turning down your speakers or headphones, as I’m sure listening to the samples at full volume didn’t help my hearing at all.

[ Neuromonics Oasis ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

One of the keys to healthy eating is to simply not eat so much. Believe it or not most people don’t need to consume half a chicken at dinner in order to have enough energy to enjoy primetime TV. So these PortionPals silicon discs take any guesswork out of how big a proper portion really is. They come in 5 different versions covering breads, pastas & potatoes, meats, fish, chicken and even desserts. Each disc has a clearly marked shape you can use to measure and compare the amount of food you’re serving. They’re also dishwasher and microwave safe and can even be used as miniature cutting boards while you prepare your meal.

Why leave the measuring to Jenny Craig when it’s so much easier and cheaper to do it yourself? A pack of 5 PortionPals discs is available from Solutions for $17.95.

[ PortionPals ]

By Luke Anderson

I’ve been using Gmail since the beta first started back in 2004 and I’ve never really turned back. I think that in the entire four years that I’ve used it, I’ve only had maybe a dozen pieces of spam make it to my inbox, and not a single legit email in my spam box. I’ve even set up another account which I’ll route mail from other places so it can essentially scrub out the spam. Naturally I’ve thought that if Gmail is so good at scrubbing my inbox clean, why not use it to scrub my body clean?

Okay, so I haven’t really thought that in the past, but it’s apparently something that’s possible. This strange bar of soap was apparently discovered in Russia. I can’t read Russian, but it translates to “the purest soap.” Somehow I doubt that this is a real product, probably something crafted by someone with a sense of humor. Either way, I wouldn’t mind having a bar of this sitting in my bathroom.

VIA [ GearFuse ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Looking to add about 2 hours of extra work to your typical day? Then make sure to carry this folding UV scanner everywhere you go and use it to disinfect everything you might have to touch like door handles, telephones, computer keyboards, mice and faucets. Waving the UV light over an object will kill 99.9% of the germs you might come in contact with, but what about that 0.1% that’s still going to end up on your hands? If they’re tough enough to survive a blast of UV light who knows what harm they’re going to cause you? I suggest just staying home all day and working at your computer in your pajamas. If people think you’re crazy for doing so just tell them you’re a blogger. It worked for me!

Whatever Works sells the handheld UV Scanner for $29.99, but it doesn’t include the 4 AAA batteries you’ll need to wage your war on germs.

[ Disinfecting UV Scanner ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]