The easiest way to prevent wrist strain while working at a computer is to keep your hands moving, and varying their position throughout the day. But as a blogger I can attest to the fact that the hours can easily slip away without you realizing you haven’t moved an inch. And before you know it you’re left with sore wrists, that only gets worse over time. And this is what the Engage Keyboard from Smartfish Technologies is designed to address.
The keyboard is split down the middle, and both the right and left sides are able to subtly shift up and down and left to right thanks to a set of whisper-quiet electric motors working inside. The movement is barely noticeable while you’re working away, but it’s apparently enough of a difference in position to prevent your wrists from feeling sore after working all day. By default the keyboard automagically makes its adjustments every hour, but it will also monitor your typing patterns and adjust it more frequently if you’re furiously typing away. Available now for $149.95.
Another new year is upon us, and now’s the time to strike when you’re gung-ho about tackling all those new year’s resolutions before they’re completely forgotten by Martin Luther King Day. Of course shedding those Christmas pounds is always at the top of most people’s lists, and Escali’s Track & Target scale is a nice option for keeping your eyes on the lean and trim prize.
For the most part it’s your standard, stylish glass panel bathroom scale, but it lets up to 4 users input a target weight, and it will keep track of their progress every time they step on it. The LCD display not only shows your current weight, but also reminds you of your target and tells you how much you’ve gained or lost since you last stepped on, and how far you’ve still got to go. It’s $64.95 which isn’t terribly expensive for a somewhat high-tech scale, and if the simple motivation it provides keeps you working towards your goal well into the new year, then it’s definitely worth it.
A month or so ago we brought you a clever app called Pulse Phone that uses the iPhone’s camera and flash to measure your heart rate via your index finger. We found it worked well most of the time, but we wouldn’t consider it anything more than a party trick. In other words, you probably won’t be seeing it used in hospitals across the country anytime soon.
The iPhonECG however is a different story. It uses a slim, low-power sleeve with a couple of electrodes on the back to provide clinical-quality cardiac event readings. You can either hold it in your hands to get a reading of your pulse, or place it on your chest which makes it useful when dealing with a patient who can’t hold it themselves. The sleeve also works wirelessly with the iPhone 4, most likely via Bluetooth, and since it looks like it doesn’t attach to the dock connector I suspect you could get a reading even if you weren’t using it as a sleeve. The iPhonECG will be officially shown at CES next week, and we’ll do our best to hunt it down and get a hands-on.
Besides mentally breaking down even the strongest of people, Christmas shopping is no cakewalk on your body either. So next year consider having this electronic compress ready and waiting when you get home from a trip to the mall. It’s got an aluminum head that can be heated to 110ºF, or cooled to 40ºF, in just 45 seconds, providing almost instant relief. And it looks like it’s no where near as messy as creams or chemical-based solutions, and I’m almost certain there’s no fear of it melting like an ice pack. The catch? It’s powered by 4xAA batteries which I’m sure it gobbles up in no time flat, and it’s $130.
It’s not easy to write about a $50 device that can easily be replaced, and improved, by a $0.99 iPhone app, but I’ll try. The Onaroo is pegged as a PBA or ‘personal baby assistant’ and is essentially designed to serve as a data gathering PDA for households with a new arrival. It makes tracking info like nursing and sleep schedules, bottles, pumping, diapers, medicine, temperature, and growth slightly easier than with a coiled notebook and pen. But it’s clear advantage is its ability to display graphs of that data over time which is handy for doctor visits, or freaking out those overly paranoid parents.
The Onaroo syncs to your PC via a USB cable, and an included app will automatically upload the data to the PBA Online website (for free) which provides even more options for charting your child’s progress. The PBA itself also doubles as a reminder with timers and alarms that can be set to vibrate if you don’t want to interrupt a nap, and don’t mind going about your daily business with it clipped to your belt. But like I already said, even with the free online services it’s hard to justify the $49.95 for the Onaroo PBA. So here’s to hoping the company has a cheaper app alternative already in development.
Instead of using a long pointy needle to deliver medication, which can be quite painful at times, the PharmaJet uses a high-speed liquid jet that literally blasts the medicine through your skin in less than 1/3 of a second. While the technology isn’t necessarily new, the PharmaJet improves on older designs with a sterile, single-use syringe and a spring-powered mechanism that requires no external power source besides the muscle needed to re-load it.
And since pain is a subjective feeling, the PharmaJet isn’t billed as being completely ‘pain-free’, but according to the company’s founder it feels like the equivalent of a tiny rubber band snapping against your skin. The injector, which can be reused thousands of times, currently costs about $100 while the single-use syringes run somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 cents to $1, probably closer to the latter. So they’re more expensive than traditional needles at the moment, but as production and use increases it could end up being a viable and even more cost-effective alternative to being stabbed in the arm.
At first I maybe thought this was a well-Photoshopped prank by someone who doesn’t really understand the statute of limitations regarding April Fool’s Day. Then I thought it was maybe something The Onion had cooked up. But by jove I do believe it is a real product. Designed to combat CVS, or computer vision syndrome, which can result from extended computer use, the Blink Now is a small LCD display that sits perched atop your monitor showing a creepy single eye that blinks at random intervals. The idea I guess is to subliminally remind yourself to blink while working on a computer to avoid eye strain.
Alternately, you can simply head over to the BLAZE website and check out the ~$79(£49.99) pre-order price for this contraption (available mid-November) at which point your eyes should get a healthy Tex Avery-style workout as they pop out of your skull.
Alternately, alternately, just order a pair of these hi-larious novelty electronic blinking eyeballs and laugh yourself free of CVS. (Note: Laughter may or may not cure CVS. Note note: CVS may not actually exist.)
Designed by a Canadian landscaper who suffered long-term injuries after having to heft a 22-pound trimmer for years, the Portable Support Tool Balancer might look a little unorthodox, but the harness will apparently reduce 95% of the weight of a heavy tool by transferring the load to the entire body. The swiveling spring loaded reel that hovers above the user’s head provides the lift for probably any kind of tool you can attach to it, and besides providing relief for arms and shoulders it also facilitates a bit more finesse since the operator can more easily move the tool about. Not particularly important for an activity like shoveling, but definitely appreciated when it comes to something like hedge trimming.
At the moment the Portable Support Tool Balancer is only available in a limited production run, but it recently appeared on the Canadian version of Dragon’s Den so hopefully it will soon be more readily available for purchase.
I’m not particularly worried about cellphone radiation given how many amazing superpowers have been attributed to being exposed, but based on how many studies about mobile phones and radiation get funded, I assume some users are. But even if I was worried, I would probably just suck it up if this was the only alternative. The details are lacking to say the least, but the Zip Earzee is essentially a Bluetooth earpiece you wear as a wristband.
Presumably it’s got a built-in mic you speak into, but in order to hear an incoming call you have to pull out a small tethered speaker and hold it up to your ear, kind of like those old-timey wall-mounted phones of yesteryear. Why this is a better alternative to just popping in a small Bluetooth earpiece as needed is beyond me, though I guess it does keep those evil Bluetooth rays away from your brain.
Related Tags: CES2011, Health, Medical
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