Oh! Gizmo

By Evan Ackerman

This is one of those things that, although kinda cool in principle, has (at this stage, anyway) questionable utility. This picture, from Nextreme Thermal Solutions, shows an LED being powered entirely by the heat from a candle. In fact, since candles put out so much waste heat, the LED is actually brighter than the candle that’s powering it. This is thermoelectric conversion in action, and if somebody could make it practical, it would be everywhere. We use all kinds of technologies that pump out tons of waste heat, and then spend a substantial amount of power trying to deal with it. Imagine how much extra battery life you’d get out of your laptop if the heat from the chip was tapped to power the LEDs in the screen, for example.

People are getting more creative with heat utilization and transformation, even doing stuff like using waste heat from laptops to power wireless mice. The real holy grail of this technology, though, is the ability to turn heat directly into electricity in an energy and space efficient manner. We’re not there yet, but it’s always nice to see progress being made.

VIA [ Tech-On ]

By Evan Ackerman

Although this might look like a bisected metallic artichoke, it is in fact a super duper efficient LED light bulb. When LEDs are powered up to levels capable of replacing standard household incandescent bulbs, they start putting out a whole bunch of heat, which progressively degrades the LEDs. This is bad. To mitigate the situation, high powered LED lighting systems are getting their very own funky looking heat sinks, which can extend the life of the system and its color accuracy “dramatically.” This particular model, the SoL R38 from the Lighting Science Group Corporation, is about 70% more efficient than the 60 watt incandescent bulb it’s designed to replace, and it’s good for a minimum of 50,000 hours, or over 5 and a half years of continuous on time.

Sounds great, huh? So that was the carrot, here’s the stick: each SoL R38 costs $145. But wait, I have another carrot for you: over the lifetime of the LED non-bulb, you’ll still save about $82. Aaaand, another stick: if you need to buy a new LED light after 50,000 hours, you’ll be in the hole again by $60. Last carrot: in the mean time, using the LED system will have saved 1.72 tons of carbon dioxide (numbers pulled out of my ass via here).

So, maybe it makes sense to buy one of these right now, maybe it doesn’t. They sure do look cool, if nothing else. But as with CFLs, my guess is that if you just wait a little bit, high power LEDs will start being used by more than just inexplicably rich techno-hippy duck-squeezers and the price will drop like… Like… Oh, I know: like the DJIA. It would be funny if it wasn’t my retirement fund.

[ Lighting Science Group Corporation ] VIA [ NY Times ]

By Luke Anderson

I’ll admit to being one of those people that wears a novelty belt buckle. It’s nothing big or flashy, just a small replica of Captain America’s shield. What can I say, the Cap is just cool. Now if you’re looking for a buckle that’s really going to bring attention to your mid-section, then few things will work better than this scrolling LED belt buckle.

If you don’t mind people staring in the general direction of your crotch all day, then you can entertain the world with up to 512 character messages. It is programmable with up to 6 messages, though only one can be 512 characters, the others have a cap of 256. This attention-grabbing device will only set you back $14.99.

[ SourcingMap ] VIA [ SlipperyBrick ]

By Luke Anderson

The light bulb has been around for a very long time, and we’re all quite familiar with the standard shape. We’ve seen a lot of new light bulbs in the last few years as we focus more on bulbs that not only last longer, but are also more environmentally friendly. LED bulbs are supposed to be among some of the more eco-friendly kinds, and the designers at Frog Design think they’ve figured out a way to get LED bulbs into more homes.

It’s true that many people are scared of change, so why not make something new that looks just like the object it is replacing? These frogLight bulbs look just like the old incandescent ones we’ve known and loved for years. While I can’t argue that more people will likely buy them if they look like a normal bulb, I think you might need more than a single LED to provide the right about of lighting.

VIA [ Yanko Design ]

By Luke Anderson

Remember that colorful keyboard that we showed you last year? The one that promised that each key could change between one of 512 different colors? Well it seems that they have finally gotten around to mass-producing it for public purchase. Sure, it’s been a year and a half, but at least we didn’t have to wait as long as we did for the Optimus Maximus.

I’m definitely torn on my opinion of this keyboard. On one hand, it just has keys that light up, which seems a bit cheesy. However, since you can individually control the light on each key, it does make it a little more useful for gaming, or other applications that rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. It can also do some fancy tricks like flash rainbow colors at you, or only light up keys when they are hit. I think that it does have some practical applications, but for $199, I’ll pass.

[ ThinkGeek ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I have to say I’m a bit confused by this Dark Knight projector key ring. My first guess was that someone had a warehouse full of LED flashlights left over from the old, pre-Nolan Batman films, which would explain why it projects the old Batman logo. But since Batman & Robin (shudder) dates back to 1997 when cheap LED flashlights didn’t exist, I’m at a loss.

So my second guess is that this is simply a crappy Photoshop job and whoever put together this product shot couldn’t find a version of the new bat-logo to use. (Even though it’s used on the projector itself.) At least that’s what I hope is going on here. It would be pretty crappy to pick one of these up only to find it does project the old bat-logo for some reason. If I was in trouble and desperately needed Batman’s help I would much prefer the Christian Bale version to show up, instead of the George Clooney one.

You can get it from Play.com for about $16.

[ Batman: The Dark Knight: Bat-Logo Projector Key Ring ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]

By Luke Anderson

Convergence gadgets are always hit or miss. Sometimes you end up with something useful, other times you’re stuck with a gadget that is good for two or three applications that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, and thus don’t belong on the same device. This Magnetic LED light falls into the former category.

This gadget is small, yet packs in both and LED light and a laser pointer. What’s more is that the base is magnetic, allowing you to attach it to a metal surface and point the light or laser where it is needed. This would be especially useful when working in a cramped space where there’s little room for a conventional flashlight. Best of all, it’s only about $6.

[ GizFever ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

By Luke Anderson

When I get up in the morning (though I try to push it to afternoon as often as I can) the last thing I want to do is turn on a light. I’ll try to get through as much of my morning routine as I can while turning on the least possible amount of lights. However, there are a few tasks that I won’t do in the dark, and one of them is shaving.

If you have no problem sliding a few pieces of extremely sharp metal across your face with only a tiny light to guide you, then you’ll love the Power Razor. It features a small LED light that will illuminate enough of your skin to shave. Apparently it has benefits when used under normal lighting conditions, as it allows you to see missed hairs under your chin and along your jawline. That’s cool and all, but with the $150 price tag, I think I’ll pass.

[ TheArtofShaving ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Evan Ackerman

Unless you own Lassie (or maybe Triumph), you probably have no idea what your dog is saying most of the time. This prototype LED wand operates on the same principle as the Lampex LED message wand that we wrote about last year: persistence of vision turns a line of moving, blinking LEDs into text. The only difference here is, instead of waving a wand around with your arm (and looking like an idiot), your dog waves the Tail Communicator around with its tail. The Tail Communicator measures the WPM (wags per minute) and translates that into what your dog supposedly wants.

This concept was also shown as part of a Wired story from back in 2005 about Augmenting the Animal Kingdom. Other concepts from the article include night vision goggles and GPS devices for rodents and stealth jackets for whales; check out the slide show here.

VIA [ DVICE ]