Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

You probably already know about the online flight simulator that lets you ‘fly’ a virtual plane over the satellite images provided by Google Maps. Well here’s a similar idea, but instead of flying a plane, you actually get to drive a miniature car over the standard street maps view. Once googleDrive is loaded you simply enter the city where you’d like to cruise around and you’re off to the races. The car is confined to the actual streets (the yellow and white areas) though I have noticed you’re able to drive across the occasional shopping mall and other gray areas that usually indicate a structure. You’ll probably tire of it pretty quickly unless you’re especially bored, but can you think of a better way to earn your paycheck on a Thursday morning?

Head over to phatfusion where you can try out googleDrive yourself.

[ googleDrive ] VIA [ OpticalPoptitude ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The SnoopStick is a USB flash drive apparently designed with the intent of allowing parents or employers to keep an eye on what their kids or employees are doing online. Just plug the SnoopStick into any USB equipped PC you want to monitor and then run the setup program which takes about 60 seconds. The software that gets installed is completely invisible leaving no evidence that the system is being watched or monitored.

Once installed on a system you can then monitor that computer’s online activities anywhere in the world by simply plugging the SnoopStick into your own PC. You can see what websites have been visited, check who or where emails have been sent and even read IM conversations as they happen in real time. The SnoopStick will even store up to 12 months of activity logs if you don’t want to keep an eye on the other computer all the time or if you happen to need a bit of evidence later on.

The SnoopStick is available from CYBERsitter for only $59.95.

[ SnoopStick ] VIA [ Techie Diva's Guide to Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Another piece of kid-friendly tech shown at the Toy Fair in New York this week is the IM-Me instant messenger from Mattel. Unlike a Blackberry though, or even standard online messaging the IM-Me is intentionally rather limited in regards to who your kids can talk to while online. The IM-Me consists of a handheld ‘PDA’ with an LCD screen and full QWERTY keyboard that interfaces with an included RF dongle designed to be attached to the USB port of their parent’s PC.

In order to have an online chat with someone else that friend has to be both added to a pre-approved list of contacts and has to be in range of one of the RF dongles which typically means they’re restricted to using it somewhere in their parent’s home. The whole idea of the relatively closed system is to ensure your daughter can only communicate with her friends and not a future star of the ‘To Catch A Predator’ show. (I’m Chris Hansen, what are you doing here with that IM-Me?)

At the moment the pinkish-purple stylings of the IM-Me ensure that it will be a girls-only product and it’s scheduled to be available sometime in the summer of this year for $64.99.

[ Wired - Toys That Protect Kids From Pervs ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Even though the name sounds like a bit of high-tech snake oil (Acoustic Energy?) I still like the motivations behind this radio that can tune into internet radio stations instead of standard AM or FM broadcasts. While the internet really has unlimited potential I think at times many people are missing out since basic PC skills are needed to take advantage of it. Internet radio is a great example and now that it’s been packaged into a consumer level-device even my Dad could easily enjoy it.

Now the website claims the Acoustic Energy Wifi Internet Radio works right out of the box but I guess that’s only if you have an unprotected wifi network at home. Hopefully there is some means to easily enter a WEP code if you’d prefer not to leave your network publicly available. However once that’s taken care of the radio will automatically download a database of available stations and list them either by country, genre or alphabetically on the unit’s LCD screen. All you have to do is choose one of the nearly 5,000 stations that exist online. And if for some reason your local favorite isn’t already included you can manually add them as well.

As long as you don’t need mobility or Howard Stern you can probably ditch that satellite radio setup (and their monthly fees) with this device and those who are a bit more tech-savvy will be happy to hear that the radio can also stream MP3s, WMAs or RealMedia from a PC on the same network if you prefer your own playlists.

The AE Internet Radio is available from C. Crane for $299.95.

[ Acoustic Energy Wifi Internet Radio ] VIA [ Popgadget ]