By Evan Ackerman

Need a hug? Yeah, so do I, but there’s nobody around right now besides my pet snake, and when she hugs me, it’s only because she’s hungry. Lucky for me, I’ll soon be able to buy myself a Hug Shirt, which is able to reproduce hugs electronically via cellphone. Designers at CuteCircuit conducted numerous hugging sessions in order to map the most critical hug intensity points, which include upper arms, upper back, waistline, neck, shoulders, and hips. The shirt has “hugging output actuators” over each of these points, which are able to duplicate the warmth, pressure, duration, and even heartbeat of the hugger on the huggee. All you need is two Hug Shirts and a Java and Bluetooth enabled cell phone, and whenever you hug yourself, the exact characteristics of your hug will be measured by your Hug Shirt and sent via SMS to the second Hug Shirt. If you happen to be naked and feeling huggy, you can still send someone a hug with special HugMe software for your cellphone. I’m happy to report that the Hug Shirt is lead-free and non-toxic, and runs on rechargeable batteries. Even better, it’s fully washable. And best of all, it’s supposed to be available for purchase by this holiday season, for around $300.

[ Hug Shirt ] VIA [ talk2myshirt ]

By Evan Ackerman

Remember the good old days, when success could be measured in diamond rings? For better or worse, diamonds are old and busted, and the new hotness is personal exposure, which (some would argue) is just as hard to attain. The VanityRing embodies this concept with a little wearable LCD that displays how many hits are returned by a Google search on your name. At night, plug it into its ring box, and your Google stats will be updated.

The only problem with this ring is figuring out exactly how many Google hits you really deserve. I, for example, get about 26,200 results when I type in “Evan Ackerman” (with quotes). However, those results include people who have stolen my name, like this baby. So what fraction of those hits are actually me? I have no idea, but it would be great if the Google search algorithm had some sort of nodal relationship option you could use to see which results are related by common links. Or maybe there’s something like that out there already… If not, well, you’ll have to talk to me about intellectual property rights before you design one.

[ VanityRing ] VIA [ Gizmowatch ]

By Evan Ackerman

In September, I posted an article over at BotJunkie about a robot helicopter that reminded me a little bit of Airwolf. After that, I rented some Airwolf DVDs on Netflix, and now that I’m hooked on the show (okay, not really, I remembered it being way more awesome than it actually is), I just had to show you this working Airwolf helmet which is currently for sale on eBay. When I say “working,” it means that the helmet is a padded fiberglass custom motorcycle helmet that will, in fact, protect your head. It also features a speed visor, an LED targeting bar, and a specially designed battery pack. Whether the speed visor and LED targeting bar also work in some fashion is unspecified. The helmet itself is painted in the original Airwolf color, “Phantom Gray Effect.” Totally badass, and yours for the buy it now price of $900. A just because it’s Airwolf Airwolf video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

New backpack smell always takes me back to the first day of school. And since I’ve been out of school, I haven’t put much thought into replacing my ancient JanSport. But ever since Mobile Edge sent me a couple of their laptop backpacks to check out, my sense of style, my laptop, and my back have all been demanding something new. I was able to meander about with these backpacks for several weeks on a trip up to the Pacific Northwest, and I’ll review them both separately over the next few days. You can be assured that these reviews are unbiased since I had to send the backpacks back (grrr); but it’s worth noting that I was disappointed to have to do so, ’cause I really did (mostly) like them. Read my full review after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

This dorky looking gadget called the Head Spa Massager “incorporates Japanese engineering and utilizes acupressure to relax and soothe your problems away. It’s like thousands of tiny fingers simultaneously massaging your scalp.” That sort of creeps me out a little bit, personally. The designers suggest using this thing “at your desk at work” or “on your morning commute in traffic,” which are great ideas if you want to look like a raving loony. It’s supposed to relieve stress by stimulating blood circulation to the brain, and incorporates a rechargeable battery so that you can take it everywhere and wear it all the time. $49.95.

[ Head Spa Massager ] VIA [ Shiny Shiny ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Video cameras embedded in a pair of glasses are not exactly new but this pair takes advantage of the current trend in oversized sunglasses to effectively hide its video recording capabilities. In addition the glasses include a pocket-sized video recorder that not only captures the secret footage onto swappable SD cards but also allows you to immediately watch it over and over.

The camera is capable of recording in both NTSC and PAL but in reality you’re only looking at about 510×492 effective pixels for NTSC and 500×582 for PAL. Not exactly hi-def quality but it’s a lot better than most web videos. Of course the Spycatcher website claims the sunglasses are ideal for investigative journalists, private investigators and ‘mystery’ shoppers but we all know what kind of clientele will be buying these.

So whether you work for NBC Dateline’s To Catch A Predator or have just been featured on the show you can grab a pair of these sunglasses from Spycatcher for about $1,400.

[ Sunglasses Camera with Personal Digital Video Recorder ]

By Ryan Nill

This pair of Lederhosen, on display at IFA 2007, comes with a set of controls for your iPod. Made by all-weather wear German company Lodenfrey, these lederhosen will let you listen to music with a distinct lack of style. Made of high quality layered suede, the controls are unobtrusively located down the left side of the pants and the MP3 player is integrated into the pants.

Lodenfrey is apparently the leader in the design and production of lederhosen and other pieces of high quality traditional garb. The company also seemingly refuses to acknowledge the existence of these devastatingly ethnic pants on their home site, therefore further purchasing information is scant.

[ Lodenfrey ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By Ryan Nill

When buried alive or in similar dire straits, the amount of time that you are buried is inversely proportional to the chance you have of living. That’s code for the longer you are trapped the slimmer your chances of living are. The altruistic US and Russian based Tancher Corporation intend to give away design rights for this swanky radio beacon, designed to save lives by emitting a radio distress signal which can be quickly located to save the trapped person. It’s also a USB flash memory stick. But that’s all besides the point. Look at this thing! Tres chic.

The wristband was developed as part of the Tancher Electronics Social Safety Initiative, which hopes encourages government and industry to make life saving devices more accessible. Dr. Anton Tyruin, President of Tancher states that he hopes to “To create a network of organizations to contribute to the design process of similar devices and will assist authorities to develop life-saving and rescue technology.” See what we can do when we all get along?!

VIA [ Gizmag ]

By Evan Ackerman

Aerogel is some damn cool stuff. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s the least dense solid material ever, made up of 99.98% air. The remaining 0.02% is made from silica, but there’s so little physical material in there that aerogel is practically invisible. It’s also hard to produce and mildly expensive, with all the large pieces going straight to NASA… In other words, it’s a poor geek’s diamond. It makes sense, then, that aerogel is being turned into premium jewelry. Here is the part that does NOT make sense:

“FusionX aerogel pendants consist of a 3mm pure Aerogel core that is fused inside a hand wound helix silver casing. The Aerogel-filled helix casing is sealed inside the precision cut, strong borosilicate clear glass casing, then the complete Aerogel assembly is hermetically sealed inside silver-over-titanium end caps for added strength and long lasting, waterproof durability.”

Yep, your totally cool sample of aerogel is fused inside the pendant. And then sealed. And then hermetically sealed. You can’t take it out and play with it, and you’ll be hard pressed to impress anyone with something that they can neither touch nor see. $38, available in 8 different colors.

If you want some aerogel of your own to actually play with, it’s available in a few places for a reasonable price. Small vials of fingernail sized aerogel chunks cost $25 from United Nuclear, and it’s absolutely worth buying yourself a sample.

[ FusionX Aerogel Pendants ] VIA [ Red Ferret ]