For a four-week period, I’m awarding one Leatherman Freestyle CX to the Gadget Lab reader whose comment best contributes to this site.
This week’s winner is “heroisum,” whose comment on the potential of an Apple tablet adds the hope that tablets will help save magazines and newspapers from extinction. “We need something that can replicate an actual page of content design cues included,” heroisum writes.
Apple has released a minor software update for iPhone, patching a security flaw revealed just yesterday.
Security researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner on Thursday revealed a memory corruption bug that could be easily exploited by crashing an iPhone with a series of invisible text messages, which would then enable a hacker to hijack the device. From thereon, a hacker could control all the functions on the iPhone most alarmingly,… Read More
Like an aspiring indie band, the Cybraphon has many instruments, plays them on an irregular schedule, likes to have an audience around it — and obsesses over comments on its… Read More
This is the Axixa, and here in Barcelona, we need it. The ceramic, water-stain shaped device is a public urinal. It even comes in pee-yellow.
Public urination is a big problem in my hometown: hordes of drunken tourists, all filled up with nowhere to go. Bars wont let you use the restrooms unless you are a customer, there are almost no public toilets (a few porta-potties at the beach is about the size of it), and because the locals have some taste, there arent… Read More
We think weve just seen the perfect hackintosh machine. This little iiView A2 netbook, from the Singapore manufacturer of the same name, will ship with a copy of Vista and be eligible for an upgrade to Windows 7. But the tiny machine looks so much like a mini-MacBook Air that its begging to have OS X forced onto it.
Inside, its just another netbook: Atom 1.6GHz processor, 320GB HDD, and Intels 945 chipset. Outside, things start to get a little more… Read More
Watch out, Flip, Kodaks in town, and hes agunnin for ya. Kodaks new Zi8 pocket video camera comes in at $20 less than Flips Ultra HD and manages to beat it in almost every way. The Kodak shoots 1080p, the Flip just 720p. The Kodak has built-in image stabilization (electronic, not physical), a microphone socket and an SD card slot for adding up to 32GB of memory (although it ships without a card in the box and just 128MB internal memory). The Flip doesnt. The Kodak even has ther Flips… Read More
Sadly, DIYer Iwan Roberts has posted very few details on the making of these wonderful coconut headphones (or coco-cans, as we like to call them), but we can infer plenty from the picture.
Iwan made these custom headphones for a friend (Do not want to see them go, he says) from a couple of coconut halves, a pair of what looks like Panasonics already excellent RP-HTX7 retro-monitors, and a whole lot of twine. Were sure they sound great, but better, theyre probably the best smelling… Read More
Czech hacker Josef Pra took a look at his useless three-cell MSI Wind battery and wondered why it didnt have a USB socket in the side. Surely it could power smaller, less thirsty devices than a netbook? After popping the case with a knife, he discovered that there was actually plenty of room left inside. Enough room, in fact, for a USB port and a voltage regulator.
It turns out that there is enough power in the 12 volt battery charge an iPhone twice, although of course… Read More
In this case, the definition of portable has been stretched slightly. The iConic 100 LED screen has more in common with a billboard than a television, with a surface area of 100m. The screen is actually high-def and can play back 720p video.
From there, the numbers get even bigger. The display is 12.8 meters long and 7.2 meters tall. Thats a 578-inch screen, if my math is correct, and the TV takes a half hour to set up once it has arrived. And how, you are no doubt… Read More
Nikon has announced three hot new products today, and if you have been paying any attention to the rumors, youll already know what they are. The biggest news is the new D300s, a video-capable update to Nikons top-of-the-range crop-frame DSLR, the D300. We also get a new entry level DSLR, the D3000, and a replacement for Nikons pro 70-200 zoom, called the AF-S… Read More
Leicas long-time-coming S2 DSLR is about to hit the stores in the UK for a bank account-emptying 16,000, or around $26,000. And thats not even the top-end version. To get a sapphire-glass LCD screen and some gussied-up Platinum Service, youll have to drop another 3,100, or almost $5,100. To put that in some perspective, you could buy a Leica M8 and a lens for around the same price as the upgrade alone.
The camera looks sweet, though: 37.5 million pixels sit atop a huge 30×45mm sensor,… Read More
File this under “Dorktastic.” iRes Technology on Wednesday released its wearable mini camcorder, capable of recording up to seven hours of video and audio.
Called the uCorder, the gadget measures 3.5 inches long, one inch wide and half an inch thick small enough to fit in a shirt pocket or down Charlie Sorrel’s left nostril, which should help him keep his finger out for a few minutes. The cam shoots 640-by-480 video in AVI format;… Read More
Apple is exclusively selling the new Eye-Fi Geo, a flash memory card with networking and geo-tagging capabilities.
Like previous Eye-Fi cards, the Eye-Fi Geo enables shooters to upload their photos over Wi-Fi to a photo-sharing site such as Flickr, or to a Mac or Windows PC on the same wireless network. What’s new about Eye-Fi Geo is it automatically geotags photos with meta data to identify where the photo was taken.
On the left, you see the E-Z Go Spine Extractor, its purpose: Removal of undesirable fish spine and other living things has never been easier! For immediate taste-pleasure and easy disposal.
The spine extractor, although authentic in both cheap design and Engrish product pitch, is a spoof. As is the rather handy looking box next to it, the Yu Wan Mei Device, which has been completed and is now available for sale. These… Read More
This commercial product, the Cassette is Not Dead lamp, is an invitation to start a great DIY project. The 25 ($35) lamp is made up of old audio cassettes which are joined together by nothing more than string. In fact, so easy is it to construct that you can even remove and replace cassettes so they can be listened to (assuming you actually have something to play them on):
[Y]ou can play with it changing the tapes even with… Read More
Streaming media provider Vudu has partnered with LG to include its software into upcoming LG high-definition TVs. The move will get rid of the intermediary set-top box and allows consumers to directly watch on-demand content from the internet on their TVs.
“Smart TV’s are part of an exciting new industry trend,” says Alain Rossmann, CEO of Vudu. “Vudu is partnering with leading consumer electronics vendors to embed the new Vudu service… Read More
Over at BoingBoing Gadgets, Rob The Boss Beschizza takes a Wiz on modern games. To be precise, he has reviewed the tiny, retro game-playing handheld console, the GP2X Wiz, and decrees it The best portable yet for retrogamers.
Im a retro-gamer. I used to beat all comers at Street Fighter 2 (SNES) playing with my feet. I once lent that same SNES and a copy of Super Mario Kart to an apartment full of weed-smoking stoner friends so they could practice and offer me more… Read More
One well crafted pitch from Photojojo and were hooked. Heres the opening of the blurb which describes the Monsterpod: If there were a tripod equivalent to the hoverboard, the Monsterpod would be it.
Unbeatable. So what is it? The Monsterpod is a fat disc of viscoelastic polymer with a tripod mount up top. Screw on your camera, scooch the pod onto almost anything (bricks, glass, stone) and there it sticks for up to ten minutes, holding your camera… Read More
Apparently one of the most common, and therefore obvious, places to hide your valuables is under the bed. This means its the first place a thief will look. But if you have the BedBunker, it will make no difference he wont be able to open it anyway.
The BedBunker is a gun cache which sits under your mattress and infuses your dreams with manly, death-spraying action. Inside the 10-gauge steel box you can cram the bare essentials for survival: 35 rifles… Read More
The drumbeat around Palm Pre’savailability on the Verizon Wireless network had been steadily getting louder in the last few weeks. And now Verizon has confirmed that Sprint’s exclusive stranglehold on the Pre is unlikely to last beyond the end of the year.
“We plan to offer the Palm Pre early next year,” Dennis Strigl, president and chief operating officer of Verizon told analysts on a conference call late Monday.
SAN JOSE, CA Verizon on Tuesday announced details of its upcoming application store to a packed conference room of potential developers.
To entice developers, Verizon highlighted the simplicity of submitting and selling software through its app store, which is slated for an end-of-year launch. The company said it is not providing a software development kit, but rather open APIs for billing systems, location-aware features… Read More
HP employees at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto were in for a shock Tuesday morning as they found the message “Hazardous Products” painted on the roof of their office and Greenpeace activists squatting on top. The activists were protesting HP’s alleged backtracking on its commitment to eliminate toxic chemicals from its products by the end of the year.
Greenpeace activists climbed to the top of HP’s building and inked… Read More
In the olden days, bike lights were more about being seen than actually seeing. Incandescent bulbs and D-cells meant that youd be able to present the aspect of a bright-ish candle to other road-goers, but anything more powerful was specialized and expensive.
Today, with lithium cells and LEDs, were spoiled, and the Seat Stay Tail Light from Serfas is just the latest in a line of bouncy… Read More
Summer is a great time to get out on two wheels. Sure, Summer means different things in different places here in Barcelona it means the afternoons are too hot to leave the house. In England it means rain, just like… Read More
If you have an oil or a jam-making thermometer, a specialist deep-fryer is uneccesary. You just dump a few bottles of oil into a big, heavy pot and throw it on a high flame, watching the temperature slowly climb. The trouble with this is that you need lots of oil, and its messy filtering it back into the bottles (when cold, of course).
So we actually like this mini-fryer from Deni, which sits on the countertop or can be stowed full, and best of all… Read More
Ho ho ho! This little plastic iPod-shaped eggcup is called the eiPOTT. The Ei part means egg in German. The Pott part you can guess. Its actually a rather appropriate shape for an eggcup: The clickwheel holds the egg and the recessed screen takes either a generous dose of salt or the cracked remains of the bashed-in shell.
Whats more, while this looks like yet another concept design, its actually a real, shipping product, and as even Apple cant really claim… Read More
James May, presenter of the show Top Gear, is planning to build a house entirely out of Lego bricks. No big deal, you say. Weve all done that. Mays is planning a little bigger, and is making a life-sized house out of the plastic bricks, including a staircase and a fully plumbed, working toilet.
Why? Because he can. Mays has another show called James Mays Toy Stories (the creative department was out playing Nerf the day the name was decided),… Read More
Boardy is a USB stick made from dead trees. Shrinking tech means that your only real physical limit to squeezing a USB drive into anything is the plug itself, and this time the Boardy folks squeezed the electronics into a sheet of paper.
The intended use is clear: schwag. That huge, foldable surface has advertising written all over it, or at least it will at the next trade show or convention you visit, so its likely that youll never have to buy one of your own. The paper,… Read More
Ugobe’s cute little green monster, the Pleo, is a tenacious creature. Though Pleo’s parent company Ugobe shut down after filing for bankruptcy earlier this year, the little green dinosaur continues to survive — for now.
The robot is available at Amazon, Target.com and BestBuy.com through Senario, which claims to be the only distributor in the U.S. with Pleo stock. Pleo, which carried a list price of $350, retails for $158 on Amazon.
With rumors piling up about a forthcoming Apple tablet, it appears more and more likely that such a device will emerge soon.
But what’s still unclear is how this gadget will set itself apart from Apple’s multimedia-savvy product line, including the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the scores of failed tablet PCs that have come and gone. Judging from the company’s past moves, we’re betting that Apple’s tablet… Read More
For a four-week period, I’m awarding one Leatherman Freestyle CX to the Gadget Lab reader whose comment best contributes to this site.
Watch out, Flip, Kodaks in town, and hes agunnin for ya. Kodaks new Zi8 pocket video camera comes in at $20 less than Flips Ultra HD and manages to beat it in almost every way. The Kodak shoots 1080p, the Flip just 720p. The Kodak has built-in image stabilization (electronic, not physical), a microphone socket and an SD card slot for adding up to 32GB of memory (although it ships without a card in the box and just 128MB internal memory). The Flip doesnt. The Kodak even has ther Flips… 
Czech hacker Josef Pra took a look at his useless three-cell MSI Wind battery and wondered why it didnt have a USB socket in the side. Surely it could power smaller, less thirsty devices than a netbook? After popping the case with a knife, he discovered that there was actually plenty of room left inside. Enough room, in fact, for a USB port and a voltage regulator.
In this case, the definition of portable has been stretched slightly. The iConic 100 LED screen has more in common with a billboard than a television, with a surface area of 100m. The screen is actually high-def and can play back 720p video.
File this under “Dorktastic.” iRes Technology on Wednesday released its wearable mini camcorder, capable of recording up to seven hours of video and audio.
Apple is exclusively selling the new Eye-Fi Geo, a flash memory card with networking and geo-tagging capabilities.
Streaming media provider Vudu has partnered with LG to include its software into upcoming LG high-definition TVs. The move will get rid of the intermediary set-top box and allows consumers to directly watch on-demand content from the internet on their TVs.
Over at BoingBoing Gadgets, Rob The Boss Beschizza takes a Wiz on modern games. To be precise, he has reviewed the tiny, retro game-playing handheld console, the GP2X Wiz, and decrees it The best portable yet for retrogamers.
Read More
When a zipper shows up in mid-life crisis, there’s usually a private investigator outside a motel window with a telephoto lens.
Ho ho ho! This little plastic iPod-shaped eggcup is called the eiPOTT. The Ei part means egg in German. The Pott part you can guess. Its actually a rather appropriate shape for an eggcup: The clickwheel holds the egg and the recessed screen takes either a generous dose of salt or the cracked remains of the bashed-in shell.
James May, presenter of the show Top Gear, is planning to build a house entirely out of Lego bricks. No big deal, you say. Weve all done that. Mays is planning a little bigger, and is making a life-sized house out of the plastic bricks, including a staircase and a fully plumbed, working toilet.
