Author Archive for Noel

Contech Scarecrow Sprinkler Hoses Down Garden Trespassers

Dogs and cats are adorable, As long as they’re yours. Your neighbors’ pets however can be quite annoying, peeing and pooping in your yard like it’s the city’s designated dump. The Contech Scarecrow Sprinkler doesn’t only keep that from happening, it looks awesome too, looking more like a robot bird head than a tool that just sprays the lawn.
Designed for humane but effective animal deterrence, you can finally get rid of the electrocuted traps you’ve set up along the yard. Make sure you inform the neighborhood association, so they can retract the complaint too. And tell the mailman he’s no longer going to be fried when he tries to walk on your grass. Just really, really wet, but you can hold that part back. Tee-hee.

The Contech Scarecrow Sprinkler is a motion-activated watering device, measuring 24 x 7 x 2.5 inches. Not only does [...]

2011 Mercedes Benz E-Class Cabriolet Upgrades Convertibles For Four-Season Use

Convertibles are awesome – when the top is off. Once that roof comes down, the whole thing can feel severely cramped, far from the luxury vehicle it’s supposed to be. The 2011 Mercedes Benz E-Class Cabriolet thinks it can do something about that.
Unless you live in an area where days are always warm and still, it’s silly to be driving a convertible with the roof off most of the year. Not with the stylish new drop-top, though. The company claims it’s perfect for “four seasons, four people,” allowing comfortable use for a party of four, even after the summer is through.

How did they do it? Gadgets, of course.
The Mercedes Benz E-Class Cabriolet comes with an Airscarf system that blows warm air to front seat passengers via adjustable vents in the head restraints, allowing you to stay warm with the top off, even in chillier climes. [...]

Use Your Nintendo DS As A DSLR Controller With The Open Camera Controller Project

Finally, hardcore photography and hardcore gaming converge. The unlikely pairing comes courtesy of HDR Labs’ Open Camera Controller Project, which turns an old Nintendo DS into a powerful, open-source DSLR controller.
Why the DS? Because it’s touchscreen, portable and carry a full eight hours of battery life. Take that, iPhone. J/K we still love you too. With physical buttons and dual displays, it probably does lend itself to being a better camera remote than other options too, doesn’t it?
The Open Camera Controller actually makes up for a lack in the market – that of a programmable OS for high-end cameras. Pros, after all, tend to want more than what comes with the box and this DS hack ably fills in for that. Originally developed for Canon cameras, it provided a way to shoot HDR images for film production, overcoming the platform’s limits for shot bracketing. [...]

Essential iPad Accessories You May Need For Your Loving New Toy

After you’ve convinced yourself to get an iPad, you need to decide which accessories to get. Apple knows full well you’re likely not going to use the device as it is.  While you can skip getting anything extra, the iPad is one gadget where much of the gear actually sounds requisite.  Snagging one or more of these should be included in your “iPad budget.”
1. iPad Dock ($29)
While the iPad comes with a charging and syncing cable, it’s too big a slab of hardware to sit flat. A dock lets you do that upright, all while composing an email, viewing a slide show or reading a document. It can also connect to your stereo system with an audio cable, apart from supporting the iPad Dock Connector to VGA Cable (in case you want to blow-up the screen) and iPad Camera Connection Kit (for grabbing photos from your [...]

Aiptek Boombox DVD Projector Lets You Carry A Portable All-In-One Entertainment System 80s-Style

Can’t afford that expensive 72 inch LCD TV? Not a problem. Watch your favorite shows, clips and DVDs up on the wall with the Aiptek Boombox DVD Projector, a full-featured AV ensemble clad in an 80s-style boombox chassis.
Teens of the 80s who used to haul one around should be wetting their pants with envy. Not only do you get a loud boombox to pipe out snarky beats, you get a digital TV tuner, a DVD player and a mini-projector all built into the same frame. That’s a complete entertainment system that’s as easy to lug around as that dual-cassette deck Sony stereo you used to sit in the park with, playing Maria Vidal’s Body Rock over and over.
The Aiptek Boombox DVD Projector can throw images up to 75-inch (diagonal) video on walls, with VGA resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio. The projection LED [...]

City Lights Globe Shows You The Earth From Your Spaceship

You don’t need the earth’s globe to make your study look serious. That went out of style a decade ago. However, the City Lights Globe comes with some clever tricks that might make you want to reserve a space for it anyway.
Like most any globe you can find, it’s got the world map nicely printed on a circular ball representing the planet, with color-coded bodies of land and water adorning its body. It revolves automatically on its axis too, in perfect tune with the earth’s slow movement in space.
The 6-inch diameter City Lights Globe, however, does every globe you’ve seen one better. Once placed on its 5.5-inch mirror base, it shines light on areas where there’s daylight and leaves the rest in darkness. Even cooler, all the different cities of the world are lit from behind, so you can see the different masses of land [...]

The Oncoming Onslaught Of Questionably-Themed iPad Accessories

We all knew that the iPad’s upcoming debut this month will bring forth a slew of novelty accessories based around feminine pads.  Here’s the funniest one  I’ve seen so far: the iMaxi, an iPad Cover designed to look like a giant sanitary napkin.
Sure, we can see this one coming a mile away.  The Hip Handmaids creation doesn’t hold back, though, and that’s just grand.  It even comes complete with protective wings for flaps and bundles into a neat fold so you can carry it around your arm for the world to see.

The iMaxi measures 22.5 x 26.5 inches, with a 10.5-inch slit to snugly fit your Apple-branded slate.  Outside parts are made from tough vinyl, while the inside sleeves are clad in plush, quilted cotton.  While I won’t vouch that it can “keep your iPad clean and dry,” this should keep it away from your sweaty palms, as well as [...]

Vibrating Posture Training Shirt Tickles You Into Improving Your Stance

Sure, you were a shrimp in middle school. Doesn’t mean you need to go through life being a slouch, though. Improve your carriage with the Vibrating Posture Training Shirt, an annoying undershirt that gives you incessant reminders when it detects you falling into a bad stance.
Designed by the team physician for the Boston Celtics, the shirt is designed to vibrate non-stop until you straighten up your body. Your belly falling out while standing in line? Bzzzt. Your shoulder hunches while you’re sending a text message? Bzzzt. Your back swayed while you’re walking? Bzzzt…bzzzt…bzzzt!
The Vibrating Posture Training Shirt sports built-in filaments that conform to your body when you’re relaxed. When your carriage drops for the worse, it creates increased tension in the microfilaments, which the built-in electronic sensor automatically detects. Once that happens, it triggers an endless tickling on the area [...]

Matsumura Yoran Offers Service To Bring Orchids Back From The Dead

Japanese hobby gardeners who have developed an attachment to their flowers need not be sad when their orchids die. Orchid grower Matsumura Yoran is opening a new business that they claim will Frankenstein customers’ dead orchids back into bloom. Just like the plot to a bad horror movie.
According to company president Hidehiko Matsumura, “We want our customers to enjoy the attraction of orchids as long as possible.” And that they will, once the orchids go through the company’s revival system, which puts the orchids through stringent growing conditions to nurse them back into health.
Unfortunately, bringing new life to the flowers takes a bit more than the wave of a magic wand. Instead, it requires a time-consuming process which involves replacing the peat moss in the pot with wood chips (to make it easier for the roots to suck up water), as well as placing it in [...]

Can Grip Turns Your Canned Drink Into A Mug


I hate canned drinks. My hands are already clammy to begin with, so I don’t need no cold beer to drench it. That’s why the Can Grip sounds like a godsend, giving that inconvenient vessel mug-like handling powers.
Designed to snap onto standard 12oz cans, the contraption not only adds a plastic handle for your gross-sounding Watermelon Wheat Beer, it also appends a coaster at the bottom of the can. No more wet palms and no more rings on the coffee table. Those benefits are so awesome even the wife will approve.
The Can Grip is a single-piece plastic device that clips to the top edge of your can and cradles the bottom, giving a stein-like handle that lets you grip your drink with utmost comfort. That means you can down your way out of a six-pack with class, while everyone wrangles each can with their fingers [...]

Intendix Uses Your Thoughts To Type Words, Carpal Tunnel No More


Soon, you will be able use your fingers to pick your nose (or other less gross things) while you type on a computer. How? Using a system called Intendix, which measures brain activity to figure out what letters you want to appear onscreen.
Created by Guger Technologies, the brain-computer interface (BCI) was introduced at CeBIT last week, billing itself as the first patient-ready, commercially-available system of its kind. It’s not intended for use in offices yet, though. Instead, they’re looking at marketing it to severely handicapped individuals and paralyzed patients who need an alternative to the usual mouse-and-keyboard input combo.
Intendix uses an EEG cap that’s worn over the entire head, save for the face area, and a typing software for your computer. The actual operation sounds simple enough that the company claims you’ll be up and running after a 10 minute training. A grid of [...]

Playstation Move Now Official, Boasts Precise Motion Controls


We knew a motion controller for PS3 was coming and now it’s here. Sony has officially announced the Playstation Move, a 3D controller for the PS3 they are billing as the “next generation of motion gaming.”
According to the company, the device is particularly precise to the point that it becomes an “extension of your body,” with latency along the same lines as the DualShock 3. More than just a peripheral for casual gamers, though, Sony is gearing the controller to be used on titles intended for hardcore gamers too. During the GDC demo, in fact, they showed it utilized for a variety of RPG and action titles, such as SOCOM4.

The Playstation Move hardware consists of a main motion controller, a sub-controller and a PS Eye camera. Designed for handling with one hand, the main controller comes with a slew of motion sensors, including a three-axis gyroscope, [...]

Ducti Wallet Makes A Billfold Out Of The Humble Duct Tape


Your designer leather wallet might be awesome…back when it was new. But you’ve had it for a good seven years now and, fact is, it’s in deplorable condition. Sure, you’ve MacGyvered every break and tear with duct tape, but that doesn’t make it suck less. Give up the old duct-taped billfold and carry a duct tape wallet instead. Yes, there’s one of those and they call it the Ducti.
Neither hip nor pretentious, just like duct tape, the pocket accessory doesn’t bear any illusion about what it is. It’s neither a fashionable accoutrement nor a clever article for the geek crowd. Instead, the unassuming little bastard just carries your cash and cards like any well-meaning wallet should.
There are two models of the Ducti Wallet, the Classic and the Triplet. Just like the names imply, the former has a traditional bi-fold design for hanging on to [...]

Play Welcome To The Jungle In Style With The Slash Appetite For Destruction


While I’m not sure that Slash remains relevant in today’s music scene, there’s no question he stands as an easily-recognizable figure among a mass of guitar-toting heroes from the glory days of poodle hair and spandex. There’s something about that image of the guy with a funny-looking top hat, leather jeans, curly hair covering his face and a classic ‘58 Les Paul that managed to entrench itself among the mass consciousness. In honor of the man, Gibson has announced the new Slash Appetite For Destruction Les Paul, a classically-styled six-string that follows all the intricacies of Slash’s favorite instrument.
Scheduled for release to coincide with the 44-year old’s first solo album due this year, the limited-edition guitar is based on the same axe that Slash wielded in the record that introduced him to the world: Guns N’ Roses’ multi-platinum selling “Appetite for Destruction.” No, it can’t endow you [...]

NES Harmonicas Let You Play Zelda And Mario Cartridges Without A Console


How do you play games without a console? Well you don’t. In the case of these NES Harmonicas currently selling on eBay, you actually play the cartridge itself.
Yep, it’s harmonica hardware crammed into a gutted-out NES cartridge. It’s supposed to play just like a regular free-reed instrument, except you’re blowing down the butt of a broken game instead of a slab of rectangular plastic or steel. The mod is also nothing new, with the original tutorial for putting a “Harmonesica” together (and whoever made the ones on auction followed it to the letter) published by Monthenorium way back in 2008.
The three functional instruments being auctioned on eBay, however, are all pre-assembled for your convenience. All you have to do is blow your cheeks out and carry a tune (easier said than done, of course, if you’re terrible at music). Three NES Harmonica cartridges are [...]

Lian Li RC-T1R Turns The PC Case Into A Robotic Spider

Run for your life, there’s a giant spider on the table. Oh wait! We are geeks. Change in plans, quickly put your hand near it and let it bite you – then you will turn into Spiderman. Oh wait, it’s only got four legs and it’s actually a PC case. Damn you, Lian Li, damn you.
That’s only one of the many possible fun scenarios you’ll encounter with Taiwanese company Lian Li’s PC-T1R chassis, a PC case designed to look like a giant spider on your desktop. Why would they do that? I don’t know. You have to admit, it kinda looks awesome, right?

Looking more like a small form-factor robot than a computer chassis (or a spider, as Lian Li claims, for that matter), the PC-T1R is a clever little creation that showed up last week at the CeBIT trade show in Germany. We’re not [...]