All Entries in the "Gadgets" Category

BOOK Case Turns iPad It Into A Hardback You Can Line In A Bookshelf

While the idea isn’t exactly original, BOOK does make an excellent argument for being an indispensable iPad accessory. A combination sleeve and case, it houses Apple’s new hardware into a hardcover frame, allowing you to line it with the books you’ve got sitting on your study.
If you’re thinking of using the iPad as your default electronic bookreader, then it’s tough to imagine any case more fitting. Inside, it sports a 100% wool felt sleeve, sized to fit your new tablet snugly. Outside, it features a protective hard cover jacket that makes it look like a volume you borrowed from the public library.

Handcrafted to order in a small Minnesota studio, the BOOK for iPad measures just slightly bigger than the iPad’s slim, taut frame. It looks like a book when closed (complete with a deceptive linen cloth cover and decorative book headbands), opens like a hard case [...]

Cooler Than A Wallet: Credit Card Holder Is A Pocket Dispenser For Your Plastics

A wallet is functional. The Credit Card Holder, which seeks to replace that billfold as the place where you store your cards, makes pulling one out fun. Just flip a button and the corresponding card is dispensed. Like magic. I can play with it all day.
Since it can only carry six cards at a time, it won’t exactly replace your wallet if you carry a whole slew of similarly-sized cards and IDs around. If you’re fine with leaving the rest behind and carrying just six, though (e.g. a couple of credit cards, ATM cards and personal identification), this should work like a charm. It’s supposedly designed to “organize and mark your credit cards so that they’re easy to identify,” though organizing shouldn’t really be an issue if you can count your cards on one hand (provided you have an extra, mutant finger, of [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

Autotec’s Gentlemanly Wearable Robot Opens Doors For You


It’s official. You can’t lock robots inside the house anymore. A new robot arm from Japanese manufacturer BL Autotec should be able to reach out for the doorknob and open the door when attached to an emergency droid, clearing the way for the rest of their robot cavalry to escape.
Yep, the damn golems don’t have to fire steel-melting lasers or launch obstacle-blasting missiles anymore. All the limbed robot has to do is wield its mechanical arm, give the doorknob a tight grip and turn its claw to loosen the bolt. Even scarier, the mobility robot they designed to take the arm can strap around people’s shoulders like a backpack, allowing it to ride you like its own personal beast of burden. Yikes.

Autotec’s robot arm features four shafts that let it stretch to a full meter long and a specially-shaped claw for managing all that [...]

Power Gig Does Rhythm Gaming With Real Guitars

Not a fan of the way Guitar Hero and Rock Band have dumbed down playing music to the level of button mashing? Then you may find Power Gig: Rise of the SixString refreshing, as it delivers a real six-string experience to the music gaming genre.
Announced at the start of the Game Developers Conference earlier today, the novel approach comes courtesy of Seven45 Studio, who develop and publish the game, as well as manufacture their own controller for it. Like other music-based titles in the market, Power Gig allows four player support with voice, guitars, drums and bass. Unlike them, however, the peripheral is a completely playable guitar.

An early version of the game was shown off at the conference, along with the prototype controller. The default mode of the game supposedly plays much like Rock Band and their ilk, where you match notes shown on the screen [...]

ExiTool Cuts Seatbelts, Breaks Windows And Helps You Find Your Way To Safety

Every year, there are more than six million car accidents in the United States alone. Some are nasty that you have no control over and its just bad luck, karma or what ever you wanna call it. Then there are situations that are scary, need quick thinking and action. You never know when you’ll figure in a crazy one, of course – like jumping off a cliff, diving in the water or sliding on a puddle of oil then knocking a giant lorry over before running into a zombie. Just in case you do, it’s always best to be prepared with the ExiTool, an emergency contraption that can help you get out of crazy tight situations.
Created by custom knife-maker Russ Kommer, the multi-function tool came out of a need to provide a simple implement that will allow motorists to bust their way out of nasty road accidents. [...]