Gadget Access

At CES, the company SkullCandy unveiled a pretty cool new pair of headphones that have a unique feature. It comes with a SD slot so all you have to do is load in a SD card filled with music and you can listen to it without the need of an MP3 player.

It can even work with any type of SD cards, so if you own let’s say an 8GB or even a 16GB one, it will work and then you have access to loads of music. It will also come in 3 different colors, orange/brown, yellow/white, and black. Furthermore, it comes with a rechargeable battery, and all the controls on the side of the headphones. This pair of headphones look to be pretty cool and I’m not sure why SkullCandy kept it so low profile during CES.

Expect it to start shipping in March/April for an unspecified price.

Via [Ubergizmo]

Posted Jan 13th 2008 4:38PM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Video
A fancy mirror contraption not quite what you had in mind for video conferencing on your iPhone? Fret not, friends; Ecamm Network is back at it, this time devising a way to stream video from the camera — at 30fps, no less — to the Mac of your choice over WiFi. Even better, the clever cats hooked it up with Bonjour, so the Mac just sorta sees it as a camera without any configuration needed. The possibilities are pretty endless (or limited, depending on your point of view), but we suppose it’s nice for iPhone owners to instantly have a free, remote cam for iChatting, if nothing else. The download isn’t available yet, but Ecamm is teasing that they just might be willing to demo it at their Macworld booth this week.

[Via TUAW]

When we sleep in our nice comfy beds we are often sharing them with around 2 million tiny friends, the dust mite. Not only do we share our bed with these ugly pests but they also use it as their own personal toilet, nice! Ewbank have introduced a solution to this bacterial infestation, the Raycop Vacuum Thing.

The Raycop functions like a conventional hand held vacuum cleaner, however it has a couple of extra tricks up it’s sleeve. Firstly it vibrates which helps knock the pesky mites (and droppings) from your mattress, these are then sucked in the vacuum. Whilst this is going on your bed is being cleansed with a UV-C sterilising lamp which is said to kill 99.9% of bacteria. So maybe you’ll be able to sleep that little bit better.

Further information over on the Raycop site, no indication of availability or pricing though.

<!– ch_client = “gadgets”; ch_type = “rpu”; ch_noprice = “1″; ch_width = 468; ch_height = 90; ch_color_title = “#B40505″; ch_non_contextual = 1; ch_nosearch = 1; ch_default_category = “89″; ch_font_title = “Arial”; ch_font_text = “Arial”; ch_sid = “Coolest Gadgets RPU”; ch_alternate_css_url = “http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/rpu2.css”; ch_target = “_blank”; var ch_queries = new Array( ” Exterminate Dust Mites with Raycop” ); var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length)); if ( ch_selected

Posted Jan 13th 2008 1:18PM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Laptops Proving once again that he’s still got love for the home team, Nick Negroponte has announced the impending launch of OLPC America, a division of the organization with its own director and chairman that will bring low-cost laptops to US students. According to an IDG interview with Negroponte, distributing the XO stateside has always been in the plans, arguing that “to have the United States be the only country that’s not in the OLPC agenda would be kind of ridiculous.” Besides helping out kids at home, NickNeg anticipates that a domestic deployment will accelerate the project to critical mass in terms of adoption, software, and developer support. OLPC America will reportedly work with individual state governments to handle the details of the disbursement, although specifics of the plan will remain under wraps until the official launch later this year.

[Via Slashdot]

Look’s like I’m having a bit of a session on bikes at the moment and the coolest I’ve found so far has to be the operational concept chopper produced in collaboration between Intel and Orange County Choppers with just a little help from Black Diamond. The concept was to produce a product capable of operating under some pretty tough conditions and to show the potential of the current embedded technology. The result was the SwitchBack PC, a product which was already in development stages by Black Diamond. They just needed to make it dirt, weather, shock and vibration proof (easy peasy) and ensure it was also ultra-mobile. And what better way to demonstrate all of this by putting it into a motorcycle.

The finished bike has fingerprint recognition ignition system, digital dashboard with a complete infotainment system including web access and other processor based operations. Another neat feature are the rear mounted cameras to see what’s behind you, thus eliminating the need for rear view mirrors. Capable of wireless connectivity, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS and with plenty of other oh so cool features (I want one and I can’t even ride a bike!)

Guideline prices for the SwitchBack PC are from $6,000 to $10,000 (plus the cost of whichever bike you want to install it onto). Somehow I don’t think a little 125cc will do it full justice but I think that may be all I can get to start with.

<!– ch_client = “gadgets”; ch_type = “rpu”; ch_noprice = “1″; ch_width = 468; ch_height = 90; ch_color_title = “#B40505″; ch_non_contextual = 1; ch_nosearch = 1; ch_default_category = “89″; ch_font_title = “Arial”; ch_font_text = “Arial”; ch_sid = “Coolest Gadgets RPU”; ch_alternate_css_url = “http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/rpu2.css”; ch_target = “_blank”; var ch_queries = new Array( ” Computerized Chopper” ); var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length)); if ( ch_selected

It would seem that the search for thrills, cheap and otherwise, knows no bounds.  The world of extreme sports, also known as adventure sports or lifestyle sports, is growing at an incredible rate of speed. In this sports arena, Europe has exceeded America, as 2011 becomes the promised time when London will partake in the world’s first artificial outdoor surfing experience (in between tea, crumpets and various other proper English activities).

Venture Xtreme is more than just a multi-sport, shopping and leisure complex on an unprecedented scale; it provides a lifestyle that has the unique ability to combine sports participation with spectator attraction.  It is reported that this artificial surfing machine will feature 6-foot swells, which will, upon command, break gloriously upon the Thames in a magical place called Silvertown Quay. It is hoped that this unique attraction will draw the ever-growing ranks of urban surfers throughout the world.

Estimated to cost a mere £20 million (40 million US dollars), the goal of the creators of this machine is to rival, through the utilization of “cleaned river water,” the Atlantic breakers of Devon and Cornwall. Building to transform the former grain dock is slated to begin this year.

As if the surfing machine wasn’t enough of an achievement, creators are also planning on an artificial beach with palm trees, boardwalks and rentable fire-pits for barbecues to create a more realistic setting. (They left out sharks and other perils, which would surely enhance the surfing experience as well.)

Happy hi-tech surfing!

Read [New Launches]

Posted Jan 13th 2008 11:53AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: HouseholdIt’s not like we haven’t heard of a higher power invading one’s home before, but apparently, a proposal set to be considered at month’s end could allow the state of California to “require that residents install remotely monitored temperature controls in their homes next year.” The Programmable Communication Thermostat (PCT) would feature a “non-removable” FM receiver which could be controlled by Big Brother in “times of emergency” to drop load in order for “utilities to meet their supplies [when] the integrity of the grid is being jeopardized.” Of course, we are hearing that adjustments would only be made ±4 degrees, but we aren’t so keen on one thing leading to another, if you catch our drift.

[Via Digg, image courtesy of Drexel, thanks yoshi]

I’ve been a Mac user for a very long time. Well, I guess I can’t say that I am anymore, as I haven’t bought a new one in several years, and most of my work is done on a PC. I’m still a loyal Apple fan at heart, so I tend to follow the news waiting for that one announcement that’s going to make me finally take the plunge and buy a new one. While I’m not sure that this is the one, I’m very excited about the possibilities that the upcoming Macworld Expo have to offer. The biggest one is the Air.

There are a lot of rumors going around, but we do know that the banners hanging up for the show say “There is something in the air.”To me this cries out WiMAX, but others seem to think that it could be a new MacBook, named the Air. It would be an ultrathin 13.3-inch notebook that would have an external optical drive and possibly feature a completely wireless setup that would take advantage of a Power-by induction patent that Apple filed for a year ago.

Whatever it is, it’s going to have to be big to top the iPhone announcement from last year. I’d really like to think that it’s going to be a new smaller notebook, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Source: 9 to 5 Mac

<!– ch_client = “gadgets”; ch_type = “rpu”; ch_noprice = “1″; ch_width = 468; ch_height = 90; ch_color_title = “#B40505″; ch_non_contextual = 1; ch_nosearch = 1; ch_default_category = “89″; ch_font_title = “Arial”; ch_font_text = “Arial”; ch_sid = “Coolest Gadgets RPU”; ch_alternate_css_url = “http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/rpu2.css”; ch_target = “_blank”; var ch_queries = new Array( ” Macworld – There’s something in the air” ); var ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length)); if ( ch_selected

Here’s an interesting new tangible interface design for a music sequencer. Rather than using an array of buttons or a 2-dimensional control screen on a computer, this one generates rhythmic patterns using ball bearings.

Sequences are composed by placing the metal orbs in a grid of receptor cups which represent the different rhythm tracks (kick, snare, hi-hat and cowbell) along the vertical axis, and beats along the horizontal.

click to view this video clip

The BeatBearing sequencer interface was designed by Peter Bennett, a researcher studying for his Doctorate at the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast. Peter’s thesis studies have been focused on new interaction techniques for digital musical instruments.

It’s an elegant interface solution for music sequencing, but I’d be afraid I’d lose half the ball bearings by the second night of the tour. Peter gets extra credit for including a cowbell track, since I’ve got a fever… and the only prescription is more cowbell.

read more about:

bearing, interface, metal, music, sequencer, tangible

Men’s Health Best Life magazine put out a list of telephone numbers that they feel every man should have. Honestly, it’s not that kind of list; anyone can benefit from these numbers. I didn’t think all 10 deserved to be ranked together, but I did think that 5 of them were very useful. Here they are summarized:

• 202.501.4444. US Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Overseas Citizens Services. Yes, that’s quite a mouthful and yes, only geared to Americans. These folks are here to help you should you run into mini disasters on your overseas trip.
• 800.752.6096. Language Line Services. Need an emergency translation in a hurry? For $3.95 a minute, you can get something in over 170 languages translated.
• 800.466.4411. GOOG-411. You knew Google had to make this list. Make a call, get info. One # that Best Life forgot was Google’s text services. If you’re a texter, then send your queries to 466453 (G-O-O-G-L-E).
• 800.829.4222. 800-TAXI-CAB. Apart from finding you a local cab wherever, you can also get limos and airport shuttles.
• ICE. Not an actual # you call, but could be the most important one you store in your phone. You should store your emergency contact #(s) under the name ICE, aka In Case of Emergency, in your phone.