Technabob » small

Minikitchen Is as Compact as Kitchens Get

Hazel Chua — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:00:59 +0000

The world’s population continues to grow exponentially. It seems that pretty soon, earth is going to run out of land for us humans to live in. More and more residential buildings and condominiums are being built so the places where houses used to (or should be) can be used for shopping malls, amusement parks, and commercial centers.

As a result, residential units are also getting smaller and smaller. I think that’s one of the things designers Adriano Conti, Corrado Galzio and Alex Innamorati considered when they designed the Minikitchen, which is roughly the size of a washing machine.

The Minikitchen concept has everything that you’d need to cook, prepare, and store your food. Specifically, it has a vegetable washer, dishwasher, refrigerator, prep surface, small pantry, oven, and two other cooking systems so you can cook up most of your food without taking a lot of space at all. It’s perfect for a bachelor pad and would fit into tiny apartments with ease so you could have more space for all of your other stuff.

It’s a very neat idea, although I think the hard part lies in implementation, of course. It’s hard to imagine how the plumbing, refrigeration, food storage and heating systems could possibly fit into such a small container.

[via Yanko Design]

Sanwa Digital Toy Camera: So Tiny You’ll Lose it Each and Every Time

Range — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:00:58 +0000

I’m all for miniaturization, but at some point, tiny becomes bothersome because you’ll most likely end up losing your tiny tech. That being said, there’s something awesome about an HD camera that can fit on a keychain.

The Sanwa digital toy camera 400-CAM007 [JP] has a 5MP sensor and accepts microSD cards up to 8GB. It records video at 1280×960 pixels at 30 fps. It even has a voice recording function. The whole thing only weighs ½ an ounce. Talk about small!

The 400-CAM007, which makes me think of James Bond, comes in black or white and sells for ¥2890 (~$38 USD) only in Japan. You’ll probably be able to find it at one of those Japanese tech import stores before long, or you can try and order one through White Rabbit Express’ “Order anything from Japan” service.

[via Fareastgizmos]

Sony Shows Off 720p HD OLED Microdisplay

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:00:30 +0000

If you have ever owned a Sony NEX interchangeable lens camera or select Sony DSLR cameras, you have looked into the viewfinder and been staring at a tiny display rather than seeing what the lens actually sees. Sony has been using a tiny half inch ECX331A LCD that sports XGA (1024×768) resolution.

Sony has announced that it has a new screen that will find its way into future cameras that has much great resolution and is slightly larger than the old screen. The new screen is an OLED measuring 0.7-inches and called the ECX332A (Japanese PDF). The coolest part is that the screen has 720p (1280×720) resolution.

That means the tiny little OLED shows HD images giving you a lot more resolution to decide if what you are seeing in the photo you want. The new screen uses the same white OLED and color filters as the old one. Sony has offered no word on when the new screen will land inside a camera, but these appear to be the same displays found in their HMZ-T1 720p 3D head-mounted display.

[via OLED-Info]

Tiny Desktop Computer: If You Thought it Was Hard to Upgrade Your PC…

Range — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:45:53 +0000

This looks like an ordinary computer desktop, until you you see a giant fingers reaching down and starting to work the mouse. The whole thing looks like something that belongs in a doll house. The only question that’s left is whether it’s real or a fake.

At this size, it’s obviously not a fully functioning computer, but there are a lot of ways that this video could be faked. It could be a video playing on an iPod Nano screen, or something like that.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

All I know is that it comes from Japan, of that much I am sure. As for the authenticity of this tiny desktop? I am somewhat dubious, but it’s still pretty awesome even if it is fake.

[via TDW Geek via DVice]

Chobi Cam One HD: Prosumer Camera for Gnomes?

Lambert Varias — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:33:18 +0000

I know, I can’t believe it either. The diminutive Chobi cameras are transforming from expensive toys into… I don’t know, a line of functional collectibles? Tiny photographers looking for something more high-tech than the Chobi Cam One now have an alternative – the Chobi Cam One HD.

Unlike its predecessor, which can only take pictures at 1600 x 1200 and videos at 640 x 480, this upgraded version snaps photos at 3264 x 2448 resolution and records 1280 x 720 videos at 30fps. The trade off? An increase in size… by about 0.1 to 0.3 inches on each side. Whip out a magnifying glass and inspect the two Chobi Cam Ones side-by-side:

The Chobi Cam One HD even offers add-on zoom, wide-angle and fish-eye lenses. The tiny camera has a microSDHC slot that supports cards up to 32GB in storage, and can transfer data over USB. Its battery can be fully charged in an hour, after which it’s good for about 25 minutes of shooting videos.

Here’s a more jarring comparison of the Chobi Cam One HD. I know DSLRs are chunky, but it’s a building next to this bugger.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The Chobi Cam One HD sells for appx. $185 (USD) at GeekStuff4U. Unfortunately the accessory lenses are not bundled even at that steep price; you can get those from JTT Online for about $30-$60 each.

Card-Case Speaker: Keep a Speaker in Your Pocket

Range — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:23:20 +0000

While I don’t know how good the sound is from this little card-case speaker from Japan is, it certainly looks nice. You’ll be able to carry around a speaker in your pocket. Since they look pretty trendy, you can imagine that you’ll end up paying a premium for it, though.

The pocket-size speaker has a built-in rechargeable battery which takes 2 hours to charge up via USB cable, and it will last you 5 hours of playing time. It comes in three color variations: silver, gold, and black. It looks extremely simple, yet well put together.

You can get this portable speaker for around $65 (USD). Since they’re a Japanese import, it’s not too easy to find them, but you can head over here for a few different shops that stock these. Whether or not they’ll ship to the US is another problem.

[via NotCot]

Powershovel CLAP Digital Camera: Mini-malistic

Lambert Varias — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:15:03 +0000

Japanese design studio Powershovel has come up with a camera worthy of challenging the CHOBi mini cam for the title of World’s Most Easily Lost Camera. The CLAP digital camera measures a mere 1.4″ x 2.8 x 0.59″ and weighs only 24g. I also prefer its simple design over the CHOBi’s chunky dSLR look.

The CLAP has a 2-megapixel F2.8 (3.2mm) lens. It can shoot images at 1280 x 1024 resolution, saving them as JPEG files, and video at 720 x 480, which are saved as AVI files. As you can see it has a built-in USB 2.0 connector that is used both to export files as well as recharge the camera’s internal Li-ion battery. It also has a microSD slot (supports up to 16GB) for saving stills and videos on the go. No, it doesn’t have a viewfinder, but even if it had one it wouldn’t be of much use anyway.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The CLAP digital camera is available on Amazon in six different colors for $49.95 (USD) each. If you’re going to get one I strongly recommend that you get hold of a 1mm piece of string, rope or cord and make use of the camera’s strap hole.

[via Superheadz & SlamXHype]

Is This the World’s Smallest HD Camera?

Technabob — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:39:31 +0000

You know a camera is small when it’s got the following warning on its product page: “Important: Keep away from small children as it could become a choking hazard.”

While I’m not sure the guys who make this tiny camera have actually checked with the Guinness Book or World Records, I do have to say this is the smallest standalone HD camera I’ve seen.

We’ve written about a couple of other tiny cameras before, but this one definitely looks smaller than either the already miniscule Chobi Cam or the MAME-CAM DX. At just about 1.25″ wide, ChinaVasion’s DV59 micro-camera is definitely small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and even looks a little bit like a miniature DSLR. Trust me when I say it’s not a DSLR, though.

Despite its size, ChinaVasion claims the camera can shoot 720p (1280×720) video at 30fps. Still images can be captured at up to 8 megapixels, but that’s upsampled from its 2 megapixel CMOS sensor. I don’t get why anyone still quotes upsampled megapixel resolutions anymore. Heck, with Photoshop, I could turn a VGA image into a 20 megapixel image, and it’ll still look like crap.

Still, priced at only $44.49 (USD), it looks like a fun little novelty item, if for nothing else you want to tell your friends that you have the world’s smallest HD camera – except for that one that’s built into every smartphone on the market these days. Oh yeah.

Mini Guns Have Incredible Detail, Tiny Bullets Not Included

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:41:07 +0000

When was a kid, my brother and I were always collecting little mini cap guns. You could put a single cap in them at a time and they would actually shoot. A Russian man has been making mini guns for decades that remind me of those cap guns from my youth. The difference is these little guns are so accurate they would actually fire a real bullet if there were bullets so small.

The detail in these little guns is very impressive. They look exactly like the real thing. The crazy thing about them to me is that the man built these tiny weapons from schematics and descriptions of the real guns. Some of these were built as far back as 1970 without the aid of modern tools.

Over the years, Alexander Perfiliev has created 50 different gun models and still has them. A single rifle took him a full year to make and most are made from steel. Some used whatever materials he had nearby though. I like the AK and the big machine gun with the bi-pod myself.

[via Lesnyanskiy (RU) via English Russia]

World’s Smallest 3D Printer Created by Vienna University of Technology

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:36:05 +0000

I am not even remotely surprised that the world’s smallest 3D printer would be created by a team of researchers that hail from a university named after some of the world’s tiniest sausages. A team of geeks at Vienna University of Technology has announced that it has crafted the world’s smallest 3D printer that is about the size of a milk carton.

I am going to assume they mean one of the larger milk cartons that are somewhat rare in the US now. The 3D printer is cheap as well; the team says that it can be built for about 1200 Euro (~$1700 USD). The finished product weighs about 1.5kg and uses a tank of resin for printing.

Another cool fact about the printer is that its intense light (I assume they mean LED laser diodes) can harden layers of the resin only 1/20th of a millimeter thick. That means that the printer can be used to print items that require extreme precision. The team is working on making the printer cheaper and smaller yet, and they are working to get it to use other print materials like ceramic.

[via TGDaily]

Fuuvi Pick Looks Like a Flash Drive, But it’s a Camera

Technabob — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 03:42:24 +0000

I’ve certainly seen my share of unusual digital cameras, but this is definitely something I haven’t seen before. The pint-sized (and badly named) Fuuvi Pick isn’t much larger than a flash drive, but it’s actuall a digital camera, capable of capturing both stills and videos.

The tiny camera measures just 1.37″ (h) x 2.75″ (w) x 0.59″(d) and weighs under an ounce. It captures stills at 1280 x 1024 resolution (1.3 megapixels), and can shoot video at 720 x 480 at 30fps. Its tiny F2.8 lens shoots only at ISO 100, but if you’re using this thing for your pictures, I’m assuming you’re not expecting museum-quality images. The very fact that they call these things a “toy digital camera” should have tipped you off.

The coolest thing about the Fuuvi is the end of the camera pops off just like a flash drive, and the camera will dock and charge when plugged into your computer’s USB port. The camera’s storage (a Micro SD card up to 16GB) will be immediately recognized as a drive on your PC, just like a flash drive.

Audiocubes just started carrying the Fuuvi Pick mini digital camera, where it sells for $59.99 (USD). While the camera is made in several colors, it’s not clear if they stock them in anything but black. You’ll want to contact them to confirm.

World’s Smallest Video Camera Can Fit In Your Nose

Range — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:05:03 +0000

This is the world’s tiniest camera and it’s been designed to shoot video inside your body. It’s supposed to replace the fiber optic endoscope despite the fact that I saw it used in the last episode of House, it’s not science fiction.

The camera is about 1 mm³ in size – about “the size of a coarsely ground grain of salt,” and that’s pretty small. It’s got 62,500 pixel resolution, so the images it captures inside your body should be pretty sharp. The developer is the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany and they say that the camera should be cheap enough to be disposable by 2012.

There could be a lot of uses for this type of tiny camera, from a Big Brother-like surveillance scenario, to better rear view mirrors for your SUV. Fraunhofer expects these cameras to become available next year. I wonder when they will make a wireless version.

[via Gizmag]

DreamPlug: Tiny Linux Computer That Looks Like A Power Plug

Range — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:13:57 +0000

Wouldn’t you want a teeny tiny computer with no video card? Well if you do, then you can be very happy because the DreamPlug will start shipping later this month. The DreamPlug is a small computer that almost looks like a power plug.

Since the Linux-based DreamPlug doesn’t have a video card, it can’t drive an external monitor, which means that it’s best used as a web or application server. It has a 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva processor, 1GB of RAM, and a bunch of ports including 2 Ethernet, 2 USB, 1 eSATA 2.0, 1 SD slot. It also has 802.11b/g WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1 built in. It’s also got analog and digital audio outputs if you want to use it as a tiny music server.

The DreamPlug will cost $149 (USD) and it looks like something pretty cool for specialized applications, but has limited uses for the everyday user.

[via Ubergizmo]

Tiny Linutop 3 Computer Debuts With Intel Atom Cpu

Shane McGlaun — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:59:37 +0000

I am all for taking up less space on the desk or beside my desk when it comes to choosing my computer. I am also all for power and performance – so for now I keep using my mid-tower rig since it’s packed with high-end hardware. If you don’t need high-end hardware, this new small form-factor PC from Linutop may be right up your alley.

The little rig is called the Linutop 3 and unlike the AMD power the Linutop 2 sported, the new version has an Intel Atom processor at 1.6GHz. We all know this processor from its long running use as the go to CPU in the netbook realm. The little rig runs the Linutop flavor of Ubuntu Linux and might be perfect for the alternate OS geek looking for a tiny PC.

The Linutop 3 measures just 9.25″ x 9.25″ x 2.16″. The machine has 1GB of RAM inside and supports up to 3GB. Instead of a hard drive, the system stores data to 2GB of internal flash memory and the OS is loaded on a 600MB flash device. I assume that the OS is not loaded on the main 2GB of storage, but the company doesn’t specify that. Other features include Gigabit Ethernet, VGA and DVI out as well as 3D graphics 6 USB ports, and more.

You can grab one at the Linutop store for 340 EUR (appx. $391 USD).

Tiny Tokyo House is Built in a Parking Space

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 02:42:11 +0000

All I know of Tokyo is what I learned from that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer had the three Japanese businessmen sleeping in his dresser. I know space is at a premium in the city and Tokyo is just about the opposite of Texas where we tend to have lots of space and land. One dude wanted his own house, so he bought a tiny chunk of land measuring 30 square meters.

The tiny sliver of land was made to park a car on. The owner of the home is 39 and lives with his mom in the three story one bedroom home. The house was built at what is a bargain price for Tokyo of appx. $500,000 (USD). Despite being so small, the house has the tech necessities we expect today with computers, washing machine, AC, and flat screen TVs. The house is tiny, but it’s actually very cool.

Of course, this single man won’t be getting any action at home since he shares a bedroom with mom. I would bet you could fart in the bathroom upstairs and cause a methane explosion in the kitchen on the ground floor the house is so small. Check out the video below to see just how small this house is.

[via CNN]

Ortus Hast: World’S Smallest HD Display

Range — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:32:20 +0000

This great small display might be the next big thing for smart phones or mini-tablets, which is the form-factor that could benefit from this incredibly small HD display technology.

But how small is it? Just 4.8 inches, that’s all. It’s called the HAST (Hyper Amorphous Silicon TFT) screen and it features 1920×1080 resolution with a pixel density of 458ppi. It was unveiled today by ORTUS, which is a joint venture between Casio and Toppan Printing. To put things in perspective, The iPhone 4′s Retina Display is 3.5 inches with a resolution of 960×640 and a pixel density of 326ppi.

The display also can handle 16.8 million colors, and offers a 160-degree viewing angle. ORTUS expects this to be used for high performance security monitoring, but I’d like to see this on my next phone please.

[via AV Watch (JP)]

Russian Makes, Then Solves the World’s Smallest Rubik’s Cube

Range — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:01:24 +0000

This incredibly teeny tiny Rubik’s Cube was created by Evgeniy Grigoriev and it’s tiny. How tiny? How about 0.39 inches (10mm)! Now that’s extremely small and despite its diminutive size, Evgeniy solves the damn thing pretty fast.

This isn’t his first tiny Rubik’s Cube. He’s got 12mm Rubik’s Cubes for sale for $15 if you want one for yourself. If you’re like me and you’ve got trouble with the big version, then you’ll no doubt appreciate how handy and small this one is. You can easily carry five or six in your pocket to share with your friends any time!

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It’s amazing how small this is. I wonder if he’ll be successful in creating an even smaller version – maybe one that could only be solved under an electron microscope with tweezers.

[via Dark Roasted Blend]

Lacie Moskeyto: the Littlest USB Flash Drive You’Ll See Today

Technabob — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:51:12 +0000

LaCie today rolled out an unusual new USB flash drive, which is so tiny you can leave it plugged into your computer all the time and never notice it sticking out of the side.

The MosKeyto flash drive is just 20mm long, and 14mm of that is the USB connector – leaving just a 6mm stub sticking out of your computer. This is great for laptop users, so you never forget about your flash drive, and you also don’t have to worry about breaking it off or where to store it when you travel.

The drives come in 4GB ($17.99 USD) and 8GB ($27.99) capacities. A 16GB model is also on the way. For more info on the MosKeyto, head on over to LaCie’s website. Giant mosquito not included.

Chobi Cam Mini Camera is So Small You’Ll Probably Lose It the Day You Buy It

Technabob — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:04:07 +0000

You’d better hold on tight to this miniature digital camera that measures in at just about 1.73″ (w) x 1.14″ (h) x 0.47″ (d) and weighs only 14 grams. In other words, this thing is smaller than a box of matches.

The CHOBi mini camera can shoot images at 2048×1536 resolution (appx. 3-megapixels), and can capture video at 1280×960 resolution at 30fps. Images are stored on a microSDHC card (8GB max). Of course, you can’t actually see what you’re shooting through that microscopic viewfinder, so your cinematographical efforts will definitely be a crapshoot.

You can get the CHOBi mini cam over at GeekStuff4U for about $150 (USD). Unfortunately, their site is having problems at the moment, perhaps they lost their tiny web server between the couch cushions.

[via Ubergizmo]

Teeny Tiny LEGO Chess Set

Range — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:47:04 +0000

I’ve got to give to the guy behind this LEGO build, it’s ingenious. If you love playing chess, then you should get cracking and build your own.

This incredibly small LEGO chess set was created by Flickr user Akunthita. It measures 12 × 12 studs, which is about a 3″ square. There are even these micro-drawers which are able to hold all of the chess pieces. Cool.

So if you love playing chess, it should be pretty easy to swipe Akunthita’s idea and make your own set (just don’t take credit for it).

[Brothers Brick via Make:]