Tag: Miscellany

Here’s a fun one that must have slipped past my radar screen when it hit the circuit last year. This USB-powered clothing is designed to keep you cool on those warm Summer days. As long as you don’t mind looking like a complete fool, the air conditioned shirt plugs into your computer and blows air onto your sweaty body, keeping you cool all day long.

Bring the solar system into your living room with these floating lights from Japan’s TakaraTomy. These Fuwarito lamps look like the earth and the moon, but are just simple helium-filled mylar balloons with an LED built into the bottom.

I was checking out Bandai Japan’s website earlier today when I came across this new micro robot that they’re coming out with later this year. The Hex Bug series of miniature insect robots scurry along on six legs, just like real bugs.

It just dawned on me that Technabob just hit its one year anniversary! That’s right, it was just about a year ago that I posted my very first story, and now I’m approaching my 1,000th. In that time, Technabob has gone from a handful of visits from family and friends to over 100,000 readers each month from all around the globe.

An enterprising hacker over in Japan has put together this mashup between the old school Nintendo Power Glove and a modern day Wii-mote controller. While the on-screen motion sensing is pretty much standard functionality, the modder did add some finger activated switches to replace the A and B buttons.

ThinkGeek is at it again. This time they’re offering up a fan which can load up animated GIF files from your computer and display them in full color on the blades of the fan. Inspired by those light-up LED spinner rims that might have turned up on Pimp My Ride, The LED Art Fan hooks up to your computer via a serial connection, and lets you download up to 128 frames of art into its internal memory.

Here’s a case where a picture truly is worth a thousand words… Apparently Sony thinks this one little “Special Screw” is so special, that it’s worth over 61 euro (appx. $82 US Dollars.) All I can say is, WTF?

This weekend, a group of Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in Austin, Texas set out to break the Guinness World Record for the number of simultaneously launched model rockets. They successfully deployed 965 model rockets at the same instant, smashing the previous record of just under 400 rockets.

Korean tech manufacturer Slaudiolab is gearing up to release their new Bluetooth audio transmitter accessory for the Apple iPod. The compact device plugs into the base of any iPod dock-connector and provides high-quality stereo audio over Bluetooth.

This is one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” ideas… These little vinyl labels can be stuck on your power cords and other cables so you can easily identify what cable connects to what device.

The other day, I reported on a suspicious, but promising new technology that claimed to print up to 60 pages per minute. Well I’m happy to inform you that Memjet technology is for real. This new technology, developed by Silverbrook Research, will enable ridiculously fast desktop inkjet printers and could totally revolutionize the printing industry.

NASA is thinking about a new technology to save the lives of astronauts if something goes wrong at launch time. The proposed new emergency escape system is actually based on those vertical drop roller-coasters that have popped up at amusement parks around the country.

Mobile phones have become more and more accessible over the years, and now your canine family members don’t need to feel left out. The PetsCELL phone is a special waterproof cell phone that provides GPS tracking of your pet’s whereabouts, but also integrates voice calling features.

Designed primarily for commercial installations such as in shopping malls and at special events, these LED-based televisions can display 360-degree panoramic video. Dynascan’s systems display video all the way across the surface of a cylindrical fixture, using thousands or super-bright LEDs to produce an image.

With just about every device from cell phones to watches embedding portable media players these days, I thought it might be fun (and maybe a little bit educational) to take a walk down memory lane and examine the evolution the portability of music and media over the last 50-odd years.

As our society gets more and more used to advertising at every turn, it’s no surprise that interactive advertising is making its way to the place where we’re most likely to be ready to purchase, our shopping carts.