Whether you own an iPhone or not, most people have heard iPhone owners complain about the battery life. It’s an extremely common complaint. Thankfully you can purchase a very small RichardSolo back up battery charger for your iPhone 3G. It’ll make sure that you’re never stuck with a dead battery, plus it has a couple of small gadgets built into it.
It has a built-in flashlight as well as a laser pointer. Sure, you can get a flashlight app for your iPhone, but your iPhone doesn’t have a laser pointer. On it is a retractable USB charger, a dual-port USB charger and even the usual AC wall charger. It’s capable of reaching a full charger after 5 hours of being plugged in. There are 3 LED lights that will help you keep track of the charge status of the battery. If you do plug in the battery, you can also plug your iPhone into the battery and charge them both at the same time. You can purchase one of these for $69.95.
Source: CraziestGadgets
Solar panels being used as back up chargers are nothing new. However, there are still a great deal of us that don’t have one. Be it due to lack of funds, not enough justification or even just not finding a design that fits your life. If you’re still just looking around to find that right fit for your gadget addiction, here are two more solar chargers from Ambientech. There is the SolarFold, as well as the SolarFan. Both of which would work just fine to keep all of your small gadgets up and running.
Apparently these are the first of their kind, at least in one aspect. They are the first to use light-gathering spherical solar cells. Now whether or not that gives them enough of an edge above the competition to get you to hop up and purchase one is debatable. At the very least it’s nice to have a couple of different options on how these chargers open up. The SolarFan comes with a special tripod and both of them come with a carrying case. They became available last week and cost 22,050 yen or about $244.
Source: Ubergizmo
it’s been a while since we covered designer Glenn Martin’s super fan pack, which I suppose is, for lack of a better word, a jetpack. Granted, it looks more like the flying pack seen by Quest Aerospace in the first Spider-man movie rather than the jetpack in the Rocketeer, but it can get you off the ground, and quite safely, too.
I believe that I reported last year that these packs were $250,000 each, but that was actually wrong. One of the people on the Martin Jetpack team sent me a comment that the jetpacks were actually 100,000 USD. There is a video after the jump if you want to see more about it.
I believe that only ten jetpacks were produced last year, and I can only imagine that celebrities who have more money than they should could be the only ones that could afford them. A recent update by the Telegraph has revealed that the Martin Aircraft Company is teaming up with an unnamed international aircraft company to make 500 jetpacks a year, for a lower cost of $75,000 each.
Yes, it is a high price, but here’s what you get. First of all, it runs on premium gas, which is much cheaper than jet fuel. Second, it has a 30 mile range at 60 mph with a 8000 foot ceiling. Third, no pilot’s license is required. Fourth, it has a low altitude ballistic parachute, in case you are worried about safety.
So, with 10 jetpacks last year, 500 in the next year, that means Martin has increased its jetpack inventory by 50 times. If it keeps this up, it will take four years to have 3,125,000,000 jet packs, which is enough for about half the planet. So are we looking at an era where everyone will be flying around in a jetpack soon? One can only hope.
This particular gadget is known as the O Kitchen, a concept device created by a team of Brazilian designers. I suppose it is named the O Kitchen because it can fold up into a large ball. Yet without a hole in the middle, I wouldn’t call it an “O”. I guess they didn’t like the name “Ball Kitchen”. I’m not even going to allude to what that sounds like.
This O Kitchen was designed to be an easily portable and compact kitchen, presumably made for those who don’t have the space for a big kitchen. Of course, this takes up some space too. Find out what all the numbers mean after the jump.
Each of the number corresponds to a different feature on the O Kitchen: 1) Unified microwave and electric oven; 2) Refrigerator; 3) Dishwasher; 4) Cooktop; 5) Smell and steam exhaust; 6) Lighting; 7) Control panel with internet access, MP3 player function, CD/DVD reader, digital cookbook, kitchen management software, built-in sound system; 8 ) Cabinets; 9) Automatic disposal system; 10) High temperature alert display.
I can see another use for the O Kitchen: outdoors. Why bother taking the grill to a tailgate party when you can just roll the O Kitchen in the back of the pickup truck? Of course, you’re probably going to have to bungee it down somehow so it doesn’t roll out on a sudden stop.
Instead of purchasing a flash drive all by its lonesome, buy a friend for it too. Now thanks to KidRobot, you can have a friendly companion for your smiling USB drive. After all, you can’t always be around for the USB drive, eventually you have to sleep or even pay attention to real people. For those times, you have have Auto. He’s a little man with a cassette tape for a head. What more could you ask for in a friend for your flash drive?!
Sure, Auto doesn’t do anything but dutifully listen to the USBoombox yammer on and on about their day. At least he’ll never repeat what the flash drive tells him. He’s just not a big talker. Now the flash drive, he’ll store away 1GB of your data. All the while looking like nothing more than a Vinyl toy. USBoombox also comes with his own personal soundtrack that you’ll only know what it is if you purchase him. You can purchase the set for $60.
Source: ChipChick
As a web worker, I handle most of my communications online. My first contact with many of my clients is via email or, sometimes, phone. But I still have a big box of business cards sitting on my desk, and I think they come in handy. I’m willing to pay to get professional business cards printed regularly.
Just because most of my clients contact me online doesn’t mean that that’s how they find me. I ask every new client how they found me and, more often than not, it’s because someone I know recommended me. What’s surprised me, though, is that it isn’t always past clients passing along my email address. More than a few times, it’s been someone that I met at a networking event passing my card along to someone who they thought could use it. These aren’t people who know me well; without that business card in their hands, they would have been hard-pressed to even remember my name. But having that convenient little piece of paper in their pocket led to me landing a new client.
Of course, I’ve landed clients just by heading out to networking events and handing out my business cards in person, as well. There’s a reason that business cards have become standard for business — and why many tools that allow you to share information via smartphone and other gadgets have been slow to catch on outside of technologically-oriented industries.
There are times when even the most web-oriented among us have to meet with people face-to-face. Being able to hand out a business card does more than guarantee that they have your contact information and even goes beyond making it easy to pass it along. It can help establish your professionalism. Depending on the type of work you do, there can be some difficulty in reminding your contacts that you’re a professional — after all, you spend most of your day at home or the coffee shop. But little touches like a professional business card can really help remind clients and colleagues that you are a professional, no matter where you’re working at.
I’ve got a couple of business cards in my bag that don’t actually belong to me. I hand them out when I’m handing my own out, though: I have certain people that I work with on a regular basis and if I’m talking about a project they’d be involved in, I like to help them out with a little promotion while I can. They’ve got a stack of my cards, too. The system works out pretty well. We don’t routinely attend events (networking or otherwise) together, but each of us still gets an opportunity to get our cards in the hands of people who might like to work with us. A business card may not be the perfect substitute for your ability to win new clients or projects in person, but it can definitely help in situations where you wouldn’t have been able to be there anyhow.
Do you still use business cards?
Image by Flickr user bargainmoose, licensed under CC BY 2.0
We love new and different methods to charge our devices. They seem to be coming out in spades nowadays, but we don’t necessarily think that that’s a bad thing. Especially not when companies like Ambientec are producing top-notch gadgets like the ones shown here. SolarFold and SolarFan are hopefully going to catch on big time, and we don’t just mean in the Japanese market.
Over at PV Expo 2010, Ambientech showed off their latest solar-powered battery boosters, the SolarFold and SolarFan. They’re just about the most appropriately named devices we’ve ever heard. The former, the Fold, opens up just like a Japanese folding screen, and the Fan does just what you might expect: open up like a fan. They’re designed to be carried anywhere easily, and we think they’ve done a great job. Both of these models are the first of their mobile kind: they use light-gathering spherical solar cells. Plugging into the devices is easy enough as well: you just need a USB cable.
So, let’s get to the important question: what’s the charge like for, say, a mobile phone? A 10-minute charge will power your device for a three-minute phone call; so you could possibly make it last a bit longer if you’re just sending some text messages. The Fan and Fold are sold in bundled packages, which include the USB cable to charge and a carrying case appropriate for the device. The SolarFan also comes with a special purpose tripod. The next big question: how much does it cost? 22,050 yen, if you’re in Japan, which makes it about $245 dollars here in the States. Both products were released on March 4th, so by now you could find a retailer who’d be willing to ship it out to you. Any takers?
[via DigiInfo.tv]
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If you still have a car with a cassette player, the USB Cassette MP3 Player from Brando looks like an easy way to bring new life to an old school gadget. It looks like a cassette tape, but it’s really an MP3 player with an SD card slot. Fill an SD card with your tunes, pop it in this player and then insert the player into your car’s cassette deck to enjoy music through your car’s stereo speakers. Nice! Earbuds can be used to listen normally and it also does double duty as an SD card reader.
[Via visit site to read more]
Filed in categories: Car Gear, News, Spotlight Gadgets
Tagged: MP3
Brando goes a little retro with the USB Cassette MP3 Player originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 8, 2010 at 2:30 pm.
Humans have been drinking for thousands of years, likely more than history itself can mark. It should come as no surprise, then, to see that designers have worked to enrich the drinking process with amazing tools and glassware and technology. To celebrate the high-design gadgetry of the home bar of the future, here are 10 amazing designer bar accessories for the modern home. More at TheCoolist.
Things are getting thinner. It’s looking like “thin” may be the new “small,” when it comes to the tech industry. It’s been a long time coming, truth be told, and as long as all our gadgets don’t start snapping in half like a thin stick, we’re happy with where this could all lead to. Companies like Acer want to help us get there, by offering up some pretty intuitive ideas, even if it does scare us that our screen may not be encased by anything at all.
What we mean is, to save the laptop’s thinness, Acer wants to create a laptop that uses a frameless screen. Acer wants to use Corning’s reinforced class substrate, and therefore you won’t be seeing the traditional encasement over your screen. Acer would just like to color the back of the substrate to match their needs, and go from there. This design methodology works on two fronts: one, it will allow for the laptop to be incredibly thin on the “top-half,” and also reduce material costs for the company. Again, as long as our gadgets are safe in normal every day use, we’re fine with this.
On the “bottom-half,”, we’ve got the keyboard. Traditionally, this is where the majority of the weight, size, and everything else goes, so Acer has a plan for this as well. They want a touch-based keyboard. No “physical” keys, but more akin to what you’d see on your touchscreen phone. We understand that there is a pretty thick line out there, dividing those who like touchscreen keyboards and those who want a more traditional one, so this would probably be chalked up to personal taste more than anything else. There isn’t any word on pricing yet, but Acer does plan to have this laptop out some time in the second half of this year. So, start counting down the months.
[via CrunchGear]
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The Just Mobile Xtand Go is a dash or windshield mount for your iPhone 3G3 or 3G. It has a folding arm that allows the iPhone to be rotated vertically or horizontally and maintains access to side controls and the dock connector. What I like about it is that it doesn’t have one of those plastic levers to control the suction cup. This one uses a screw collar design. It’s available now at myGearStore for … [visit site to read more]
Filed in categories: Car Gear, News, Spotlight Gadgets, iPhone, iPad, iPod related
Keep an eye on your iPhone with the Xtand Go originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 8, 2010 at 1:48 pm.
Netbooks and Notebooks
– AmazonAccessories
– Amazon
– AmazonYou can find more deals on netbooks, gadgets, and accessories in the Liliputing Deals section.
Post from: Liliputing
Deals of the Day
Becky Stern of Make: Online interviewed the crew of the latest OK Go video, which was a single-take Rube Goldberg machine.
Becky: How many takes did it require to get the final?OK Go Rube Goldberg video: meet the makers!DB: I lost count. I think we did that first sequence about 70 times. When we got past the tire, we knew we had a chance. When the piano dropped without triggering the flags or chairs, we started getting excited. If the sledgehammer blew up the TV we were in the home stretch. It was a tense video to film!
...
PyroPenguin: Did you need to employ failsafes? If a component didn't activate because the component intended to trigger it was off by just a hair, did you have a system to activate it manually?
BD: Not re ally. I think if we were more film oriented rather than machine oriented we would have built in more manual "cheats". As it is, I think we did some things (or at least I did) that didn't play as well to camera as it could have just because I was preoccupied by the mechanism. But we were pretty determined that the thing work. In some cases, we spent a lot of time working out a mechanism that doesn't even show up on camera- like the pneumatic paper airplanes. it's a really reliable mechanism that is triggered by the machine, and yet that's happening amid such chaos that in afterthought I guess we could have just had a guy pushing a button. But I don't think anyone even considered that. There was a little assist in the curtain pull, because the curtains had a tendency to stick together, so if that was having trouble there was someone available to pull a little string to help things out. But I think that's it.
We've talked a lot about vampire power - gadgets and appliances that are turned "off" but suck down electricity just because they're plugged in - and there's one electrical outlet that helps combat wattage use while you're out for the day. But what if you have several gadgets you want to control? Here's an idea - make a power strip with timers in the sockets so you can keep track of how long you actually use an appliance, and save money at the same time. The Wind Up Socket does just that - lets you count down the minutes (like a kitchen egg timer) until your electrical socket switches off.
Hear more about the Wind Up Socket when you read more.
Let's say you need to charge up your phone overnight, but you know it only takes an hour of charge to get you through the day. Don't leave it plugged in and wasting juice - schedule your socket timer to shut off in an hour, and not only get a full charge, but save a whole lot of money over the course of the year for banishing power vampires. This would work great for computer chargers, TVs, and kitchen appliances that don't need to be left active after you've heated up your breakfast. Right now the Wind Up Socket is in the concept phase, but I would totally buy one if it was on the shelves today!
Last week I detailed my foray into the world of cloud backup and syncing to multiple devices. The gist was that Dropbox didn’t work quite the way I wanted, and a number of you smart folks suggested I look at SugarSync. Always one to take you up on good advice, Friday afternoon I signed up for SugarSync and got started using its cloud service. It’s worth sharing how easy it was to get going with SugarSync, and to pass on some observations about the process.
I first looked into SugarSync years ago, and while it looked pretty good I never got around to seriously use the service. It just didn’t click at the time. A quick look around last week showed it has grown up nicely, and has a lot of features for someone like me who uses multiple computers/ gadgets.
I use my MacBook as my desktop system, and as such it has all of my documents, music and the like. The Documents folder on the MacBook is 25 GB currently, and the Music folder is 19 GB. Based on that volume, I signed up for a 60 GB account on SugarSync for $9.99 per month. There is an annual option for $99.99 to save some bucks, but I went monthly until I am sure it fits my needs.
Once I signed up I installed the SugarSync File Manager application on the MacBook. The service allows full web access through any web browser, but the convenience of a dedicated app is also a good thing. The next thing on the agenda was selecting the folders on the MacBook I wanted to sync with the SugarSync cloud. I selected all of my personal folders, Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos, and SugarSync started uploading them right away.
This initial sync is the important one, as SugarSync has to get all of the host files to the cloud. Once the files are all there, then any computer can be set to sync with the cloud, giving full access to the information from the other computer. This initial sync takes days if there are a lot of files. SugarSync estimates 2 – 3 GB per day, which is awfully slow on a fast connection. I started my 40 GB upload on Friday afternoon, and almost three days later it is still in progress. I estimate another day, two maximum, and it will finally be finished. Bear this in mind when you get started with a service like this.
If you don’t want to let this massive upload tap your network too hard, you can throttle it back in the preferences. I decided to let it have the maximum allowed to get this process over as quickly as possible. It does hit the network pretty hard.
After the first day I decided that enough of my files had been uploaded to the cloud, so I set up SugarSync on the Windows PC where I wanted access to my files. I installed the Windows version of the File Manager, which looks much like the Mac version. Setting up the folders to sync with the cloud, and thus the MacBook, couldn’t have been easier. SugarSync is smart enough to know that the My Documents folder on the Windows PC corresponds to the Documents folder on the Mac, so it presented a graphical confirmation that these two folders would be kept in sync. The same was done for the other folders on the MacBook, so I was all set.
Since SugarSync was downloading the files from the cloud to the Windows PC, this was at a higher speed than the upload from the Mac; my ISP provides faster downloads than uploads. After just a day the Windows side of things was all caught up to the queued Mac uploads so now as soon as a file completes uploading to the cloud, it will download to the Windows PC.
One caveat I should pass on, and it affects this initial sync runtime, is to think about the programs you run on the host (initial) computer to sync with SugarSync. I run virtual machines on the MacBook through Parallels, and this creates some huge hidden files in the Documents folder tree on the MacBook. These files queue up to be copied just like any other, even though in this case I can never use them anywhere else. Once the initial sync starts, there is no easy way to tell it to not copy these files. They are not user accessible normally, and they are not accessible through SugarSync’s File Manager either.
There are about 10 GB of these files, so it will take quite a while for them to get uploaded to the cloud, and then downloaded to the Windows PC. If I had known about these hidden files, I would have done something to prevent this from happening in SugarSync.
Once the initial sync completes, SugarSync will keep these two computers (in this example) in sync in the background. Any file changes, additions or deletions on either of these systems will be immediately reflected in the cloud, and thus on the other system. It’s a beautiful system, as it turns your stuff into one big cloud storage. The files are locally stored, but with the advantage of being backed up in the cloud.
One thought to consider, given this huge initial sync, is how it might impact your ISP. In my simple two system example, the 40 GB of files are uploaded to the cloud, and downloaded to the other PC. That is a total of 80 GB of data transmission in just a few days, far more than normal. If your ISP keeps an eye out for that, especially if you pay on a tiered scheme, than this will trip flags for sure. I certainly wouldn’t want to take either of these computers out to work using my 3G connection while this initial sync is in progress, as the syncing would be eating up my monthly data cap quickly. Normal daily syncing will be no problem, as it will only be moving single files.
The cool thing about SugarSync is there are versions of it available for most smartphones. I haven’t done this yet as my initial sync is not finished and I don’t want to rock the boat, but I will install the iPhone version for sure. It will be cool to have access to my entire document library on the phone.
Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?
Verizon Wireless has jettisoned its $100 mail-in rebate requirements for its Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smartphones, possibly smoothing the way for shoppers to snap up the gadgets.
The Pre Plus is now available for $149.99 and the Pixi Plus is going for $79.99. The devices in January were introduced at $149.99 and $99.99, respectively, after a $100 mail-in rebate.
A Verizon representative did not immediately respond to questions about the action. However, the carrier told Wireless Week that there was "a brief period where we tested mail-in rebates on some phones. We have found that online customers expect instant rebates and since this is a very competitive arena in which to do business, we responded accordingly."
Verizon made the price change shortly after Palm issued a warning about its expected revenues, and after Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said in a memo to employees that Verizon's launch of the company's products was "below expectations." In the memo, which came to light late last month, Rubinstein said he and Dave Whalen, Palm's senior vice president for global sales, recently had a "very successful meeting with Verizon Wireless, where they acknowledged that their execution of our launch was below expectations and recommitted to working with us to improve sales."
Palm said it expects its full-year revenue to be "well below" its previous estimate of between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion.
For more:
- see this Wireless Week article
- see this IntoMobile post
Related Articles:
Palm CEO: Verizon's launch 'below expectations'
Palm cuts revenue forecast, shares plummet
Palm watching: Analysts worried about uptake at Verizon
Analyst confident about Palm-Verizon partnership
Verizon's Palm pricing: WiFi hotspot service to cost $40
AmbienTec's SolarFold and SolarFan charge your gadgets, available without perscription (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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One of the best perks of working in the tech biz is that we get to see, handle and review all kinds of gadgets and devices before they hit the market. Sometimes, we get to do a little something special by giving away some of our favorite gadgets to our readers and fans. With the HTC HD2 just weeks away from hitting the market, we figured it would be a great time to give one away.
Click here for all the details. All you have to do is answer a few of our questions, then cross your fingers!
I try to be aware of my impact on the environment. I recycle as much as possible and recently installed a programmable thermostat. I’ve often wondered how much water I use every morning when I take a shower. The Waterpebble is a nifty little device that can help you keep your water consumption at acceptable levels. Just place it in your tub or bottom of your shower stall and it will indicate, via a flashing LED light when to finish showering. It starts out by flashing Green, then changes to Amber when you’re halfway through the shower. It finally ends at Red when you should stop. Each time you shower the device will automatically reduce your showering time by a tiny bit to help you save water without needing to think about it. It appears that they are currently only available in the UK for £5.31 ($8) at Dry Planet.com
[Via visit site to read more]
Filed in categories: Home Tech, News, Spotlight Gadgets
Save water with a pebble in your shower originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 8, 2010 at 9:37 am.
A solar charger or solar powered device is all fine and good if you live in an area where there is ample sunlight. If you live in an area with heavy tree or cloud cover most of the year, a solar charger might not be ideal. A better option in some cases is a wind generator.
Eolic is a foldable wind power generator that harnesses the breeze to make power for your gadgets. The cool part about the Eolic is its foldable and very portable design. The entire wind generator folds into a carry case that you can take camping or to the beach for power.
The idea behind the concept is to produce a portable wind generator that can replace the need for mains power in a home during an outage or when an area is recovering from a disaster. The device is made from aluminum and carbon fiber to keep weight down and the pole is telescopic to reach a height of somewhere around 18-feet (or three men as the developers put it). The thing is a concept so pricing and availability are unknown. The odds that Eolic will likely never make it to market are slim, but it is cool.
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Last week I mentioned the new JOOS Solar charger that had been unveiled promising to produce 20X more power than other personal solar chargers on the market. That device is aimed at charging mobile phones and MP3 players. If you want a solar charger for larger items like your notebook or netbook, the Sunforce 50044 offers up to 60W of power.
The Sunforce 50044 60W solar charging kit is available now on Amazon for $299.99 with free shipping. The device is designed for RVs, cabins, homes, boats, and other uses where it can be mounted. The design is weather proof and the maker claims it can survive hailstones traveling as fast at 50mph.
The kit includes four solar panels each producing 15W of power, a 200W power-inverter, 7-amp solar charge module, and a wiring kit for installation. The device has blue LEDs that show when it is charging. The kit will produce enough power for most netbooks and lots of notebooks and other devices out there. You will need some space to install this kit with dimensions of 54″ x 12″ x 42.2″ and about 60 pounds.
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Green gadgets are a big deal to lots of people who want to indulge in their gadget lust, but want to save energy and reduce pollution at the same time. If you are the green sort, who wants a portable speaker for your MP3 player or other device that uses recycled and recyclable materials the AON BOX speaker is for you.
The speaker reminds me of a cross between iPod dock and one of those Chinese food take out boxes with all the tabs that tuck and fold. The portable speaker is designed to lay flat when not in use and when needed you unfold the paper box into its pyramid shape for use.
The pyramid shape lets the speaker sit on its side without rolling. The outer housing of the speaker and the box are made with 100% renewable resources. Any device using a 3.5mm headphone jack can be connected to the speaker. Measurements when assembled are 3.5″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″ and is has 2W of max input power. The AON BOX speaker sells for $14.99.
[Via The Ultimate Green Store]
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