Gadgets Blog

Remember the story a few months back about the dolphin that received a “bionic” tail? It was a great human interest story about how a dolphin had lost his tail to disease and veterinarians outfitted him with a prosthetic tail. Well, when I first saw the Lunocet, I wondered … don’t get the name. But then I realized that what it does could be ground breaking for swimmers, thereby giving them dolphin like speed.
Okay, not really, but you could go twice as fast as that Olympic Gold Medalist. The idea is really simple.

Take a pair of shoes and nail them to a carbon fiber fluke shaped platform. Wearing them, the swimmer can dolphin kick and with the additional surface area of the flukes can really pick up speed. A LOT of speed. According to estimates, swimmers outfitted with the Lunocet will be able to his burst of speed in excess of 8 miles an hour and some believe with practice that swimmers could even reach bursts of 30 mph. I don’t know about that, but the details of the design show it’s genius. The monofin flukes, made of carbon fiber and fiberglass get attached to an aluminum foot plate at a 30-degree angle. This enables the swimmer to grab additional leverage as he kicks into the water. The result is not unlike an airfoil which generates waterflow similar to the airflow. Bernoulli’s Principle, it’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.

Cost is about $1500. Cool video here.

Hat Tip â€" Like Cool

The old adage for cars is that engineers aren’t mechanics for if they were, they wouldn’t design their cars the way they do. Well, the same could be said of designers who aren’t engineers OR ). mechanics. Witness this ambitious wheel/tire design called the “Dynamically Augmenting Wheel System” (aka DAWS). The idea is interesting.

As a car takes a turn at speed, rather than losing its center of gravity due to inertia, the wheel itself is designed into eight segments to telescope laterally â€" thereby keeping the center of gravity where it is. The theory is that the wheel segments move on what is referred to as a liner bearing â€" located in the hub. This allows the wheel to shift the entire vehicle proportionally and resist inertia’s effects on pulling tires off the road.

Man. Can you imagine not only the cost of outfitting a car a set of these babies, but also of fixing them when they break? As my dad used to say … the more parts a design has, the greater the chance it has of breaking down. Whereas, a simple circlular tube design has little chance of catastrophic failure except for a tire blowout itself.

Still, it’s a cool idea that represents out of the box thinking.

Hat Tip â€" Yanko

There is some commercial that says: “We are a nation of consumers, and there is nothing wrong with that”. Every time I hear that, I can’t help but think: “yes there is, consumers use up energy, and we shouldn’t use up all the energy in the world!”

After all, every home has several outlets that do nothing but suck up a lot of power and increase the consumers’ bills. Granted, we may need the devices that we plug into the wall, but there is no way to give back the power that we take except in the form of money.

Fortunately, someone has invented the Inlet-Outlet which allows you to put power back into your wall. So how can you give it back? Try connecting it to some exercise equipment. You might as well be creating energy as you are burning calories. I suppose you could connect it to a hamster cage if you want to add just a little bit of juice.

I don’t know why the Inlet-Outlet has a weird connect that resembles an oversized USB. Couldn’t they just make it so it looks like your average two or three-pronged outlet, so you can just use the energy that you just made?

So far, this is still in the concept stage, but I don’t know how long it would take before every home has it. Something tells me this is one device that the energy companies don’t want you to know about. They want you to be dependent on them.

As for me, I would love to be completely free of them and make my own energy. I could get fit and power my house. So give me an inlet-outlet, and I will stick it to the man!

Source

If you’ve of late worried about your safety or that of your things, security has likely become a little more important.  Well although this won’t work on the brightest criminals out there, it will at least work on the younger less bright ones.  That or the just plain unobservant bunch.  It may look a little cheap and overly plastic, however, it makes up for it with its motion sensing abilities.

The motion sensor allows for the camera to follow anyone that activates it.  It also has a blinking light to give the appearance that it’s recording.  In some ways it’s an upgrade to the Dummy IR Bullet Camera, which looks good, but doesn’t follow the target around like this camera does.  Since it does move around and have the LED light, it needs something to keep it powered up, so you’ll need 3 AA batteries.  It can be picked up for $15.50 through Chinavasion, which is slightly cheaper than the older Bullet Camera that costs about twice as much.

Source: OhGizmo

As far as iPod accessories go, this has to be the most well thought out item.  One of the favorite features about a Nano is the fact that they come in those bright varying colors.  However, wanting to protect the iPod leads many to buy a case.  Once the case is on, that color you spent the time to choose is then hidden away.  Well these iSee cases protect your iPod, while all the while allowing for the color you chose to show through.

The great thing is the designs on the case actually accents the color and gives it something a little extra.  It comes in seven different designs, swirls, squares, reverb, flourish, circles, argyle and finally zebra.  Each case is etched then covered with a clear scratch resistant coating.  If you’re worried that you won’t like how the case looks over your particular color, you can choose the color and the design and see it on the website.  They only sell these for the Nano 4G and will cost you $24.95.

Source: Gadgenista

Have you ever wanted to change tracks on your iPod, but didn’t want to push a button? It appears that the Mimi ear switch can do just that.

Imagine being able to hit pause by sticking your tongue out, “like in the famous Einstein picture”. If you want to skip to the next track, just widen your eyes. Want to hear your favorite track again? Just wink your right eye.

Of course, why stop with just the controls on our iPod? Why not make it so you can walk into a room and turn on the lights with just a twitch of the mouth?

That is exactly what the inventors of the Mimi Ear Switch want to do: make it so we never use our hands again. If you are going to use some sort of control system like this, let us not make it so it is controlled by everyday actions.

I mean, what if you were listening to your iPod, and you hear some shocking news? Your eyes would widen, and then your iPod track would advance forward. Better wink your right eye to get it to go back. This could be really maddening after a while.

So, it appears that technology has once again made our life hands-free once again. I believe that this is some sort of concept for now, but I’ve seen stranger things become reality. I think I would prefer vocal controls over facial gestures, though.

Source

We’ve reported on devices that help people lose weight before, such as the FitBit. I myself have started using the WiiFit. I enjoy how this device keeps me accountable for my weight, as well as how long I do my balance and aerobics. I suppose that if you want to lose weight, being accountable to someone, even if it is a machine, is the first step.

It appears that a company known as Muve has come up with the Gruve. (I did not make this up.) The Gruve is designed to keep track of your movement like a pedometer. Of course, we have seen devices like these before.

What makes the Gruve different than most pedometers is that you had better exercise, or else. Apparently, if you remain motionless long enough, the Gruve will flash a series of lights in an “embarrassing color code”. If you are lazy long enough, the Gruve will start buzzing like a vibrating cellular phone.

It appears we now have a device that will annoy us if we don’t exercise. It’s like having a real hard trainer like those guys on The Biggest Loser that make the competitors cry. The ones that say things like: “Come on, you can do better than that! Do you want to be fat for the rest of your life?”

Right now, the Gruve from Muve is merely a concept now, but it is a good one. It’s one I wouldn’t mind seeing in my pocket to help lose some weight. At least until it starts going off.

Source

Spring is finally starting to how signs of coming soon, there have been several times this past winter that it didn’t seem like it’d ever come.  Later this month will be the first official day of spring, which would be a good time to celebrate with this USB drive.  As weather warms up, color starts showing up outside and one of the first things to start showing in spring are tulips.  Now even before they start budding, you can have them in USB form.

These bright red flowers are pretty as well as functional.  These would also be great to add cheer to an otherwise depressing and dull office.  This hub isn’t for those that have a lot of USB accessories, but they’ll work for those that only need a couple extra ports.  The only thing that worries me about this plastic USB hub is the length of the cord, it just doesn’t seem like it’s very long.  It might make it awkward to find a good spot to set it down.  You can pick it up for $22 through Fred Flare.

Source: NerdApproved