Gadgets Blog

No idea whether kids these days spend as much time outdoors as they should, but then again you never know when you might want to pack up the entire family on a long weekend to head out for the woods to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life, making the Survival Credit Card Tool a pretty essential item to bring along. Why do we say that?

First of all you can use the high pitched whistle to try and attract the attention of any passers by. It’s loud enough that if there are any hikers nearby they’ll hopefully come and investigate, or run away screaming. All is not lost if no help arrives on the first night, you can always try your hand at hunting or fishing. The knife can be used by hand (obviously) for skinning passing bison. Mock not, many an intrepid cagouled hiker has been caught short by a marauding herd of startled bison down our way. The knife can also be strapped to a stick using a bootlace, or perhaps a strap, and turned into a spear. This may not be much help with the bison, but you could be well on your way to whipping up a salmon mousse. There’s even a set of tweezers to remove the splinters you picked up looking for the right stick. If you do manage to catch something you’ll no doubt need to cook it, which is a great opportunity to use the Magnesium Alloy Firestarter on the side of the card. After your hearty meal of fish, bison or whatever plant you ended up eating when your hunting skills failed you, you’ll be happy to hear that the toothpick will get rid of any leftovers nestling between your molars. For those of us who are afraid of the dark there’s a red LED torch built in. We think it’s red so that you can read a map without spoiling your night vision. Of course if you’ve got a map then technically you shouldn’t be lost, but you tell that to half the people on the M25.

Imagine - half a dozen lifesaving gadgets all crammed into a card that is a wee bit thicker than a couple of credit cards, making it a snap to tote around. £21.99 is certainly a small price to pay if you’re looking for something lightweight and convenient during your next camping trip.

Everybody needs to move their bowels, the more often the better of course. Unfortunately for those who live with rather large families, the chances of walking in on a toilet that has been freshly “bombed” by a log deposit is much higher than having just a couple of heads under one roof, which is why there are devices like the Automatic Deodorizing Toilet Seat to reduce embarrassment.

This is the toilet seat that immediately suppresses bathroom odors by deodorizing the ambient air. As you sit on the seat, a whisper-quiet fan passes air through a replaceable carbon filter that absorbs odors, and is then freshened with one of two included fragrance modules, infused with pleasing, natural extracts, including Jasmine/Lavender and Citrus/Eucalyptus. The carbon filter deodorizes for six months and the fragrance module freshens for one month. Seat is made of durable, anti-microbial polypropylene. Requires two D batteries for nine months of use. Elongated comfort seat.

Sounds like a dream addition to any home, but the $129.95 price point might make one pause and reconsider. Hopefully it will be waterproof as well, since many Asian countries feature a toilet and a bath that are attached in a single room, hence showering will normally wet the toilet seat as well.

The winner of last week’s coolest gadget competition is the Pop-up Garage Stows Your Car Safely Underground.

The Cardok garage is an interesting parking solution that is starting to be seen around more affluent London locales. The owner’s car is raised and lowered by means of a hydraulic lift. At present there are eight in action around London, four under construction and another ten that have been ordered

Congrats again to We Interrupt.

In second place we have the Remote Security Sentry.

When you’re away, fire-up this remote security robot to ‘roam’ the house beaming back a live image of your home to an Internet enabled device. The bot automatically finds its charging base for a power up, so you can leave this running longer - such as when away on holiday.

Finally in third place comes the Optoma Pico Transforms iPhone Into Projector.

The Optoma Pico can turn your iPod or iPhone into a projector. The 4.1″ PK-101 can work as close as 8″ or up to 8′ away and still display sharp images. Shine it on a wall, a piece of furniture, a car seat or your cat (if he/she is dozing) and the image will still be true. The Pico only weighs 4 oz. and has a rechargeable battery life of 1.5 hours. Included in the $399.00 price are two batteries. Time liked it so well they made it one of their top ten gadgets of 2008.

Thank you to everybody who voted, submitted, commented or told a friend. The randomly drawn winner of the $50 Amazon vouchers is:

Feint (steamis1337@…), congratulations.

Thanks again everybody and good luck with the next CGOTW contest on Friday.

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If you write for a gadget themed blog and wish to be included in next week’s contest check out the CGOTW instructions page.

It is interesting to note that not all cell phone releases are done on a worldwide basis, and even stranger is the fact that selected handsets which are rolled out on one continent might take months or even over a year before it arrives on other peoeple’s shores - case in point the iPhone amongst numerous other handsets. Well, for those who are loyal to Verizon Wireless through the years and have no intention of switching mobile carriers, good news if you’ve been hankering after the HTC Touch Diamond. This handset will be readily available from today onwards via business sales channels and online at www.verizonwireless.com. The HTC Touch Diamond has been marketed to be the “ideal productivity tool for busy professionals”, although we’re pretty sure the hip and happening crowd won’t mind signing up for one since it does come in a rather fashionable design.

Unfortunately, HTC decided to stick to the business scheme of things, and hence the HTC Touch Diamond will take on a similar color as that of Henry Ford’s Model T - it will only come in black. Still, we don’t think this will affect sales so much that it will cause HTC executives to call for an emergency meeting to vote on which other color should the Touch Diamond be available in. Just to refresh your memory on what the HTC Touch Diamond offers, check out the specifications as listed below :-

• Brilliant 2.76″ touch screen display
• Built-in Opera browser
• 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera
• microSD card slot (max. 16GB)
• HTC TouchFLO 3D user interface
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Seamless integrated with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office applications
• Visual Voice Mail
• VZ Navigator-capable
• Mobile IM support

The HTC Touch Diamond can be yours for $299.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate with a new two-year contract.

Press Release

Sanyo is an old hand when it comes to projector technology, and they have recently unveiled four more models. Seems that projectors might sound to be a rather boring subject to many of you, but hear us out on this one though. All four of these new Sanyo models will come with Sanyo’s very own easy set-up function with auto input signal search, automatic vertical keystone correction and on-screen connection instructions to get you started, and they won’t weigh anything more than 7 pounds for true portability at school or in the office. The four models in question are PLC-XU355, PLC-XU350, PLC-XU305 and PLC-XU300, where they will all provide new and unique features to make business and educational presentations easy for both expert and novice users.

The PLC-XU355 and PLC-XU305 are extremely unique in the sense where they feature the industry’s first “Simple Wireless Setting” using USB memory. All you need to do is insert the supplied USB flash drive into a PC or Mac, perform a solitary click (in most cases anyways) and an instant wireless connection to the projector will be established, just make sure your source machine is placed no further than 98 feet away from the projector. Of course, environmental conditions will also affect the connectivity. You can connect the projector wirelessly to multiple computers, or hook up to five projectors simultaneously to a single computer without the need for additional drivers or special programs. The use of USB flash drives to do so is another plus point in our books since netbooks these days don’t come with optical drives.

As for the other two models, the XU355 and 305, these will come with a wide-range 1.6x optical zoom lens and a built-in 7-watt mono speaker, all packed into a slim and lightweight design. All four models, the PLC-XU355, PLC-XU305, PLC-XU350 and PLC-XU300 will be released sometime in the middle of May onwards for $2,595, $2,395, $1,495 and $1,295, respectively.

Press Release

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on creating a laser which can compress and heat a single fuel capsule to more than 180 million degrees in order to trigger a thermonuclear reaction. In short, they’re building a Death Star Laser. But for good, not evil. The idea is to create a kind of miniature sun on earth that would supply “limitless, safe, and carbon free energy.”

Normally, fusion â€" which is the bonding together of heavy atoms to create energy â€" takes place in hot environments like stars, but with 192 giant lasers, the NIF is attempting to create the same kind of reaction here on earth. The reaction will be accomplished by superheating the outside of a fuel capsule contining about one millionth of a pound of deuterium and tritium. This will cause the interior of the capsule to compress while the exterior explodes much like a star does. The biggest challenge? Containing the reaction as 180 million degrees will melt just about any known substance here on earth. But the reaction itself may be the key to containing it as, according to the NIF, the reaction consumes the cooler outer region faster than the capsule can release the hotter elements, thereby containing it.

Serious ignition testing is scheduled for next year. Then its’ bound to be a horse race to see if it can beat the Hadron collider in destroying the planet.

Hat Tip â€" Live Science