Most table lamps are fairly basic, either they offer a spotlight for something you’re working on or they give the whole room light. I don’t know that I’ve seen a whole lot of table lamps that manage to offer both, but this pricey lamp does exactly that. This design by Adrien Gardere gives both direct and indirect light easily, by just making a quick adjustment to the lamp.
What makes it possible to do this, is that the lampshade itself is adjustable. In one position the shade can give indirect light and in the other position it gives direct light. The lamp measures 40cm tall and the base is 17 cm in diameter. The base is painted zamac with a painted aluminum stem. The overall lamp comes in two different color combinations, the grey â€" grey or bronze â€" neutral. Despite that you’re going to pay £132.00 ($194) for this lamp, the company isn’t kind enough to toss in a bulb.
Although I sometimes think the classics are the best, sometimes an old design can use a complete overhaul. This piano won’t work for everyone of course, mostly because it’s going to cost quite a bit to purchase. This piano takes the usual bulky design and gives it a great deal of flow. It also makes the piano seem so much smaller. Plus there is the added benefit that it’s modeled after a car.
Although it does have Ferrari directly in the name, it’s not actually officially endorsed by Ferrari. So it won’t be sporting the horse logo on it. It does, however, have the Ferrari Rosso Red finish and styling, which is likely good enough for most people. With a piano like this, you could play all classical and still even non-classical fans would listen closely. To pick up the bright red Ferrari piano it’s going to cost you $410,000, which might for the average person take a while to save up for.
While I was searching for article topics, I found a Windows application that makes a computer desktop more like a desktop. It is called Bumptop, and it inserts 3D into the computer desktop, a normally flat 2D world with folders that just have to be named.
You definitely want to watch the YouTube video here. It is pretty minimalist with an announcer and demo, but just watch it, and you will already be sold.
One of my personal favorite features of Bumptop is how it allows the user to “pile†their files instead of placing them in a folder. They can view these files as a grid, or even flip through them like pages of a one-sided book using nothing but the scroll wheel.
You also have to love how a user can display his or her photos, and upload them to Facebook, Twitter, or email just by dragging and dropping them. You also have to love how a user can alter their view of their desktop.
Bumptop also has a very interesting “clean-up†feature. You can put all your things in a pile, just like you would on a real desktop, only faster.
The best news about Bumptop is that it is free. That is, a light version of the application is. The more powerful version of the application costs about $29. You will need a 1.4 gigahertz processor, a gigahertz of main memory, as well as an integrated graphics card.
Imagine an alternate timeline, where cellular phone technology has been perfected and cheaply mass-marketed in the early 1980s instead of the late 1990s. In this reality, a cellular phone is built into every Sony Walkman.
Perhaps this would be an era of the Sony Ericsson W205. It would be a time where tracks are played with the album art with ID3 tags on a 1.8 display screen, and TrackID would name the tune and artist would you would play on the included FM radio.
You might be wondering where the numbers for this phone are on this picture. This is a slider with speaker phone and Bluetooth features.
The W205 would also use an Opera browser, with 5 MB of memory and supports up to 2GB of memory expansion with an M2 card. As for the camera, you are looking at a 1.3 megapixel with a 2.2 x digital zoom and video recorder.
Okay, the time for imagining this alternate era is over, and the time to live in the now is here. The Sony Ericsson W205 is expected to hit the market in the second quarter of this year. There is no word on a price, but if it is for the average consumer, expect a low price.
Often times, automobile accidents boil down to either one man’s word against another or some arbitrary rule that the one driving behind is automatically at fault. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have video proof of who’s at fault? Well, only if it’s the other guy, that is! But that’s the idea behind this Rear View Mirror Car Camera Recorder.
Check out the video of it recording an accident here.
The video camera is mounted in the rear view mirror and it functions as a blind spot reduction, backup camera, and a DVR. It records to SD card and records not only the video image, but equally important is the time and date. And with SD cards, removal of the video clips to play on your PC is extremely simple. And what’s really cool is that the Rear View Mirror Car Camera Recorder works with your existing rear view mirror as an overlay, so there’s no expensive and time consuming installation process to replace the stock mirror. It just slips right over it.
Other features include 2.5†LCD screen, adjustable lens, recording that automatically begins when you start the car, and auxiliary camera port for optional rear view camera â€" which is a great idea, especially if you’re driving an RV or pulling a large trailer like a boat or camper.
Cost is about $400, but is currently on sale for $50 off with a 1GB SD card included at Brickhouse Security.
Imagine living on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. The original bridge and not the one that looks like an Apple Store or the one that looks like a barcalounger. But the real bridge. Where the real Kirk, Spock and McCoy took on Klingons, Romunlans, and the Doomsday Machine to save the Federation. It’s the fantasy of every kid born in the early 60s. And now wallpaper that turns your room into that bridge is available for a pretty good price. All it needs is the cool Captain’s chair. Oh, you can get that, too.
Measuring at 10 feet wide by 6 feet high, this wall mural will set you back about $190 when all is said and done. It’s printed on a pre-pasted material called “Surestrip,†which makes for easy installation. Now, some say that this would be the ultimate addition to your bedroom in your mom’s basement. I disagree. If the basement is going to house anything these days, it’s going to be a cool home theater and this wall mural would be an ideal decorative to any sci-fi fan’s home improvement plans. Especially if you can work it so the main screen of the bridge is the silver screen to watch films on.
It’s a definite toss up as to whether this concept is cool or purely just morbid. It ensures that your shelves will be put to use for a long time, past the end of your life. During your life it looks like an extremely minimalist shelf. Actually, it looks so incredibly bland that it would by no means be considered an attractive piece of furniture in your home. However, although it is a dull shelf, it can be disassembled and reassembled to find new purpose.
After you have kicked the bucket, your loved ones can rip apart that terrible shelf and make you an even more dull casket. You’re dead though, so it’s unlikely you’ll really care about how your casket looks. It will also leave a clear message to your loved ones that you want to be buried, taking away the debate on how to deal with your body. These Shelves for Life are made by William Warren, who makes them out of plywood. You’ll have to contact the designer to find out if this can be purchased and for what price.
When I was a kid, TV remotes essentially had a handful of buttons for on, off, volume control, and the channel selector. That was it. But as TVs became more sophisticated and programming choices expanded beyond 3 networks and a gaggle of local channels, the remote control became larger and more complicated. Eventually, it became not only programmable, but some are quite expensive (on the order of up to $1,000 or more). The problem is that programmable all in one remotes that can handle your TV, Cable box, even Internet access have buttons that just never get used. Now researchers are seeking to change with GestureTek, a camera mounted on the TV which translates your hand movements into TV remote control functions.
Today’s TVs are more like computers than what our fathers would call “the boob tube,†and as such, having an interface that works like a mouse is more practical. GestureTek turns your hand into a mouse interface and interprets hand movements like mouse controls. It’s like a scene out of Minority Report. Users will simply maneuver the on screen cursor to the menu item, click it with a flick and select it. Or move the channel up or down with the channel overlay. And built in programming language prevents the TV from reading conflicting hand gestures and thereby eliminates the possibility of siblings fighting over the TV.
No word on when gesture based remotes will be incorporated into HDTV designs, but Hitachi is quite interested in the gesture based remote-less TV option and approached the company that makes GestureTek with the idea of a TV camera that reads depth and hand gestures to control it. If they can keep the price down (depth cameras, which are the heart of the system cost about 3 times more than webcams) on incorporating GestureTek, it could be sooner, rather than later.
Just when you thought that mice were supposed to look cute and all, along comes this DIY project that will interest taxidermists as well as those who have a morbid fascination with preserved bodies - the Mouse Mouse. It was named so due to the innards of a pointing peripheral being ripped out and placed within the hollowed out body of a preserved mouse, with a small rip being made on top of the mouse’s skin to let the scroll wheel come through. This furry little critter is not meant for sale (which is a good thing). Talk about a creative way to commemorate the memory and life of your favorite pet mouse!
Gardening can be literally back-breaking work, so it makes perfect sense to get all the help possible in order to enjoy what is supposed to be a hobby. With the Rolling Garden Scooter, this device ought to make any avid gardener happy (we’re talking about real land, people, so those in apartments while keeping a faux garden along the window-sill need not apply.
Garden scooter is the easy way to save your back and knees while gardening, painting, fixing equipment, and performing other down-low household chores. No painful bending, stooping, or crawling on your knees! Tough plastic construction with a roomy tray for holding tools and gloves. Comfortable seat. 3″ wide wheels let you move easily through long grass.
Not too sure if this would be comfortable for extremely tall folks though as the user will sit a mere 12″ off the ground. You can pick up the Rolling Garden Scooter for $29.99.
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Gardening can be literally back-breaking work, so it makes perfect sense to get all the help possible in order to enjoy what is supposed to be a hobby. With the