Gadgets Blog

Is the Road Refresher Dog Bowl an ingenious invention or what? After all, any dog owner would notice that their beloved four legged friend often drinks in a rather unrefined manner, lapping water up while splashing a fair bit all over the place. The Road Refresher Dog Bowl was specially designed for those who always bring their dogs with them when traveling, as it claims to reduce doggie slobber by up to 90%. Even Barack Obama has gotten one for the presidential pooch, showing the world how gullible he is - I jest, it just goes to show how effective the Road Refresher Dog Bowl is.

The Road Refresher encourages tidy drinking by limiting the amount of water dogs can lap up at any one time. A floating plate inside the bowl automatically feeds through enough water for Fido to drink, but immediately restricts the flow when there is a surge from cornering, braking, kicking, tripping and so on. The ingenious design even keeps long ears and beards out of the water (the dog’s, not yours). Ideal for long journeys, this easy-to-clean piece of toughened polypropylene genius will soon become the dog bowl of choice for anyone who wants to reduce slobber, in car and around the house. It’s even got a velcro base and additional fixing pads to ensure it stays put on carpets and kitchen floors.

You can pick up the original sized version for £11.99, while those who want the smaller one (comes in pink or yellow) will have to fork out £9.99 although it is currently out of stock at the moment for the smaller model.

When wireless connectivity first game about, the world was abuzz with the possibilities of living the full digital life sans pesky wires that could cause folks to always trip over. Well, over the course of years as prices go south due to more and more people adopting the wireless lifestyle, the 2.4GHz band could get rather overcrowded, and might possibly cause interference problems with equipment. For those who want to analyze the invisible 2.4GHz band, the Wi-Spy 2.4i ought to do the trick.

The new Wi-Spy 2.4i packs a lot of value into a compact package with extra-fine resolution and a super-low noise floor, not seen on other entry-level tools. Plus, Chanalyzer Lite, Wi-Spy 2.4i’s software, offers a great assortment of features that help you get to the bottom of interference issues quickly and easily. And to top it off, it now has a 3-D view and Mac support. Tracks all radio activity from Wi-Fi, Cordless Phones, Microwave ovens, Zigbee, Bluetooth, or any other 2.4 GHz device. Graphically shows which channels to use and which ones to avoid.

Interested? ThinkGeek is selling the Wi-Spy 2.4i for $99.99.

If you aren’t familiar with Russian Designer Art Lebedev, then perhaps you have heard of the Optimus Maximus, the keyboard with a screen for every key.

It would appear that the innovative designer is working on another device that has become common: the GPS device. His “Navigarius” uses a round display as opposed to the traditional square models. It also includes touchscreen controls, USB connectivity, a microSD reader, as well as a cigarette lighter adapter.

I can think of other features that my source does not list off. For example, voice recognition. However, that’s starting to become a standard on many GPS devices these days, especially with those cars with it built-in.

At the risk of gadget-gushing, I will have to say that I love it. Personally, I think this design will probably be picked up, and quite soon. In fact, I think that its design is so revolutionary, that I could easily see it on every dashboard in the future.

So are we looking at an age where we see a GPS device with a rectangular screen and say: “oh, that is so quaint”. Do you remember just ten years ago, when all of our computer displays were huge and square. Flatscreens changed all that, and I see the same potential for the Navigarius.

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