Keyport Slide- The Keychain Alternative

Having to bring along a keychain filled with different types of keys can sometimes be more of a hassle than a convenience. Not only can they be heavy, they can also be quite noisy as they move to and fro from your pocket or dangled outside of it. A unique and more high tech alternative may now available in the form of the Keyport Slide.

The Keyport Slide may not look like any ordinary keychain. It is a unique key storage device that can consolidate up to 6 of your oft-used keys in a more secure and less noisy device. Keys are fixed inside the Keyport Slide and use a sliding mechanism whenever any key is to be used at any time. Other tools such as a USB flash drive, bottle opener and mini-LED light can also be fixed into a Keyport Slide to make it even more useful. It is more convenient and handy to carry around in its secure boxed design. The Keyport Slide comes in a number of bundled options. It is now available at Keyport with the standard bundle option starting at US$79.

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Mini Vortex Lamp

Those lava lamps still seem to be popular. Such lamps seem to have that certain allure and dynamic appeal that people tend to be fixated to, entranced even to buy one. And because of such, there might be another lamp that some people may find a certain fixation to. And with that, here’s the new Mini Vortex Lamp.

The Mini Vortex Lamp may have taken on an idea or two from the popular lava lamp in terms of its dynamic features. While the lava lamp contains colored goo inside that seems to perennially move around in distinct shapes when lighted up, the Mini Vortex Lamp creates a tiny version of a raging tornado or water vortex when it is lighted up, along with the light randomly changing into red, blue or green. This makes it a perfect lap to bring at a party or just simply light up a room and a fixture to look into as one tries to go to sleep. The Mini-Vortex Lamp is available at IWOOT for 20 UK Pounds or around US$32.

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Nanogenerators produce electricity by squeezing your fingers together, while you dance

It's been a while since we last heard about nanogenerators - you know, those insanely tiny fibers that could potentially be woven into your hoodie to juice up your smartphone. Dr. Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology has reported that he and his team of Einsteins constructed nanogenerators with enough energy to potentially power LCDs, LEDs and laser diodes by moving your various limbs. These micro-powerhouses - 1x500 the width of a single hair strand - are embedded with piezoelectric zinc oxide atoms and can generate electrical charges when flexed or strained. Wang and his team of researchers shoved a collection of their nanogenerators into a chip 1x4 the size of a stamp, stacked five of them on top of one another and can pinch the stack between their fingers to generate the output of two standard AA batteries - around 1.5 volts. Although it's not much, we're super excited at this point in development - imagine how convenient to charge your phone in your pocket sans the bulky battery add-ons. And that's only one application of this technology. Yea, we know.

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Black & Decker PlantSmart SO Cool!

Plant Smart by Black & Decker: a whole new techie way of gardening.

Black & Decker has just found a way into my heart. I love to garden! I'm not the best at it. But I really like it. Let's face facts… when it comes to all this blather about soils and additives and enhancements to make this grow or that grow or worrying about which zones are good for this or for that… I get overwhelmed.

Well, it looks like Black & Decker is taking the guesswork out of what will grow in your soil and, frankly, what won't.

The Black & Decker PlantSmart PCS10 Digital Plant Care Sensor is the Fish Finder for Gardeners. Equipped with sensors, you place the PCS10 into your soil or plant container or what have you and the sensors read and measure sunlight, soil moisture, temperature, and soil conditions. It will make recommendations on what kind of plants will grow in that soil, health recommendations and will even tell you if the plant needs watering. After 24 hours, you remove the top part which then plugs into the USB port of your computer and you get all the data right there. There is subscription fee that will allow you to take it to the next level and give you feedback on your soil's fertility. Simply put: I have got to have one!!! $49.99 at Target and Ben's Bargains. $39.99 on Amazon.com.

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Electronic Magic 8 Ball

Are you extremely indecisive that you cannot figure out what step to take next? This is where the Electronic Magic 8 Ball comes in, thanks to Pete Mills. Since it isn't your traditional fluid-filled ball, this electronic version is controlled by a ATMega328 and if you happen to be pretty deft with your hands, you can always make use of the code that Pete has posted, and here's what he has to say about the situation. “You can see the mercury switch in the picture below. It is hot glued to the lower left of the circuit board. The header at the top connects the LCD which is mounted in the lid of this enclosure. Space and time were limiting factors on this build so, component layout was adjusted accordingly. E.g. jamb the bits in where they fit."

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Edible Pens Make Pencil Chewing Sweet

It may be unsafe to chew pens to relieve stress, not to mention it does not taste good, but some people just could not help gnawing them during examinations or meetings.

Design student Dave Hakkens tries to solve the dilemma with the Edible Pen, making a pen almost completely out of candy that users can easily chew. He originally planned on creating a chewable pen that would not get dirty, but realized most parts of the pen would be discarded once the ink runs out. The Edible Pen not only make a writing tool chewy, but also minimizes wastage.

The pen consists of bite-sized candy segments that have about the same texture and consistency as a candy necklace. It will not melt in your hands, making it not sticky to hold, and even uses edible ink.

These Edible Pens are currently in prototype stage, but it looks cute and tasty enough to become a favorite school item.

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Dunhill Biometric Wallet

A wallet is one of those things that everyone values highly. It may contain a person’s ID’s, credit cards, family pictures as well as money- things that are all quite valuable and needs to be protected at all times. For those that need the best possible protection that a wallet can provide, nothing may come close to the level of protection that the new Dunhill Biometric Wallet may provide.

The Dunhill Biometric Wallet is not just any other ordinary wallet. For one, this special wallet is virtually indestructible since it is made out of a carbon fiber outer shell that can resist all but the most extreme efforts to forcibly open it. For some added luxury it also comes with a leather holder for credit cards and a steel money clip.

The Dunhill Biometric Wallet is also equipped with a biometric sensor linked to a lock that can only be opened using the owner’s fingerprint. This wallet can also be paired to a person’s mobile phone via Bluetooth that will sound an alarm every time both items are separated by more than 5 meters. But this wallet that offers probably the best protection for its contents does not come cheap by any means. The Dunhill Biometric Wallet is available at Dunhill for US$825, quite an expensive way to protect valuables. But that will depend on a person’s perspective.

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Super Pong Table sees four players duke it out

Ah, Pong – who can forget the seminal video game that actually made kids more interested to sit in front of the TV even during beautiful summer days, many years down the road? The simple idea of sliding sticks around to return a bouncing ball has certainly evolved to a whole lot more in 2011, but let us pause for a moment and see how one can improve a real classic. Instructables has the answer in the form of the Super Pong Table, where it paves the way for up to a quartet of players as well as five balls per game, where through the help of 900 LEDs and four Atari paddle controllers, you can have some 4-way mayhem in the middle of your living room – just don't get too excited and knock over that cup of tea in the proces. Basically, the first player to reach 20 points gets their very own “YOU WIN” light up display.

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SimQuest to release open-incision surgical simulator

While they say practice makes perfect but in the realm of surgery, you don't really have a lot to practice with. What surgeons in training have to practice on right now are live patients or animals, and usually living things are not subjects you want to practice your craft on. That is all about to change. SimQuest has announced that they will be releasing the world's first open-incision surgical sim. Using tools with haptic feedback technology and 3D renders of a human subject, SimQuest aims to improve the skills of surgeons through virtual training. With scenarios and content that can be provided by teachers and trainiers, the sim aims to be as real as possible without the involvement of any live subjects. As long as the simulator is more realistic than Trauma Center for the NDS, I would say they are on the right path. Would you let a surgeon who's only had “virtual training” perform incisions on you?

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Revelar Aldehydes Detector by Pulse Health

Made by Pulse Health, the Revelar is designed to help healthcare professionals and their patients accurately detect and measure the presence of aldehydes and help minimize free radical damage. Free radicals are molecules, present in every person, but can become unstable leading to cell damage and eventually disease. Until now, there was no accurate way to measure whether antioxidants and other treatment plans were working to lower aldehyde levels. With Revelar you can measure the level of aldehydes versus forms of intervention such as antioxidant supplements and exercise.

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Cute Android Cupcakes: The Edible Mobile OS

When I saw these cupcakes, I flashed back to the first time I saw the 'create-your-own-android' app on my friend's phone. My reaction? 'What is this? Why would anyone want to ...?' Fast forward to 2 hours later, and you would have found me happily tip-tapping away, making little green replicas of my friends and family.

Android, for all you iPhone users out there, is Google's mobile OS for smartphones, netbooks and tablets . It also features a mascot of the same name, which is reproduced here in the form of Gary Ham's adorable Android cupcakes.

I wish I knew more about how they were made, but I'm sure that any attempt to reproduce them on my part would lead to some pretty sad and pathetic little lumps of dough. These ones look so amazing you almost can't believe that they are actually edible. I can't figure out what I'd do if I bought one: immediately bite off the head and other extremities, or put it on top of my computer with my other figurines (where it would presumably melt eventually and trickle chocolate goo down the screen).

The little guys come in both vanilla and chocolate flavor, and they are available for sale this Friday from the Superham store, although they don't come cheap at $30 for vanilla and $50 for chocolate: the rarest of the rare. These are not your momma's bake-sale cupcakes, kids. If anyone intends to buy one, I would dearly love to know how they taste.

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Ham iPhone

Perfect for an All-American: the Ham iPhone! If only it was Bacon, then it would be utter bliss.

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Skin cancer-detecting laser tool now available

The word cancer often evokes a sense of dread in us, simply because it is one of those diseases that can be pretty hard to manage if it has developed into an advanced stage. Well, when it comes to skin cancers, one would most probably hope it isn't melanoma by any means, since it is the deadliest. Out of 115,000 new cases of melanoma diagnosed in the US last year, nearly 8,700 resulted in death. Scientists at Duke University intend to reverse that trend with a new laser-based tool that was specially designed to identify malignant melanomas sooner, without having to go through the trials of a false diagnosis and unnecessary surgery. How does this work? For starters, this technique will require a couple of low-energy lasers to probe suspect moles, with the redistribution of energy being examined to identify microscopic areas of varying skin pigment. After highlighting higher levels of a skin pigment known as eumelanin in melanomas, it has proved to be quite reliable in positively identifying all eleven samples of melanoma in a particular study. Of course, the trial will need to continue via thousands of archived skin slices as tests before it can be made available mainstream.

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Quicktionary TS Premium

There are times when you find yourself reading something from a book or newspaper a group of text from another language that you might need translated. And sometimes you just don’t have that handy translator book or your laptop handy to check it out. In such cases, you might find the new Quicktionary TS Premium quite handy indeed.

The Quicktionary TS Premium is a hand-held multi-function device that acts both as a pocket translator and a text scanner. The Quicktionary TS Premium can scan a word or a full line of text and be able to provide you with a word-for-word translation. It can also translate idioms and phrases as well as provide users with an audio pronunciation of a full line of text.

The Quicktionary TS Premium looks and is just as big as an ordinary pen. And yet, it has the ability to scan, store and transfer up to 20,000 lines of editable text aside from providing the translations for them. It supports over 45 different language dictionaries, making it quite handy for language students, researchers, business people as well as frequent travelers. The Quicktionary TS Premium is available at Wizcom Technologies for 211 Euros or around US$299.

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Solarball Prototype Filters 3 Liters of Water with Sun Power

It is unfortunate that many people around the world are deprived of clean water, which one industrial engineer graduate wants to solve.
Jon Liow, an alumnus of Monash University in Australia, developed the Solarball as his final-year project. It is a spherical solar water filter that can purify up to three liters of water in every usage. The dirty water evaporates and condenses as drinkable water, leaving all the bad stuff in another chamber.

Liow said that the idea of creating the Solarball sprang as he visited Cambodia in 2008.
“Seeing the immense lack of everyday products we take for granted, I was inspired to use my design skills to help others,” Liow said in an interview.
The working prototype of Solarball has been featured in numerous design fairs and television shows in Australia. It was also a finalist in the 2011 Australian Design Awards.

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The Cobra Tag

It is pretty normal for people to lost sight of a number of everyday items. It may all depend on what one may find as important. While most people may not always forget to bring or misplace their smartphones and other similar devices, it might just be as easy for people to forget or misplace things like keys and even handbags. No matter how often such situations occur, it might be good to have a loss prevention system device like the Cobra Tag handy.

The Cobra Tag is a unique loss alarm and prevention system that you can use for protecting your keys and other everyday valuables against possibly losing them. It comes with a sensor that can be paired up with a smartphone via Bluetooth. The paired smartphone also needs to download the Cobra Tag app in order to work. The Cobra Tag sensor is then attached to items that you seem to frequently forget or misplace.

The Cobra Tag works by monitoring the distance between the tag sensor and your smartphone. When the tag is attached to a keychain, it sends out an alarm every time the tagged item becomes separated at a certain specified distance. If it is the smartphone that got lost in the vicinity, the Cobra Tag can also be used to make the smartphone ring in order to determine its location. The Cobra Tag will be available sometime in July of this year for US$60.

Image Source: Cobra
Source: gadget.com

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PreVue pregnancy screen offers preview of baby

Wearable e-textiles seem to be gaining traction these days in a variety of application, so it is no surprise to see the aptly named PreVue pregnancy screen more than ready to test a potentially receptive market. This abdomen attachment is worn so that expecting parents are able to check out their child's growth and development with each passing day. The brainchild of Melody Shiue, the whole idea of the PreVue is to introduce pre-birth bonding thanks to “fetal visualization”, making it easier as well for the post-birth health of both the mother and child. Perhaps this will help ease the number of post-partum depression among mothers, as parents will be able to connect with their kid before he/she arrives kicking and crying to the world. Conceptually, it is great on paper, but practically speaking, will we see similar real life examples if it ever rolls off the production line? One thing's for sure, something like this won't come cheap.

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