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Gear Lover - by Craig Hill

Cellphones Gadgets - Gear Lover

Carbon-Fibre Cover For the Apple Iphone

October 3rd 2008 00:01

I don't have an iPhone but it's one sexy and sleek gadget that I admire a lot. If I had one, I reckon I'd be one of those paranoid types, you know, one that's always worried about dropping and damaging such an awesome looking device. I'm not saying the iPhone isn't well made or sturdy, but given its rather large screen area and a back cover made from plastic, dropping it could do some damage, I reckon.

And you can't just put the iPhone in some el cheapo case/cover because you'd just ruin its good looks which is one of the phone's biggest draw cards in the first place. Surely there has to be some sort of compromise.

And there is in the form of a 100% aerospace grade carbon fibre. Anyone that knows anything about carbon fibre will have heard of its ultra lightweight and super strong properties. This particular case is no different - weighing in at just 7g, it features cut-outs for the screen, docking and headphones ports, side controls, camera, and home button which means the iPhone should never have to be removed from its protective sheath.

Thinly constructed yet ultra durable, the case measures just 119 x 64 x 15mm to ensure that only a few additional millimetres are added to the dimensions of the iPhone itself!

Buy it here.

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Posted By: Arnold - Category: Cellphones, Gadgets

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Dynolicious: Auto performance meter for Apple iPhone

August 2nd 2008 00:25

The new Apple iPhone 3G has been out for a couple of weeks now but the hype surrounding the brilliant smartphone shows no signs of abating with some fantastic third party apps further increasing its popularity.

Rev-heads will absolutely love this 'Dynolicious' third party app - an automotive performance meter for the iPhone and/or iPod Touch. This is how it works. The app uses the hardware built-in to your iPhone to measure the performance characteristics of your vehicle without the need for any external wires or equipment.

By simply having your iPhone or iPod Touch with you in your car, the Dynolicious will be able to measure key performance characteristics such as 0-60mph acceleration times, 1/4 mile elapsed time, horsepower and even lateral G-Forces!

Not only will the app show details of your current test run, it also helps you maintain a history of test runs, including averages and trends for reference purposes. By maintaining this history, Dynolicious will allow you to compare before-and-after results if modifications are made to your vehicle including gains or losses from a performance (times, horsepower) standpoint.

Dynolicious is available from the Apple app store. [dynolicious.com]

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Posted By: Arnold - Category: Cellphones, Gadgets

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The “Crab like” USB 2.0 Hub

April 27th 2008 00:07

Plug N play away.

Moving forward instead of sideways

Ever had to plug in a USB jack and find that the angle or position of the machine port is an immovable obstacle? Do you have multiple USB sockets filled you’re your essential gizmos? Well this nifty new invention available from USBFever.com is an affordable solution.

Flexible and designed specifically for most all portable and desktop technologies, the “crab like” design obviously refers to the crustacean like appearance of this neat gizmo. It’s a 6 Port USB hub that comes complete with an additional power supply for charging your device.

Under the microscope

External Hard Drives sometimes demand some extra volts to kick over and according to usbfever.com this solves it. As usual another simple little tool can make life easier in front of the screen or on the move.

Side 2

Costing $13.99 US the Features as listed on usbfever.com are as follows:
- Extra USB Port for extracting power from your PC
- A soft Hub instead of a HARD Hub, more flexible
- extra USB Mini 5pin port of for data upstream
- Plug and Play.
- An innovative design of Cable of USB Hub
- USB 2.0 specification compliant

Supports:
- Windows 2000 / XP / VISTA

Specifications:
- Total length: 26cm approx.

Package Contents:
- USB 2.0 Crab-like 4-Port Cable Hub with additional Power input x 1

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Posted By: Dexter - Category: Audio, Cameras, Cellphones, Gadgets

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The World's Slimmest Waterproof Mobile Phone

April 15th 2008 00:18

The Fujitsu 705i G3 Mobile

The Fujitsu 705i in dry dock

How many times have you been sitting and soaking in a bubble bath, your all lathered up and then the mobile rings. You answer it but because of the soap hands it drops in the tub. Or, your sailing and as the boat lists over the mobile ends up sliding into the drink?

Evidently a lot of phones are destroyed every year from water damage. Now the inventive people at Fujitsu have solved the problem, introducing the F705i G3 Mobile Phone, the latest in waterproof communication technology.

Going down without a scuba tank

Super slim at 1.37cm thick, this handset can be dunked in a metre of water for up to 30 minutes without self destructing. Featuring super clear voice and mike abilities this nifty new mobile automatically adjusts its inbound and outbound volume to allow for your voice level and ambient noise.

Armed with a 1.3 megapixel camera and 8 times quick zoom, you can shrink or enlarge text with the touch of button. The battery at full charge facilitates 170 minute of talk time and allows for up to 100 minutes of video calls.

Now for the bad news, the Fujitsu F705i is only available in Japan at the moment. Don’t hold your breath, searching the net there is no scheduled release for Australia or the U.S at present. One would hope though that such a practical invention will eventually come to the shores of the western world.

A Japanese ad for the waterproof mobile

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Posted By: Dexter - Category: Cellphones, Gadgets

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HYmini Wind Charger

April 7th 2008 03:38

The power in the air

Available in a variety of colours

A few weeks ago I did a post on the freeloader 8.0 a solar charger for portable devices that uses the power of the sun to fuel your hand held gadgets. Now the people at Hymini have developed an affordable, environmentally minded alternative that is equally adaptable.

The HYmini wind-charger takes windmill technology that has existed for eons and has refined it to store electricity for your iPod, mobile phones, PDA, mp3 and digital camera.
The minimum gust that can get things happening is 9mph and a maximum velocity of 40mph is optimal for charging power.

The palm of power

According to the HYmini website:
"A Lithium Ion polymer rechargeable battery has around 500 complete charge cycles. If the battery is fully charged every time, it should have at least of 1000mAh of stored capacity for you to transfer this power to other 5V devices up to 500 times. A conventional mobile phone has around 0.4Ah to 0.7 Ah of battery capacity."

As for charge time the site says:
“With conventional 110-220 wall plug, HYmini takes at least 4 hours to fully charge. It depends on the environmental condition and the number of solar battery you have, Solar batteries can potentially fully charge HYmini’s internal battery.
Note: Wind generator is designed as a supplemental source, hence can not fully charge HYmini”

Though it seems that the charger still needs to some help from the traditional power socket this kind of development still seems like a step on the right direction for the greener gadgets revolution that has been growing in the last few years. I wonder what we will see come on the market in the next few years…maybe someday a bit of methane from a fart could end up being all we need to listen to our favourite tunes?

To find more about the HYmini charger please visit hymini.com

Here are some Specifications from HYmini

Here is some video footage discussing the HYmini wind charger

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Posted By: Dexter - Category: Audio, Cameras, Cellphones, Gadgets

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Freeloader 8.0 – iPod Solar Battery Charger

March 14th 2008 01:41

Freeloader - The solar powered Charger

Freeloader solar charger available to buy

Over on solartechnology.com they have announced a new range of sun powered charging tools for most portable devices.

An environmentally sound alternative to traditional battery life, the Freeloader is now available to purchase.

An alternate choice

From the site
“Freeloader takes power from its solar panels or via a supplied charge cable that plugs into a computers’ USB. Once charged, Freeloaders internal battery can power an iPod for 18hours, a mobile phone for 44 hours, PSP for 2.5 hours a PDA for 22 hours and much much more.”

“Supplied in a tough but stylish aluminium body, Freeloader can take the knocks of every day life whether on a business trip in New York, back packing in the Andes or chilling on a Caribbean beach.”

Technical Specs:
120mA premium quality crystalline solar cells
1000mAh environmentally friendly Li-ion battery – typical battery life is 2 years.
Freeloaders solar panels can charge its internal battery in as little as 5 hours or 3 hours when using the supplied USB charging cable
Supplied with a computer USB charging cable
Supplied with a power master cable and twelve adaptors to fit the following:

Impact resistant, rust free aluminium body.
Freeloader holds its battery charge for up to 3 months
Supplied with detailed user manual
Size – 123x62x17
Weight – 185g
Supports 80Gig with optional iPod Connector

Here are some of the products it works with:
1. LG Chocolate series phones
2. Motorola V66 series and current V3 series phones
3. All Nokia current and N series phones
4. Samsung A288 and current D800 series phones
5. Sony Ericsson T28 and current K750 series phones
6. 4mm straight jack for Sony PSP, Tom Tom sat nav, digital camera’s, PDA’s and two-way radio’s
7. Mini USB for Blackberry Smart phones, Bluetooth headsets etc
8. USB 2.0 female socket for iPod, iPod Shuffle, MP3 players, smart phones, PDA’s, GPS plus much more
9. Nintendo DS lite connector
10. Supports iPod, iPod shuffle & iPod video up to and including 60Gb*

135

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Posted By: Dexter - Category: Audio, Cellphones, Gadgets, PDA

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LG WatchPhone Beaming Soon

March 10th 2008 02:26

LG WatchPhone Beaming Soon

The LG Watchphone - Image courtesy of Aving.net

The idea of a wrist fastened communication device has been around since before the days of the classic Dick Tracy comics. Over the last few years some major manufacturers have been developing technology that combines basic mobile phone functions on a traditional wrist watch.

Seiko and Hyundai came out with a model last year and several others have also been released on the Asian market. (It’s worth noting that now in Thailand there is talk of banning them in schools because of rampant exam cheating.)

From aving.net, the latest addition to the WatchPhone market was unveiled by LG at this years CES. Though there has been no official list of options yet we do have some early images of this revolutionary tool.

What is known is that its voice activated and you can dictate SMS messages as well making a regular call. This is yet another gadget that I dreamed of having as a kid but seemed like science fiction. Again proof that the future is now.

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Posted By: Dexter - Category: Cellphones, Gadgets

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Introducing the Gravity Light

February 20th 2008 00:05

Greener Gadgets Conference

The Bamboo Kinetic Phone - Crazy but interesting

Over on greenergadgets.com they have just had there annual one day conference that includes a design competition. Directly from the sites press page, the winner was:

The EnerJar DIY Energy Meter Kit
Designed by Matt Meshulam and Zach Dwiel

MacGyver enters the energy race

This little downloadable DIY kit uses household materials to monitor and measure the energy output of a variety of everyday devices, allowing the user to take personal responsibility over energy use.

Not bad, I can see the practical uses but the astounding accomplishment that inspired this post is what came in second prize:

The Gravity Based Kinetic Energy Lamp - Gravia
Designed by Clay Moulton

What goes up must come down

Reminiscent of a grandfather clock, this gorgeous floor lamp uses the weight of a hefty component to kinetically power itself.

A light that works on Newton’s primary principle, is there any fuel supply more readily available? So how does it work you may ask, well an interview with the Gravity lights creator Clay Moulton on newswise.com has a few answers.

“The light output will be 600-800 lumens – roughly equal to a 40 watt incandescent bulb over a period of four hours.
To "turn on" the lamp, the user moves weights from the bottom to the top of the lamp. An hour-glass like mechanism is turned over and the weights are placed in the mass sled near the top of the lamp. The sled begins its gently glide back down and, within a few seconds, the LEDs come on and light the lamp, Moulton said. “It’s more complicated than flipping a switch but can be an acceptable, even enjoyable routine, like winding a beautiful clock or making good coffee,” he said.
Moulton estimates that Gravia’s mechanisms will last more than 200 years, if used eight hours a day, 365 days a year. “The LEDs, which are generally considered long-life devices, become short-life components in comparison to the drive mechanisms,” he said.”

Green Cell Battery Cellphone - Not available in Bamboo

The marvel of nature’s invention, leaving these tools for us to play with. Now with the initiative of that whole climate disaster end of the world scenario looming the human race is again striving forward to develop and discover new energy sources that lie above and below this blue planet.

The cynic in me acknowledges the potential to make big bucks out of the added media hype and corporate greed is an epidemic. Still the ends may justify the means. No matter what your stance on climate change less draining of our natural resources guarantees the future stock for many generations.

To strive for alternate fuel and power is an obvious ambition for the human race. Variety and variation inevitably lead to optimising technology. As a gadget lover the idea of my various components and portable devices being able to run on something as simple and cheap as sunlight or in this case, Kinetic energy or gravity, that's invention.

Please visit greenergadgets.com and newswise.com for more information about Clay Moulton and other revolutionary technology.

Here is some footage of the Green Gadgets Awards Ceremony with some stunning innovations.

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Posted By: Dexter - Category: Cellphones, Gadgets, Home, Video

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James Bond Gadgets for You

February 15th 2008 01:47

Finally we all get 007 Gizmos.

007 soars to new heights

Who didn’t dream of being James Bond when they first saw a 007 film? Well maybe not everybody, but I certainly did. Along with the obvious perks of being the smartest, most ruggedly handsome and deadliest male in the room there was one thing even more appealing to a 12 year old boy, the gadgets.

The magnetised wristwatch in Live and Let Die, the lethal briefcase in From Russia with Love, some of the Bond gadgets even inspired real life technology like the miniature underwater breathing apparatus in Thunderball.

It seems Q branch had the endless imagination and scientific cunning to engineer some of the most coincidentally practical devices to help the man with the license to kill accomplish his assignments.

Sure the submariner Lotus Esprit and machine gun packing Aston Martin DB7 were cool too, but it was always those little technological marvels that inspired wonder and often saved JB.

The recognizable Corgi Lotus Esprit

The toy company Corgi has held the rights to manufacturing 007 toys and memorabilia since before that white Lotus die cast model with all the extras made it’s way into my small hands.

Over at MI6.co.uk they had field agent on the job at the 2008 UK Toy Fair for the unveiling of Corgi’s latest range. Revealing a selection of wiz bang gizmo’s aimed squarely at the tech savvy adult.