Lager and Lime. On the rocks. Shaken, not stirred.

Ever wanted to be James Bond?
No?
Well don’t buy this then. It’s a 6 in one Casino bar, made of Mahogany and when not being used for casino games can be used as a normal bar.

Costing £599 from Harrods, the table converts to play classic casino games such as Roulette, Blackjack, Poker, Baccarat and Craps. SIX? SIX in one I hear you cry, and I only mentioned 5?
You should have paid more attention, dumbo, the 6th is a normal bar. So there.

Moneypenny, you can come in now.

This might either be the creepiest piggy-bank you ever used, or the friendliest. Depends if you’re easily scared.

The FaceBank can detect if you’re about to feed it coins, so opens its mouth to swallow whatever you give it.

I suppose it could be dangerous if you keep your fingers in FaceBank’s mouth, but as a novelty gift, you can’t go wrong.

Plus.

If you fed it with $20.34USD, you’d have enough to buy another one. As cleverly enough, that’s what they cost…from here..

There’s a creepy clip of the FaceBank in action on Youtube. Enjoy.

Wind. It’s all around us (some people more than others). You can’t see it, but you can feel it. Clever.

Other features of wind include:

• Not knowing where it’s come from
• Not knowing where it’s going

It’s so good, that we were going to have an entry just for ‘Wind’, but the picture would have been a bit dull so we decided against it.

Anyway, point is that people nowadays (I love that word), have worked out that if you get a big propeller-like construction and attach a motor to it, you can (by the simple virtue of what we physicists like to call “spinny-motion”) get electricity out the other end. Spiffy.

Which is where this particular device comes in. Aimed at the camping market, the idea is this:

• Wait for a force 9 gale***
• Watch as your tent, your car, your girlfriend and your just-purchased hamster get blown away****
• Smile, safe in the knowledge that you now have enough juice to charge your mobile so you check the football scores

It’s a winner all round, I say.

Source via Treehugger

Ryan

*** ok ok, so it’ll work fine with a 12mph breeze
**** ok ok, so your tent, car, girlfriend and hamster aren’t going anywhere

 

“What time is love” asked KLF in the 1990’s. What time indeed.

If I was wearing one of these watches when they asked me the question I would have answered quite confidently, “Well KLF, it is now a squiggle past 4″.

Fact is, these watches weren’t available back then, so that question would only ever have been hypothetical.

The watches cost 16,800 Yen.
You do the math.

 It has a 4 year battery life and under the bonnet it houses a Super 2035 movement, powered by Citizen. It is 100% custom made using Stainless Steel.

Go get one…..NOW!

See Source

Let me tell you something about ‘retro’. Retro is cool. Retro is funky. Retro is being out of date and yet strangely fashionable at the same time. Retro is all about being warm and glowy about something that not so long ago we were lambasting (nothing to do with lambs… or cooking) from the rooftops.

Take the humble cassette. Consigned to the backwater of technological has-beens. But we love ‘em. Now that we don’t actually have to use them, we think they are fantastic. A design icon.

And yet, if we could only remember what it was really like… Take me for example - many’s the time I can remember listening to the latest ‘Bucks Fizz’ track before having a hissy-fit because my ghetto blaster unexpectedly munched the tape and made it unplayable. In retrospect, perhaps the ghetto blaster was trying to save me from myself, but the point still stands - cassette’s were, are and always will be rubbish (’trash’ to our American readers; ‘poo-poo’ to our doggie readers).

With that in mind, I present the Retro Cassette Wallet. Is it a cassette? Is it a wallet? No, it’s a cassallet ™. Hand made by Graham in his flat in Runcorn (that bit may be made up). I love ‘em. They cost $43 (£25; €36).

Source via Fun Forever

Ryan

The bomb disposal squads in the UK have stopped using robots and have started using CatCams to aid in bomb disposal missions.

“Not true”, I hear you cry.

You are correct in doubting my story, that would be sick. HOWEVER, the logic would remain the same as using a robot just as long as you could fool your snobby cat into thinking that the ticking black box hidden under that car was full of Whiskas. She would approach with cat-like stealth, CatCam recording her every move, then slowly walk up to ticking box, then..BOOM. No more CatCam.
(Cat runs away scared).

As a pet project, pardon the pun, J Perthold has customized a tiny camera into taking photos while strapped to his cat’s collar. Quirky but interesting results, until you discover your cat was having an affair with next door neighbour’s cat and both were plotting to run away together to Mexico. Or Scotland.

Mr Lee CatCam has more information. The gallery page is especially interesting.

Source:- Crave.Cnet

What better way than showing off to your computer buddies at your next poker tournament just how much up the geek ladder you have climbed than to wear these very cool Esc, Ctrl, Alt and delete rings.

Made with authentic spring loaded buttons, you can buy each one separately for $89 from Marchenoir.

Just think, the next step would be for someone to link these rings up with wi-fi so you could whack your knuckles against your desk to log you on to your PC.

Nice.

Now scoot off and buy some of these.

Source:- Wired.

I know what you’re thinking (well, OK, I don’t - it’s just an English language construct derived from the heady days of the early 1970’s where Harry ‘Dirty’ Callahan ruled the streets of San Francisco with a debonaire magnum .44).

Anyway, I know what you’re thinking - is this an iMic - a device used to getting all kinds of audio into and out of your computer - or an Irish response given when your friend Michael offers to buy you a drink? I’m thinking the former, but I’ve been wrong before.

It costs $40 (£21; €29) and comes ready to rock and roll for either PC or Mac, which is good.

Source via Popgadget

Ryan.

I have witnessed the future.

No, I am not a witch and my surname isn’t McFly but I have just witnessed something truly amazing.
You know that bit in Bladerunner where the guy zooms in on a photograph, then turns the corner (all inside the photograph)…you know that bit you shout “ah come on….that’s impossible”…well….read on boys and girls.

It is now reality.

In the year 2007, Microsoft in conjunction with some very clever individuals from the University of Washington have come up with software which will revolutionise the internet and the way we look at photographs.

No jokes in this blog..no sarcastic humour…just take a look…

Photosynth Demo

also check out..Microsoft Photosynth

Grilliput is the perfect companion for when your wife kicks you out of the house for being overly obsessed with useless gadgets. The Grilliput camping grill takes up only 29cm x 2.2cm of space, but expands to a whopping 26 cm x 23cm. Enough grill space for at least, woah, about 2 sausages and half a beef burger.

Costing £24.99 from iwantoneofthose.com it makes for a great Father’s day gift, unless of course your father has a severe smoke allergy.

What they don’t show you is the 5Kg bag of charcoal, cool-bag full of semi-thawed saveloys and ruck-sack full of fire-lighters that would be needed to accompany this tiniest of cooking grills.
Once you’re all kitted out, you’ll resemble a hungrier version of Andy McNabb.

Barbecue 2 Zero, we have a slight problem. In McNabb’s own words..”We binned our burgers. Couldn’t move quick enough with them. We heard contacts far on in the distance. But they weren’t shooting at us.”

I’ve got a thing about bikes. A couple of things, actually.

Being more specific, I absolutely love the things. Oh, and I keep crashing them. No idea why, but if there’s an opportunity to drop, scrape, slide or simply just go straight on at a corner, I’m your man. I worry about the whole life expectancy thing.

Anyway, check this baby out. I’m not going to go into the technical specs because frankly they are so boring they would make your pet hamster cry (there are only so many times you can say “The suspension system is completed and perfectly balanced by using a fully adjustable Öhlins 46PRC rear shock with a ride enhancing top-out spring, controlling the single-sided swingarm for outstanding drive, traction and steering precision”. Just the once, probably)

Also cool is the fact that it comes with a ‘Ducati Data Analyser System‘. Yep, the Duke has got a USB port for you to pull down all the essential info including throttle opening, vehicle speed, engine rpm, engine temperature, distance travelled, speeding fines awarded… that kind of thing. Cool indeed.

Cost $25,000 (£13,000; €18,800).

Source via Wired

Just PLEASE don’t let me any where near it.

Ryan.

All you ladies out there will love this gadget. Ok, so it’s not pink and it’s not fluffy and it won’t grow into a big leilandi if you water it every day, but hey…expand your mind gadget girlies.

The ‘Liika ironing board with suction pads’ is a bit of a mouthful and does not have a catchy name but it certainly does what it says on the box. You house-proud ladies can carry one of these wherever you go, so that in the case of an emergency ironing session you can whip it out and afix to any desired surface. The pads have more suction than that applied to the eggs my gran was so fond of.

Although it can also be used by men, it is advised that it is only operated by women incase of fire risks. 

Price not yet available, but the friendly people at Yankodesign have more information. 

For fear of being accused of being sexist, I will for the sake of balance state that this article was written by a woman.
Happy Ironing!
Bob.

source: GadgetCandy

Allow me to tell you a true story.

Once upon a time (all true stories start that way) I was on a hike and we got lost. But it wasn’t serious, you see, because we had a map and a compass. It was even the right map. But we still didn’t have a clue where on the map we were. So, some bright spark said “Why don’t we climb to the top of this mountain and then we’ll be able to work out where we are by triangulating our position against features that we can see and are clear from the map.” (Unfortunately confidentiality agreements prevent me from revealing the name of that prat).

Time passes, energy gets expended, sweat, tears, toil, anguish. We reach the top.

Still no idea where we are, so we just walk in one direction (south - well, it’s warmer there isn’t it) and end up nearly getting shot by a farmer who was decidedly unimpressed that we were taking a stroll through his property.

There was a happy ending, though - we didn’t die. However, if by some tardis-like maneuver I could have gone back in time and given myself one of these beautiful Satmap devices I would have been home in time for muffins and earl grey because you can get them with beautiful OS (1:25,000) maps (and lots of other ones too) which are a joy to behold.

For £299 ($580, €430), you’d be a crayzee nut-freak not to.

Source via Engadget

Ryan

This little gadget tells you how much money you should bet in a round of poker. Should you go in low (rare), or a medium bet to see other cards, or go for an ultimate bluff and go in well done.

Oh…what? Sorry…I thought you said stake.

The STEAK button is an ingenious little device that shows you how cooked your steak is. All you do is stick the device into your cooked steak and it’ll tell you if you need to cook for longer, or if it’s already frazzled beyond all recognition.

Costing $14.99 from Surlatable it’ll revolutionise the way you cook your steak.

“Stick a fork in me, I’m done.”

No idea who said it first, but I’m sure it was a bit of an event. What I AM sure of, is that originally it wasn’t referring to Elvis. Because although he is ‘the king’ and although he is ‘dead’ (unless you believe my brother-in-law who insists he’s working at the fish and chip shop in Runcorn) the quote is from around 1422, which is almost certainly before Elvis’ time.

Where am I going with this? Well, with all the assorted activity around solid state drives, you would think that development of traditional platter-based drives would be starting to decrease.

No way Jose.

This little beauty from Fujitsu spins at a rapid 15,000 RPM and claims to have increased reliability. Which is nice.

Source via Tekmondo

Ryan.

This, ladies and gentlemen is the future. And it has been for quite a while.

Price is around the $10k mark (£5k, €7.25k) which I actually think is not at all bad. Especially if all this honesty pays off…

Cheesy video after the jump.

Source via Gizmodo and a billion others

Ryan.

 It could have been called the Eartha Kitt Daily, or perhaps the Brad Pitt News…but to come up with a name that is so perfect in every conceivable way is just magic.

Never since Churchill came up with the quote for lighting one’s exhaust fumes has a name so apt been chosen.

“The f@rt is like a giant boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate” - Source

OK, OK, so Churchill didn’t say those exact words, but you get the gist of it.

The Loo Read is a must buy for anyone who loves spending every breathing second of their spare time couped up in the lavatory catching up on yesterday’s news. Great as a gift, even if it IS for yourself!

At £59.99 from LazyboneUK it seems slghtly on the expensive side, but then again I guess half of the profits go to the person who thought up the product name. And jimini cricket do they deserve it.

Source via  LazyBoneUK

Let me tell you what is going through these kids minds: “I wish I could curl up and die” and “I am going to be emotionally scarred for life” and “since when was human cloning legal?”.

This is called the ‘trioBike’. Which, as far as I can tell is a pretty reasonable product name. It does three things, you see - use it as a bike (clone 1), a pushchair (clone 2) and a carrierbike (clone 3). Very clever in a Danish bacon kind of way.

Costs a mere $3400 (£1700; €2450).

Just be prepared for your kids to hate you.

Source via Sci Fi Tech

Ryan.

Absolute Genius idea.

Hide all your expensive Thorntons chocolate Alpinis in this jar, set the timer then sit back all smug as your desperate chocaholic girlfriend whinces in pain every time she tries to get at one of the chocolates.

The jar is programmed to send a mild electric shock if anyone attempts to open the jar before the allocated time has expired.

Costing a sweet £10 from Crazyaboutgadgets.com this will give you literally, minutes worth of fun. You could even put your cigarette stash in there if you’re trying to quit.

My only advice:-  do not, I repeat, do NOT put a small stupid pet in the jar - cos that would not be big or clever.

 

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with C.

“Casio Exilim EX-V7″?

Nope, Cheese.
Game over.

If however I had spied a Casio Exilim EX-V7 I would have been a fortunate man with good eyesight. Reason being, the Casio EX-V7 is the slimmest 7x optical zoom camera out on the market (as I write this article). Having a 7x zoom feature means you can stay well back and zoom right in on your target. It has image stability built in so no more shaky blurred images. It is the T3 magazine Test winner in the June 2007 edition beating more expensive cameras such as the Ricoh 500SE.

It costs £290. For this you also get Quicktime Movie mode (H.264) or Motion JPEG AVI. It even has a voice recorder built in - handy for reminding yourself where a photo was taken. Handy feature if you’re half-cut in a pub one night!

Get yours today from Pixmania with some extras thrown in (1Gb SD card, spare battery and a case).

Now, all together…say “Cheese”.

You can’t put a price on cool. You either ooze it, or you snooze it. Having a Junghans worldtimer watch on your wrist definitely means you’re an oozer.

This little beauty weighs only 85 grammes; has a genuine crocodile leather strap and is water resistant. (Being made of crocodile skin you’d sure hope it was water resistant!!). But the reason why you shouldn’t be nervous about the £1100 price tag is because of the following feature….

It automatically updates to the local time zone as soon as you fly into it. No more winding back, forwards or doing complex mathematical computations to guess the right time…this watch does it all for you using advanced multifrequency radio links to a German Meteorology Institute. Isn’t that just ace?!

I want one now. Please JunghansTime….isn’t it TIME you sent me one….eh? Clever eh? Time..watch….worldtimer….Ah forget it!

  If you’re too young to remember Roland Rat or getting up early to watch “Why don’t you” in the summer hols, then you probably will never have used a good old fashioned telephone like this. Ever. Fact

Coming in black, pink or batman-red, this retro telephone seems a bit steep at £59.95 from firebox. However, my theory is …if you’re old enough to remember them, then you are probably aged 28+ which means you should be able to afford one.

Go on…impress your mates with one of these in your pad. They are fully refurbished so will work just like a normal phone.
Only down side is if you need to call the cops coz some chav is knicking your hub caps, it takes forever to dial 999.

Aforementioned chav will probably get away with his crime. So you have to decide….cool phone, or no hub caps. I know which one I’d go for.

I want to let you into a little secret.

The landlord for our offices here at “Tekmondo Towers” does his own painting and decorating. Nice guy - a little bit paranoid with the whole ‘locking up’ thing, but thats a story for another day if you know what I mean.

Anyhoo, point is that our ceiling is a little bit… well… blotchy. there are painted bits, and there are less-painted bits. And I don’t think he was going for the turner art prize. It all could have been so different.

Had he invested in what I would like to call “Glidden Ceiling Paint with EZ Track (R) Technology” he would actually have been able to see what he was painting (because it goes on pink) and then stood back 30 minutes later and admired the brilliant white, non-blotchy finish of a ceiling wonderfully uniform in colour and radiance (because it turns into white).

Technology… used for good.

Source via Cool Tools

Ryan.

You will, perhaps, have read about this guy who (last year) lost 41lbs in 3 months by cycling while playing Warcraft. The sport even got its own name (Warbiking).

Now, for the (almost certainly not) first time you can do the same thing while you are sitting at your desk at work. The afore-mentioned device apparently “stimulates circulation, range-of-motion, muscle strength and coordination”. Which all sound very good to me. And not forgetting the “large knob to adjust for variable resistance”.

I can see it now - cubicles and cubicles of people - working and pedalling. We just need to connect them all to the grid and climate change as we know it is over. For only $43 (£25; €30) you would be mad to miss out. I would just suggest that (unless you work on your own in a small cave) you buy two - one for you, and one for the person next to you so that you can share the ridicule.

Source via Lifehacker

Ryan.

According to Target, “The scariest part of plane travel is…breathing the exact same air as everyone else in that metal canister for several hours as you’re hurtling through the air”.

Uh. No.

The scariest thing about plane travel is maybe hitting mountains, having a mid air decompression over the atlantic and not having enough fuel to reach land or possibly having the kid sitting next to you mustering up the worlds largest puke right on your lap. Or maybe it’s the food. Personally, I would put ‘breathing the exact same air as everyone’ no more than 8 or 9 on the list. But that’s just my opinion.

Basically, you jam this thing on your “overhead air nozzle” and aim it at your face. In seconds, you are breathing clean, pure, friendly, happy air which is actively fighting off all 99.5% of the nasty bugs and viri. Yours for only $20 (£10; €14).

Now, if only they can invent one that shuts up annoying kids… or gives you more legroom… or an automatic upgrade…

Source via Ubergizmo

Ryan.

Now I’m not sure exactly how long this whole optimus maxiumus keyboard palaver has been going on, but it’s been a while.

You don’t need me to tell you all about it (each key = mini OLED display = ultimate configurability = ultimate desirability), but there is news. Namely, that you can now order one. I say ‘order’ in the loosest sense of the word. Or at least, in the “order now and get it for Christmas (just)” sense of the word.

Yes, for just $1564.37 (that 37 cents is important) you can pre-order. No, it doesn’t include shipping. Or a voucher for a free reality check.

As Russell Crowe said once: “My name is Optimus Maximus Longius Waitius, commander of the Keyboards of the North blah blah blah And I will be in production, in this life or the next.”

I love my movie quotes, me.

Ryan

Source

“Muuuuum, smells like something’s died in the toilet”. How often do you hear this being shouted on a daily basis? Perhaps not as often as me, but then again perhaps that has something to do with the lack of fibre in my diet.

The crime scene toilet paper being sold by LazyBoneUK is a great trick to play on unsuspecting visitors to your dunny. Just empty your bathroom of all traces of bog-roll, roll out some of this paper across the outside of the doorway when visitor is comfortable and in session, and wait for the inevitable yell when job is complete.
Visitor will have no option but to open the door and witness the crime scene cordened off with him in it!

Loads and loads of fun, and all for £2.99. It’s even 2-ply  - for your comfort.

“Taggart…there’s been a mardar”

You probably remember that bit in Star Wars where Princess Leia sends a holo-message through R2 to Obi-Wan. “My mission to Alderaan has failed. I’ve placed information vital to the survival of the rebellion into the memory system of this R2 unit… Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope”.

It’s an iconic scene.

It’s probably also true to say that Miss Leia would have worded it slightly different if she had been wearing one of these pimped-out, pimp my R2 hoodies. Personally I think she would have said something like “Yo Yo Yoooo, Obi-Waaaaan - aright la, me and me geezers over ‘ere havin’ a few bifta’s and we is havin some major major grim-bobs but it’s aright boss, see, cos R2 ere has the whole plans like of the whole spooooniverse. Cmon la, and help me out - just watch out for them bizzies.” (struggling? this may help)

Maybe not QUITE as iconic, but doesn’t take away from the fact that this gear is funk factor 10. Tees go for £20 ($39; €30).

Ryan.

Source: www.thepleb.com

Great tool for mixing your music tracks, wait for it…..”wirelessly”.

This little beaut connects to your PC using some kind of magical connection whereby invisible signals are sent from it through the same air that you breathe into your computer. Whatever will they think up next….telephones you can use outside your home?

With more knobs to tweak than, say, a knobby thing the Hercules DJ Mobile MP3 only costs £45.95 from Amazon.co.uk.
Unit has 2 jog wheels, 3 sliders and 2 wheels. So come on you crazy kids…if Pete Tong can do it, anyone can.

There’s something about spiffy new laptops that’s just… well… spiffy.

Even if the only thing you ever use them for is heating the top of your legs to the melting point of tungsten (around 5432 degrees F, apparently - don’t say you never learn anything here!!) they are undeniably “cool” (try telling my legs that).

Dell have just come out with a new battery (in the ‘collection’ sense not the ‘exploding’ sense) of business-oriented lappy-toppies with a whole host of funky options like solid-state HDD, encrypted drive, better wireless and better screen. Middle of the road is the D630 with costs starting (and going north) from $899 (£699!).

Processor goes up to the T7700 which for everyone who really can’t be bothered to remember Intel’s numbering methodology is a core 2 duo 2.40GHz.

Just take my advice - when your skin starts peeling off - GO TO THE BURNS UNIT…