Gadgets Connect

The Engineers at Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana seem to have a death wish. And it’s usually associated with rocket powered flight. Fresh off their James Bond-esque rocket jet pack design, TAM has announced the design of a rocket powered helicopter backpack which will enable rotor driven Rocketeers to jump into the sky and head anywhere in total freedom. Or kill themselves in a spectacular event only director John Landis could appreciate.

Dubiously named the Libelula, the helicopter backpack has tiny rocket motors in its rotor blades which not only eliminates the torque associated with helicopters with conventional tail rotor assemblies that stabilize flight, but also enables the system to be compact to wear on a pilot/soldier’s back for instant takeoff from anywhere.

(Read the full post about ‘Rocket powered helicopter belt gives users fresh ways to kill themselves’…)

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SAN MATEO, California — Attach a set of wheels to a saw’s motor, set it between a pair of wood guides, and you’ve got a drag racing power tool!

Based on this simple idea, Jim Mason and Charles Gadeken started the original Power Tool Drag Races seven years ago.

The rules are simple. A sign outside the tracks read, "Finish your machine before you arrive.

(Read the full post about ‘Power Tool Drag Racing Test Runs and Crashes’…)

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Anyone who has bought a Creative MP3 player that uses a hard disk over the past seven years is entitled to a discount on a replacement product. That is the outcome of a lawsuit settlement Creative has agreed to, which affects all qualifying products sold to customers in the U.S.

The lawsuit was brought about because it was deemed that the storage capacity quoted on Creative’s hard drive products was misleading. That is because, like a lot of other hardware manufacturers, they use base 10 notation rather than base 2 notation to calculate the size.

There are two discounts available to customers.

(Read the full post about ‘Creative hard-disk player owners – claim your discount!’…)

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SAN MATEO, California — A seventeen-foot robotic giraffe with webcams in his eyes and special touch-sensitive sensors is proving a crowd pleaser today at Maker Faire. "Hello, my name is Russell," the electric giraffe, aka Rave Raffe, said to a crowd of children. Russell rewarded kids tickling his sensors by saying, "He. He. He. That tickles," and "That feels nice." It’s a little less disturbing than it sounds, as you can see in the video. The whimsical giraffe is the creation of Russell Pinnington, after whom the robot was named, and Lindz Lawlor, who provides the base for its voice. You might have caught earlier versions of the beast at Burning Man over the last couple of years. (Read the full post about ‘Robotic Giraffe Really Likes to Be Pet’…)

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SAN MATEO, California — Beat boxing is cool, but it’s definitively atechnological. Well, that is unless you use a type of gadget called an electronic wind instrument to record and loop your mouth’s contortions through a Lenovo laptop running Guitar Rig.

And that’s exactly what we saw Onyx Ashanti doing just off a pedestrian thoroughfare here at the Maker Faire.

(Read the full post about ‘Performer Marries Clarinet and Beat Boxing with E-Wind Instrument’…)

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It sounds like a re-launch; an open letter this week on the Amazon.com website from founder/CEO Jeff Bezos announcing that his Kindle book reader is “in stock and ready for immediate shipment.” Never mind that the electronic, wireless reader was actually ready to ship in November 2007, garnering headlines at the time in all the major national daily newspapers and the cover of Time Magazine. Bezos’ big bet on e-reading sells for $399, weighs just over 10 ounces, is as wide as a trade paperback and uses cell phone networks to wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers and blogs from Amazon’s library. (Read the full post about ‘Bezos tries to Kindle renewed interest in e-book reader’…)

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I have seen the iPhone, and all the blackberry’s and other smart phones. Then I have heard the cold, dead polyphonic ringtone of my phone with its barely audible Casio keyboard cover of “Superstar”, mocking me. I bought my phone a mere eight months ago, just after the dawn of the iphone, choosing it for its sleek size, and a consumer review which noted its superior battery life and technical bells and whistles. My phone is an excellent phone, and I could care less. I want a phone that does everything else, maybe even magic. A phone that takes crystal clear pictures, develops them, and prints them in a matte finish. I want a phone that plays music-actual music, an instrument perhaps the oboe. (Read the full post about ‘A cell phone to conquer the world’…)

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Tags: consumer electronics, camera, hdtv, AAC (Read the full post about ‘Electronic Snore Stopper’…)

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