Archive for July, 2008
Join Philips files Sight Specs patent for blind stick figures
Cast into a world of darkness, both humans and stick figures alike can be plagued with the disability known as blindness. The inability to see is not only no fun, but it’s terribly dangerous if you happen to be a loner. Tripping hazards and even other people become obstacles for you to navigate using nothing but your other senses. Well, most likely not taste, unless you are constantly licking people for identification purposes.
Philips has filed a sparsely designed patent for a really cool pair of specs made for giving some sort of sight to the blind. These spectacles for the visually-impaired provides auditory cues when a tripping hazard comes into view. While similar ideas have been played around with before, Philips has spurned the competition with a few special features, and no, it doesn’t include a hidden beer bong.
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Turntables are getting cool again …
Fueled by interest in hard to find vinyl records, turntables are suddenly cool again according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Sales for turntables skyrocketed last quarter from 19,000 a month in 2007, to nearly twice as many a month as of April of this year. The increase stems from young people becoming interested in vinyl as an option to avoiding digital rights management as well as combing used record stores for deals on hard to find albums of classic bands they’ve come to enjoy.
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Microsoft Sphere Proves the Computer World is Round
I’m surprised that someone hasn’t already covered this particular gadget yet, because it is definitely one of the coolest gadgets that I have seen in quite a while.
We have covered stories on Microsoft’s Surface, a touchscreen mounted on a coffee table frame. The Sphere is the next step up from the flat display, as the user interacts with something round, for a change.
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Iocell Contents Phone for recording calls, playing music
When I first saw the IOCELL Contents Phone, I thought I was looking at something designed by Bang and Olufsen. I mean it has that cool grey color, plus a very blue look on the numbers. It also has a very artistic aesthetic, putting the receiver on the bottom of the phone and not the top that is interesting, to say the least. Not only that, it is a very practical device.
The IOCELL contents phone has a hard disk drive that allows the user to record conversations. The user can then download those audio files to his or her computer, and play them on an MP3 player or the Internet. We can only hope that there is no privileged information being shared.
Other features of the IOCELL are voice guidance, and there is apparently a way to put music files on the phone, as well as a way to put music on hold. You can also put in background music, but we don’t have too many details on that.
Of course, there are other features that you would find on other phones, such as a speakerphone, or an immediate call-in emergency.
The IOCELL content phone is available at the IOCELL website, but I have not seen a price. In fact, the site is translated from the Korean, so I’m not certain if this IOCELL content phone is available everywhere.
Eyeball Lamps clone your eyes
This new lamp can be filed under all that is bizarre and the slightest bit creepy. They are hand blown glass and made to look exactly like your eyes. So if you’re a bit full of yourself when it comes to your eye color, now you can show it off through a bit of quirky lighting. Although I imagine your guests would feel the slightest bit unnerved by sitting next to a set of lamps that keep staring back at them.
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Color Coded Cutting Boards prevent Cross Contamination
One of the chef issues with food preparation, aside from the dreaded salmonella, is cross-contamination. Cross contamination is where you use the same cutting board to cut your chicken as you do your vegetables and bacteria or other contaminates from their way from one to the other. No big deal if the cook is making Pasta Primavera, but if it’s a chicken salad, then that dreaded “S” word can rear it’s ugly head if the cook forgets to wash the cutting board between dishes. Unless, of course, they have this nifty color-coded set of cutting boards.
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SATA Docking port gives new options for going from PC to TV
Imagine being able to unplug your hard drive and hook it up to your TV to watch some popular movies or even see some great digital vacation photos sent by Uncle Phil of his recent vacation to Cleveland with the wife and kids. Okay, that would be torture, but being able to enjoy movie downloads or listen to favorite songs while looking at a digital photo album wouldn’t be too bad, would it?
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HP Fesses up to laptop graphic defect
For nearly a year HP users have had to deal with a defect in the NVidia graphic processors installed in eleven of HPs most popular laptop models. Now, finally, HP is fessing up to it and offering warranty solutions to fix the problems.
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