Do you know that feeling when you get home from work after a long day, and all you wanted was a chilly beer can in your hands to watch that football match on the telly, only to find that there’s not a single one left in your fridge? If you know what I’m talking about, I’m sure you’ll love the Tinchilla Instant Cooler, a gadget that can chill a soda or beer can in only 60 seconds! This amazing can cooler will chill your can 240 times faster than your average fridge would.
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I’ll give out a $20 Think Geek voucher to the funniest caption (via comment) for the above image, my entry “And then she said “Look no hands!”.

Image via Funniest Gadgets (though calling this a gadget is pushing it but hey!).

Contest closes in 48 hours from the date of this post (so 08 March 2007, 12.25 GMT).

I’ve had an email from one of oue readers Gary who has a bit of a technology problem:

I am searching for a suggestion. I am totally handicapped. I have electric hurricane shutters operated by handheld remote-control. Unfortunately I can no longer pushed the button. I have a voice-activated telephone and a voice-activated TV remote.

Can my shutter remote be coded into my telephone or TV remote? Or is there something voice-activated that will operate my shutters?

So can anyone else help. I can find TV controllers like the Surfboard Voice Activated Remote but we probably need something more programmable, if you know of anything more suited to the job please share it with us by leaving a comment. Thanks folks.

If you’re a bit of a radio junkie but also enjoy the odd bout of snorkeling you can now combine the two, with the AQUA FM, a snorkle with a built in radio. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone knows what a Treo is, and this business-centric handset had lots of things going for it except for the integrated digital camera that was frowned upon by the user community as it could compromise security in the workplace. Imagine snapping photos of company documents and secrets, sending them out via e-mail or on a USB flash drive. Granted, a VGA camera can’t really compete with consumer level digital cameras, but they are still capable of snapping the occasional spyshot of products and certain hardware. Palm has responded to this scenario by releasing a revamped model of the Treo 680 that does not come with the VGA camera - a decision that will enable top level management to breathe easier as they decide on what kind of communications device should they get for their workers during the next round of meetings.

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What’s this motion controls you talk about? Rumble feature? All those pale in comparison when it comes to the gaming controller of choice, especially when faced with Emotiv’s Project Epoc. This spunky start-up from Down Under has developed a brand new gaming peripheral that makes the world of video and computer games accessible to virtually anyone and everyone with a head. How is this possible, you ask? The answer is simple - this helmet like device is placed on top of your nogging, while a processing unit will interpret the information garnered from a series of detection suites that are located all over the helmet. It will be able to detect and measure the player’s discreet emotional states and conscious thoughts, eventually translating those signals into a command that controls your on-screen avatar.

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Previous Patent Series:

• Number 1 – The Smokers Hat
• Number 2 – The Baby Cage & Be The Bike
• Number 3 - Anti-Eating Mouth Cage & Doggie Umbrella
• Number 4 - Air Conditioned Shoes & The Big Ash Bib
• Number 5 - Birdman of Alcatraz & Boatless Water Skiing
• Number 6 - The Baby Patter & Car Bib

Human Car Wash

The Human Car Wash is an intelligent system that obviously washes humans as if we were cars and without “us” having to care about falling down because of catching the soap, if you know what I mean… Similar to the normal car washing system there are 4 distinct phases:

• 1st - get wet
• 2nd - get soap and get clean
• 3rd - remove the soap aka rinsing phase
• 4th - get dry by making use of the blow drying station

The best part of this absurd patent is that there is no need for humans to do any kind of effort: we would be strapped into a hanging harness and merely need to stand or dangle in a fixed position while the conveyor belt moves us from station to station.

Is it just me, or this Human Car Wash makes humans look like cheap merchandise? I don’t see normal people using this any time soon, but maybe it is a good system for prisons to use on inmates.
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For the next time you run out of wine, here’s a novel use for your redundant wine glasses, wine glass lamp shades.

Simply place a tea light candle in the bottom of the glass, light, apply shade and you have your very own miniature light for those romantic candle lit dinners. You’ll probably want to make sure you give the glasses a good clean afterwards as waxy red is not to many peoples taste.

The win glass lampshades are available from Questo Design.