Starting another week with a gallery of gadgets

I must say that wireless technology is very welcome - when was the last time you took a peek at the mess of cables right behind your desk? Wasn’t a pretty sight, was it, and chances are you’d find wayward stationary, nail clippings and even a booger or two that was flicked in that direction by an ingrate of a colleague. With our lives being so busy all the time at the office, it makes perfect sense for something like the SpaceStation to exist. Check out the product description right after the jump.

London is the city that is hosting a Monster Mash, a giant collection of artwork mixed with robotronics. One such exhibit is the iC Hexapod hobby robot.

The iC Hexapod bears a strong resemblance to a certain probe droid that Han shot on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. The Hexapod appears to have the same mission, as it is programmed to walk around and take pictures.

In fact, it can take over 800 pictures and store them in its internal memory. The spidery robot can even download it to its personal website. It can operate for about 19 hours without recharging.

The iC Hexapod was designed by Matt Denton. Matt is the company manager of Micromagic Systems, which makes animatronics and puppet controls like the effects in the Harry Potter films. I wonder if he designed those spider thingys in Minority Report.

I’m not certain if there is any plan to mass-market the iC Hexapod, but I don’t see why. After all, it certainly sounds like something that could really liven up the party, and take a lot of pictures to remember the occasion. Unfortunately, the pictures would all be from a worm’s eyes point-of-view. Maybe someone better put longer legs on this guy. That, or make him hover. This could be scary, though.

Source

Remember the little squirt Yoda who loved hovering around on his floating chair? Well, that image has inspired inventor Keith Dixon to come up with the Lounger chair that floats thanks to principles of magnetism. The see-through acrylic seat doesn’t look too comfortable unless you throw in a fair bit of cushion, but this is definitely one piece of furniture all visitors to your home would like to give a shot before they leave. Unfortunately, the Lounger will burn a rather big hole in your pockets, retailing for £5,875 when it is released this March. Just make sure you don’t place your credit card near it and keep grandpa and his pacemaker far from it.

Source: New Launches

“Where are the flying cars?! They promised me flying cars!” That was the infamous lament of actor Avery Brooks in a popular IBM commercial a few years back and he has a point. Where are the flying cars? Well, we’ve seen many announcements that they’re coming with the most famous is the Moller Sky Car. Now it seems that with losing over 40 million in development costs, even Moller executives are leery about the prospects for the future of their flying car.

Get geeky and help the environment at the same time.

Dell Computers

– With surveys suggesting the number one thing people want for Christmas once again being a computer, it makes good eco sense to think green. Dell Computer is, recently announcing an initiative to make Dell Computers more eco friendly. As the second largest computer maker in the industry, Dell is taking their leadership position very seriously and should be rewarded by those looking to buy a PC for the holidays. In addition to creating more energy efficient computers, Dell plans to also lean on their their suppliers to follow their lead. And if they don’t, Dell may levy penalties to motivate them. Although their pledge mostly relates to becoming carbon neutral in their manufacturing processes, it’s a start, and makes Dell the first major computer manufacturer to seek to become carbon neutral by next year.

Amazon.com

FREELOADER SOLAR ENERGY CHARGER

There are literally dozens of solar chargers out there for technology. The iSun, the Solio, but come on, what says cool other than a solar charger called the Freeloader? This collapsible solar charger can power your mobile phone, Bluetooth headset, digital camera, MP3 player, sat nav, iPod, PDA, PSP and just about anything else with a plug. With an impact resistant, rust-free aluminium body, the freeloader charges in about 5 hours and maintain that power for up to 3 months. Additionally, it can simultaneously charge hand held devices while at the same time charging the internal battery via its solar panels or via USB (which takes 3 hours less than solar). It will also provide power to an iPod for 18 hours, a mobile phone for 44 hours, a PSP for 2.5 hours and a PDA for 22 hours

About $70 from Amazon

With gas hovering around three dollars a gallon (US), it only makes sense that more and more commuters would chose to get some exercise and ride their bikes to work and school. But with Daylight Savings time right around the corner (Sunday), most will end up coming home riding their bikes in the dark. When riding a bike, you need to be able to signal the cars behind you in traffic your intentions. Usually, you point to the right with your hand to turn right, point your hand in the air to turn left, and point down to your side to signal stop. But if you’re riding home in the dark, the cars behind you may not be able to see that. Enter BiCygnals.

3mm. That’s how thin the SONY XEL-1 ultra thin high definition television set is. Made out of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) the HD TV sports an 11 inch screen, 960 x 450 resolution, HDMI input, USB and Ethernet, two 1W built-in speakers, and an unbelievable 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Can you imagine the black colors? The subtlety of the shadows? And HD to boot!