"Listen," she said, "I have to come to the office in the subway, with this horrible heat and humidity killing me. That's why I wear shorts. But then, when I come to the office we get this summertime sub-zero air conditioning, blowing at full, and I freeze! That's why I got the Slanket."

She is so right. She may not look as pretty as without the Slanket, but it's actually freezing here. This is the irony of spending summer in NY or any other city in the world: You go through your day suffering artificial winter in t-shirt and shorts, only to be toasted a minute later as you go down to grab a sandwich.

So as I write these lines and feel the hypothermia coming in, the frostbite on my feet—only protected with Havaianas—I wish I had a Slanket too. Definitely the ultimate accessory for summer in the city.

But why?

Simple: It's the environment, stupid. And ironically, in a country obsessed with technology and where "business casual" is rarely allowed, it's a low-tech, remove-your-tie solution to the energy consumption problem that's ultimately to blame for Gross's, well, gross and sweaty Japanese experience.

You see, in 2005, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike, a woman who had once had perspiration aspirations for the prime minister position, was vetting various ways to cut energy consumption. Her brainstorming led to "Cool Biz," a campaign that set all government building thermostats to 82.4 degrees during the summer. I'm sweating just typing that out this morning, but apparently it worked, and soon the business world adopted the practice too.

But since those temps are somewhat unbearable in the summer, Japanese energy scientists set to work on alleviating workers' pain. Their big solution? Suggesting they remove their ties and undo their shirt collars. Fun fact: People feel 4 or so degrees cooler when they do this.

The result is a Japan that consumes less energy at the expense of some ripe-smelling arm pits. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go adjust my air conditioner. [Slate]

The battery-powered Vent-Miser features a clock that opens and closes the vents at programmable intervals, completely independent of your thermostat's settings. So if your A/C doesn't need to keep your guest room cool on weekdays or if you only need to heat your bedroom at night, the Vent-Miser can automate this process for you, possibly saving you a few bucks in the process.

At about $25 a pop, the vents definitely lean towards investment rather than instant payoff, but they're a neat idea if you live in a house with crummy HVAC. [Amazon via OhGizmo!]

Greencore has three versions of its AC system, a fixed one, a portable one with two batteries and another portable with four batteries. All three run on 24 volts DC and have a cooling capacity of 10,200 BTUs and a heating capacity of 13,400 BTUs. According to the company, McDonalds and the US Navy are already on board with testing the units. [Treehugger]

Other specs include: max 6600 watts RMS continuous output, a frequency response of 0 - 30kHz (+0.1 - 0.5dB), 1/4 ohm stable, and a total weight of 153 pounds. Even if you aren't interested in lightning strikes (or bringing the dead back to life), there is plenty to love about the 7796—except for the price. Available for $10,750. [Product Page via Audiojunkies via Uberreview]

The first one he tried was called the Compact, by Belkin, but had room on top for 4 small sockets, and on its side, 4 great big sockets standing vertically. It was terrific, but maybe too simple; and anyhow, there were actually two more powerstrips by Belkin that were more interesting. One, called the Clamp-On had a claw on it for being mounted on a desk. And one was huge, and had a cable organizer. One was very, very good, and one sucked so bad, it made the geek want to plug it into a heavy, heavy VCR, climb into a rowboat, and drop it to the bottom of the sea.

The "Clamp On" powerstrip with the claw on it had a box with a picture on it. The picture explained what the claw was for — attaching it to desks or 2x4 planks of wood! It appeared to have space for 4 small power plugs, and 2 large blocks. This could be useful for keeping outlets off the floor, and close to his work area. But alas, the stupid powerstrip's jaws were too wide to clamp onto a desk, with it's puny spring loaded rubberized and orange teeth. It sagged, and threatened to leap to the floor when the outlets were filled with hungry three-pronged plugs. And too narrow to clamp on a 2x4. It only fit on his weirdly shaped Swedish furniture. (Despite the photo on the box, it was limited to grabbing onto the edges of things no greater than 1.5-inches thick.) A real engineer would have used a vice grip, he thought.

The next powerstrip, Conceal was gigantic. It was at least twice as big a the other powerstrips. What a waste of space, the geek thought, as he thumbed the hard plastic case. There was a single lonely outlet on the side of this whale of a powerstrip. Strange. Where were the other outlets? Right after he'd finished this thought, his finger happened upon a button. Click!

The case opened up, and inside were 10 outlets — 6 little outlets, next to gold-plated coax, ethernet, and RJ-11 power filters, and room for 4 big blocks. All through the top of the case were nooks for cable routing, and a space to pass all the cords through the top. This was the perfect powerstrip for a livingroom, where the cables need to be tucked away nicely.

AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. THE END...FOR NOW. Dun dun DUUUUN.*
(I've been writing too many news pieces, lately. Had to break it up. Humor me.)

[Belkin]

last year's American Inventor who made the solar-powered pet fan that sits in your cars window. [Product Page via Washington Post]

The vehicles are fully customizable, giving you the ability to opt for electric or gas powered derivatives, a Pioneer Stereo system and even a custom Bling theme. We're not too sure that the light kit should be included as an option, but who are we to argue? Draining the battery just so we can see where we are going doesn't sound so appealing anyway.

Starting at $3495, the price doesn't include help for convincing your partner you need a garage door leading to the pavement in your living room. If you are thinking of parting with your well-earned cash in spite of that, for your sake, I hope AC's engineering is better than their website design. Hit the link to check out the fangled mess of brilliant inventions. [Product Page via autoblog]

I had it charging a Sony Ericsson by USB cable, and also powering up the monster 85 watt MacBook Pro powerbrick while both devices were active. But not at the same time. The USB cable didn't want to charge the phone while the MacBook was gulping down juice. The inverter also hummed away, like an overhanging power line ready to zap a pigeon. The solution? I charged the USB device from my laptop. I'm sure the USB wouldn't flake out if I'd used a less demanding AC device. (Not a space heater.) Bonus—it's a three-pronged adapter.

The manual does a good job of outlining the dangers of using your car battery for this sort of thing. They recommend for every three hours of use, starting your car and running the engine 20 minutes.

I give this thing a thumbs-up at $40 from Think Geek. – Brian Lam

[ThinkGeek]

It's AC powered and not USB powered, unlike the Thanko USB warming mouse, which means it should have no problems getting up to an optimal temperature in a reasonable amount of time. We're not sure whether it's the keys that are heated or if there's heat coming through the cracks, but either way this is totally better than improving circulation through exercise. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Gizmodo via Pocket Lint]

360 Electrical plans a family of products based on this great idea including GFCI outlets, 20-amp commercial-grade outlets, 250-volt outlets, multiple outlets and even power strips. Wonder why nobody thought of this before?

Product page [via Gizmag] Thanks, Russell!