Gadgets

10 All-Time Gadget Rip-Offs

Wired has put together a list of ten gadgets that have done little more than separate the gullible from their hard earned money. There are some classics on there, including: the harmony chip, MPion MP3 Player, the Philip Stein Teslar Watch, and my all-time personal favorite —the “ionized” Q-Ray bracelet. Seriously, every time I saw…

Gadgets Sean Fallon

Thirsty Light: The Cheap Nerd’s Way to Keep Plants Alive

In the tradition of Dr. Frog and Botanicalls comes Thirsty Light, a $10 sensor that sits in your potted plant and blinks when the soil goes dry. You get to trade all that anxiety for a straightforward Pavlovian response: you see a blinky light, and you water your plant. Alternatively, there’s a “quick-check” method: buy…

Gadgets Wilson Rothman

Stainless-Steel LCD TV for Iron Chefs in the Kitchen

Meant for your kitchen countertop, this 20-inch stainless-steel LCD TV will match most of your other kitchen wares, and comes with a water-resistant remote for accidental splashage. The resolution isn’t specified, though it’s an HDTV with an HDMI input. Granted, if you’re just using it to follow along with Alton Brown on Good Eats 1080p’s…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

Palm Beach Setting Up Talking Cameras to Protect Beaches From Gay Sex

After the sheriff’s office busted six dudes in July and a male teacher a week ago, Martin County commissioner Michael DiTerlizzi has had it with the wave of Larry Craigs getting it on around his beaches. Solution? $5500 solar-powered cameras that flash a bright light and spout off a verbal warning when they detect motion.…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

NVIDIA Launches GeForce 8800M GTX and GTS Notebook GPUs

NVIDIA got official today with its GeForce 8800M GTX and GTS notebook GPUs, which you might remember from the fresh-out-the-door Alienware beast from a few hours ago. Mark Rein, Epic Games’ VP is “ordering one” exclamation point, if that makes you more blisteringly excited. [Nvidia] https://gizmodo.com/alienware-further-teases-us-with-powerful-area-51-noteb-324442

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

Bluetrek Sense Touch-Sensitive Bluetooth Headset for Button-Haters

Tiny and piano black, one of the Sense’s better features is that it might make you look less douche-y than more space-age Bluetooth headsets. The talk dimple is endowed with touch-sensitive magic, plus it has voice alerts for stuff like redialing, rejecting a call, connecting or disconnecting for your phone, etc. The wire ear hook…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

First Video: Bug Labs Powers Up Its Modular Open-Source Device

Today, for the first time, Bug Labs CEO Peter Semmelhack is showing off a genuine powered-up prototype of the modular, open-source consumer-electronics device. Want a camera? Snap it on. Want GPS? Go for it. Here you see him attaching touchscreen LCDs, motion sensor, camera, 3G wireless LAN and GPS. It’s powered up, and the PDA…

Gadgets Wilson Rothman

Recoilless Auto Shotgun Fires 300 Rounds Per Minute, No Cleaning or Lube Required

The Auto Assault-12 (AA-12) is an automatic 12-gauge shotgun that can fire 300 rounds per minute and is recoilless. Basically, it’s incredibly powerful and you really, really, don’t want to be at the wrong end of it. It’s also claimed that it requires no cleaning or lubrication ever, although I’m not really sure how that…

Gadgets Adam Frucci

Russian ‘UFO’ Video Has Requisite Shaky Camera, Foreign Dialogue

This Russian “UFO” video is certainly more subtle than some other UFO videos we’ve seen, but that just means it was easier to fake. It seems to me that UFO videos are the new way for people to show off their mad video special effects skills. I mean, no one really thinks these UFO videos…

Gadgets Adam Frucci

Honda FCX Clarity Hydrogen Car Tested (Verdict: Star Trek)

Our brothers from another mother(s) over at Jalonik got to test-drive the Honda FCX Clarity, a hydrogen fuel cell car from Honda that gets the equivalent of 68mpg in a conversion metric that (we’ll be honest here) confounds us since the car uses no gas at all. So what was Jalopnik’s verdict? At one point…

Gadgets Mark Wilson

Water-Powered CD Turbine Goes to Work on a Salad Spinner

We’ve already seen the dangerous stuff that Mr Fix-It Rick can do with his Tesla-inspired CD turbine — you know, saw your fingers off, or saw your fingers off er, cut a Hallowe’en pumpkin. His new video is going out to those of a somewhat milder disposition. Using CDs, a CD spindle, a couple of…

Gadgets AddyDugdale

‘Smart Closet’ Helps You Dress Yourself

Are you so helpless that you can’t even dress yourself without assistance? Is your mom making you move out, giving you no one to help you with the tough decisions that face you each morning as you stare at your closet? Well, never fear, you sad excuse for a person, because technology is here to…

Gadgets Adam Frucci

Distilling the Tar From Two Cartons of Cigarettes

At this point, everybody knows that cigarettes are bad for you. It’s not like a smoker is going to hear that cigarettes cause cancer and be shocked enough to quit; they know what they’re doing. But in this video, in which someone with a homemade setup distills the tar from two cartons of cigarettes, is…

Gadgets Adam Frucci

PS3 Outsells Wii for First Time Ever

It appears that the new $399 40GB PS3 was an excellent strategy for Sony (happy birthday, btw), because for the first time in all time, the console has outsold the Nintendo Wii in Japan. Sure, only time will tell if the PS3 has real momentum behind it. But when hanging out in Akihabara a few…

Gadgets Mark Wilson

Asus R50A Has GPS and TV Tuner and 3.5G Connectivity

Information about Asus’s new UMPC, the R50A, is out and about. And, if you like these kind of things, the chunky handheld with a 4.8-inch, 1024 x 600 screen boasts both 3 and 3.5G connectivity. And that’s not all: There’s built-in GPS, a TV tuner, a webcam and microphone. No prices or release date yet,…

Gadgets AddyDugdale

World’s Worst Fembot Slaps Your Face When You Touch Her Boobs

I can’t see Aiko, seen here last week at the Ontario Science Center, being the world’s favorite fembot — For starters, she’s a dowdy dresser. And secondly, she will slap your face if you try and get busy with her breasts without chatting her up first. She’s the creation of Le Trung, who has developed…

Gadgets AddyDugdale

Swarovski-Infected Limited Edition Mplayer from iRiver

iRiver’s Mplayer, the Mickey Mouse-themed music player, has been given the bling treatment just in time for Christmas. Just 500 of these glittery rodent-redolent MP3- and WMA-compatible players have been made, and they come with lanyard-style earphones. There’s 1GB storage space, and you skip songs by twisting Mickey’s left ear — exactly what I do…

Gadgets AddyDugdale

One-Step DVD/CD Duplicator Rips Without a PC

TEAC’s One-Step DVD/CD Duplicator will rip your CDs, or DVDs, without the need for a connection to a PC. That is enough information for us to decide we like it; it is simple and it can copyright infringe in around 6 minutes flat, thanks to the 48x CD drive read speed / 16x DVD read…

Gadgets Haroon Malik

“Recycled” Electronics from U.S. Poisoning Workers Abroad

We ship 50 to 80 percent of the 300k to 400k tons of electronics that actually make it to recycling each year—out of 2 million tons tossed—overseas. The “recycling” part happens when workers in places China, Nigeria and India bust up old gear with hammers, gas burners or their bare hands to pull out metals,…

Gadgets Matt Buchanan

BookSnap Rips Your Book Collection With a Little Help From Your Fingers

Atiz has developed a device called the BookSnap, which allow you to accurately rip your books to PDF format. The product is aimed at the individual consumer, which is interesting given its $1595 price tag. Nevertheless, the method of its operation is rather clever, but the BookSnap does have one tiny flaw: Essentially, the device…

Gadgets Haroon Malik

10 All-Time Gadget Rip-Offs

Thirsty Light: The Cheap Nerd’s Way to Keep Plants Alive

Stainless-Steel LCD TV for Iron Chefs in the Kitchen

Palm Beach Setting Up Talking Cameras to Protect Beaches From Gay Sex

NVIDIA Launches GeForce 8800M GTX and GTS Notebook GPUs

Bluetrek Sense Touch-Sensitive Bluetooth Headset for Button-Haters

First Video: Bug Labs Powers Up Its Modular Open-Source Device

Recoilless Auto Shotgun Fires 300 Rounds Per Minute, No Cleaning or Lube Required

Russian ‘UFO’ Video Has Requisite Shaky Camera, Foreign Dialogue

Honda FCX Clarity Hydrogen Car Tested (Verdict: Star Trek)

Water-Powered CD Turbine Goes to Work on a Salad Spinner

‘Smart Closet’ Helps You Dress Yourself

Distilling the Tar From Two Cartons of Cigarettes

PS3 Outsells Wii for First Time Ever

Asus R50A Has GPS and TV Tuner and 3.5G Connectivity

World’s Worst Fembot Slaps Your Face When You Touch Her Boobs

Swarovski-Infected Limited Edition Mplayer from iRiver

One-Step DVD/CD Duplicator Rips Without a PC

“Recycled” Electronics from U.S. Poisoning Workers Abroad

BookSnap Rips Your Book Collection With a Little Help From Your Fingers

Sonos Roam 2 Speaker Turns the Amazon Spring Sale into a Black Friday Moment, Now at Its Lowest Price

What Do You Mean Glen Powell Is Fox McCloud in the ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ Movie

This Winter Fly Is Doing Something Scientists Didn’t Think Was Possible

Acer’s Mac Mini M4 Docking Station Drops to an All-Time Low, Supporting Up to 8TB Storage

Sony Is Hiking PS5 Prices for the Second Time in Less Than a Year

This Amazon Smart Plug Deal in the Spring Sale Makes Alexa Smart Home Setup Almost Too Easy and Cheap

Ryan Coogler’s ‘X-Files’ Reboot Has Found Its Other Big Star

Anker’s 100W Power Bank Hits Its Lowest Price of the Year on Amazon, Packing 25,000mAh and 3 Ports

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

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