Misc. Gadgets

South Korean researchers devise a safer lithium ion battery

amitg — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:13:17 +0000

While some researchers are focused on making batteries that are both safer and longer-lasting, it seems like the folks at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (or KAERI) are simply concerned with making ‘em really, really safe. To that end, they’ve now announced that they’ve managed to develop a new type of “separator” that is said to be far more resistant to heat and impact than traditional polyethylene separators. Made from a mix of polyethylene, nano-alumina and flourine-based resin that has been subjected to radiation, the new separator can supposedly hold up to temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius and “considerable outside impact,” and it can apparently be applied to all sorts of lithium-ion batteries — including everything from phones to laptops to electric cars. Of course, there’s no word as to when we might actually see the new and improved batteries, but KAERI has apparently already applied for the necessary patents for the new technique.

[Via Fareastgizmos.com]

Switched On: Where the Withings are

assevedut — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:13:16 +0000

Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

There is a sleek new Wi-Fi tablet on the market that is only 0.9 inches thick, gets months of battery life from four AAA batteries and is so durable that its manufacturer encourages users to regularly step on it. After all, it’s a scale — the Withings WiFi Body Scale.

The market for Internet-connected fitness gadgets has come a long way since 2000, when SportBrain introduced a pedometer that used a modem-equipped docking base to upload physical activity records. The past few years have seen products for fitness enthusiasts such as the Garmin’s ForeRunner watches and the Nike+ system for iPod, but they are now migrating to more casual personal data nerds. Recent tech products like the Fitbit (a modern-day reworking of the SportBrain) can measure your activity throughout the day and night and the Neo Personal Sleep Coach can provide detailed reports on your sleep patterns. But all these products digitally measure efforts at healthier living — few have digitally measured results.

While weight is far from an absolute indicator of health, it is certainly one that many consumers monitor closely. A modern dark glass and metal affair with a backlit display, the WiFi Body Scale can track the weight of up to three household members. It also calculates an estimated BMI based on a height measurement given during setup and lean body mass by measuring your body’s capacitance. As with other scales that estimate body fat and lean body mass, one must weigh oneself in bare feet to obtain this measurement.

As there’s no way to enter any data on the scale, it must be set up from the PC using a supplied USB cable or by using the WiScale app for the iPhone/iPod touch. After that, using the scale can be the standard exhilarating or deflating experience

The Withings Wifi Body Scale is a silent, non-judgmental servant that provides no positive reinforcement other than a trend line.

depending on the change you see. Those used to the chatty banter of the balance board in Wii Fit will find the Wifi Body Scale is a silent, non-judgmental servant that provides no positive reinforcement other than a trend line.

The iPhone app and Withings’ website provide a colorful user interface that allow you to graph changes over time. The iPhone app takes advantage push notification to remind you of new measurements. While you can export data from the Web site, the service would benefit greatly breaking out of its data silo and playing along with the Web sites of other fitness gadgets to facilitate seeing the impact of activity.

Withings also recently added Twitter support so you can tweet your weight, although it’s questionable whether weight is something that changes often enough to merit frequent updates. The WiFi Body Scale could be a useful motivator and useful tracking tool for someone looking to improve their overall fitness level, but at this point it is more of a novel harbinger of the networked appliance and the era of comprehensive personal health data and self-monitoring. If Withings can build out its service to include things such as fitness tips, integration with nutritionists or personal trainers, sites such as eDiets or weightwatchers.com, motivational messages and the like, then the WiFi Body Scale will have much greater weight in the marketplace.

Ross Rubin is director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.

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Leica M7 Edition Hermes drops this December at a price you can’t afford

amitg — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:42:51 +0000

We’ve coveted many a Leica in the past, and when the company pulls out the stops for a limited edition you can bet that it will be quite lust-worthy — and quite expensive. The M7 Edition Hermes sees the classic M7 35mm camera get a silver chrome finish and a choice of either orange or etoupe calfskin leather. On top of that, your purchase includes a Leica SUMMILUX-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH wide-angle lens, a matching classic round lens hood, a LEICAVIT M rapid winder and a leather carrying strap, and will arrive at your doorstep in a linen-covered, silk-lined box. But you’d better jump now, ‘cos only 100 of each color will be produced. Available in the UK this December from authorized Leica dealers and at the Mayfair Leica Store for a mere £8,550 (about $14,250). PR after the break.

Gallery: Leica M7 Edition Hermes

[Via Pocket-lint]

Show full PR text
Leica M7 Edition “Hermes” announced

Very special edition with an orange or etoupe calfskin leather finish

Leica has introed a “very special limited edition” (read: very expensive) version of its classic 35mm rangefinder system camera the M7 with the launch of the new Leica M7 Edition “Hermes”.

The second Hermes partnership that Leica has entered into, the special M7 comes in silver chrome with a choice of two calfskin leather finishes – orange and “etoupe”.

Just 100 of each colour will be made available, and each individual camera will have a special sequential serial number between 001/200 and 200/200.

The Leica M7 Edition “Hermes” set includes a Leica SUMMILUX-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH. wide-angle lens, a matching classic round lens hood, a LEICAVIT M rapid winder and a real leather carrying strap matched to the colour of the camera, all delivered in a linen-covered, silk-lined box.

Looks-wise there’s a few changes from the standard M7. The top plate is engraved with the Leica name in classic script, the red Leica logo has been nixed to stop a colour clash and the normally red “AUTO” and settings on the shutter speed dial have been replaced by the shade of the camera’s leather.

The Lecia M7 Edition “Hermes” will be available in the UK from December from authorised Leica dealers and the Leica Store Mayfair for an eye-watering £8550.

Leica has today announced a very special limited edition of its classic 35mm rangefinder system camera: the Leica M7 Edition Hermès. As the successor to the Leica MP Edition Hermès launched in 2003, this is the second series of cameras created in co-operation with Hermès, the Paris-based company renowned throughout the world for its exclusive products.

The strictly limited Leica M7 Edition Hermès comes in silver chrome with a choice of two striking calfskin leather finishes – orange and étoupe – supplied by Hermès. Just 100 of each colour will be made available, and each individual camera will have a special sequential serial number between 001/200 and 200/200.

To complement the design of the camera, the special Leica M7 Edition Hermès set includes a silver anodised Leica Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH. wide-angle lens, a matching classic round lens hood in silver anodised metal – manufactured specifically for these models – and a Leicavit M rapid winder in silver chrome. A real leather carrying strap, handcrafted by Atelier Hermès to match the colour of each camera, provides the finishing touch. Each set is delivered in a linen-covered, silk-lined box.

The Leica M7 Edition Hermès camera has a number of distinct features compared to the standard Leica M7 model. For example, the top plate is engraved with the Leica name in classic script: the red Leica logo has been omitted to preserve the colour harmony of the leather covering. All control elements of the Leica M7 Edition Hermès have been manufactured exclusively in metal, and the back of the camera is finished in silver chrome. Furthermore, the red colour of the engraved auto and 7 settings on the shutter speed dial has been replaced by the specific shade of the camera’s leather. The technical specifications of the special edition set are otherwise identical to the standard model.

The Leica M7 Edition Hermès will be available in the UK from December 2009 and is priced at an impressive 8500 Pounds.

Headtime scalp massager massages scalps, blows minds

trialsoft — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:00:34 +0000

Say what you will, but we love the idea of having a tireless automaton massaging our overworked noggins. And, since human slavery was outlawed a good while ago, our only choice left is modern technology. Enter the Headtime scalp massager, produced by Kinatech. This outsized helmet has an array of 29 silicone balls for acupressure and 34 ceramic ones for… well, we don’t actually know. There’s an internal speaker with the soothing sounds of nature, as well as a temperature controller, which suggests this bad boy could serve as a pretty awesome cranium heater as well. Do yourself a favor and check out the rather threatening looking inside of the helmet after the break.

[Via AVING USA]

Black Friday deals bonanza round up

assevedut — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:10:06 +0000

Thanksgiving is moving ever closer — and we all know what that means: the day that comes after. That’s right, there’s nothing more American than following up a day of thanks with a day of hitting the malls, strip malls, big boxes, and virtual shops up for the hottest deals to be found this side of the Atlantic. We’ve rounded up a few of the more choice deals we’ve found on the ‘net for you so you don’t have to search all alone… and first up, Office Depot’s got a 17.3-inch,Windows 7-boasting Toshiba Satellite L555D-S7930 for $649 and a 12 megapixel Nikon Coolipix S570 for $200, while over at Best Buy you can grab up a 120GB PS3 with three games for $300, with a host of cheap video games for Xbox 360 and PS3. Finally mammoth of the retail world Sears has a Canon EOS Rebel XS for $570, plus some of the cheapest digital photo frames around and a DVD player for $18. You’re getting excited, aren’t you?

Read – Best Buy Black Friday Ad
Read – Office Depot Black Friday Ad
Read – Sears Black Friday Ad

Arduino-packin’ Didgeridoo features 17 effects controls, drones with the best of ‘em (video)

offegoalofido — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:56:04 +0000

You know, we don’t see too many didgeridoos in these parts (and for good reason, seeing as how it is little more than a pipe) but wait’ll to you get a load of this aerophone-wielding maniac: Kyle Evans has grafted an Arduino Bluetooth module to his “didge” (as we say ’round the drum circle) and supplied a wireless mic to transmit audio to his laptop, where the sound is manipulated via custom-built audio processing software. The controllers for the various effects are situated on the instrument itself (including six push button switches, six pots, and five toggle switches), bringing your avante-garde dreams one step closer to reality. Tell La Monte Young we said “Hi.” Video after the break.

[Via Make]

See more video at our hub!

Sony’s VAIO Bluetooth Laser Mouse pictured in the wild, almost as ugly as last week’s OpenOfficeMouse

centerprestigsss — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:56:03 +0000

While it may not sport the same egregious number of buttons and blue and white aesthetics as last week’s affront to ergonomics, Sony’s VGP-BMS80 VAIO Bluetooth Laser Mouse certainly doesn’t offer much better looks. It does, however, allow for wireless control of either a PC or a PS3 and, with an optical sensor on top, can be used in the air like a trackpad or on a flat surface like a mouse — a place where that “bar of soap” design will surely not do your carpal tunnels any favors. It’s available now at various internet destinations and, if you’re still interested, about $80 will get you into this party.

Chumby One review

aromatizatorzzzy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:56:03 +0000

Let’s be honest: it’s really hard to dislike Chumby. In fact, you feel almost compelled to root for any company bold enough to put out a product as unapologetically wacky as the original Chumby, a device that somehow managed to marry a soft, cuddly vinyl sphere with WiFi and a touchscreen. It didn’t make a lot of sense, and as far as we can tell, the company didn’t really intend it to — they basically threw it out there and said, “hey, so we’ve got this… uh, thing… now let’s see what you can do with it.” It was an open platform, Chumby encouraged hackers to dig in and understand the guts, and over time, a small-but-vibrant community of users and developers emerged with several hundred widgets capable of doing everything from showing the time to cracking a few Chuck Norris jokes.

A quirky, overpriced alarm clock without broad market appeal can only take you so far, though — someone’s eventually got to pay the bills. Enter the $100 Chumby One, Chumby’s first attempt to grow up and produce an affordable device that loses a little bit of the Chumby Classic’s insanity while carefully staying true to the company’s roots. Will this be Chumby’s ticket out of the geek niche and into mainstream living rooms and offices?

Gallery: Chumby One hands-on

After playing with the One for a couple hours, our answer is a whimsical “why not?” Let’s be very clear — no one needs the Chumby One, nor does it close any great gap in your tech life — but it offers enough information and functionality in one small, portable, cordless place to justify the modest price of admission.

Yes, that’s right, we said “cordless.” The One makes good on perhaps the Classic’s most damning shortcoming — an inability to escape the wall outlet — by including a space for a rechargeable battery underneath the base. It’s not included with the device, but a quick Google check suggests that they can be readily obtained for $10 to $20. Our quick testing leads us to believe that you’d maybe get an hour and a half to two hours off of a charge (better than Chumby’s quoted one hour); it’s not like you’ll want to be away from the charger for weeks on end, but it’s good if you normally use it as your alarm clock and want to move it to another room to use as a table radio for a little while, for example.

For hardware, the Chumby One is in many ways a simplified Classic, starting with a complete and utter lack of stuffing (that’s a good thing for mainstream users, we’d argue). Besides the battery cover, the base has a black antenna used for FM radio reception; we never bothered to even unfurl it and we were still able to pull in a variety of local programming in crystal clarity. Around back, you’ve got a 3.5mm headphone jack, power port, on / off button, loudspeaker, and just one USB port, down from two on the Classic — you won’t miss the second, unless you need wired Ethernet and iPod connectivity at the same time. On the right side, you’ll find a welcome addition — a dedicated volume knob, which means you don’t need to hop into the control panel anymore and actuate the on-screen slider if the music gets too loud. The top has a Chumby logo button that’s used to trigger the control panel; it replaces the Classic’s so-called “squeeze sensor” and can be pressed while tilting the One left or right to “slide in” the previous or next widget. Gimmicky, but cool.

Front and center lies the 3.5-inch touchscreen, the same size you find on the older model; that surprised us a bit because the One is quite a bit smaller in person than we’d expected it to be and seems smaller than the Classic, but then again, there’s no plush goodness here to plump up the surrounds. The display is plenty sensitive, which is good because you’ll need to interact directly with the screen to accomplish just about anything. If we had a complaint here, it’d be that the screen isn’t flush with the surrounding bezel which can making touching the extreme edges and corners a challenge, but we didn’t find it to be a big deal.

The simple interface is a dead ringer for the Classic; nothing has changed here, and that’s just fine by us. In normal operation, your default “channel” — Chumby’s terminology for a particular set of selected widgets — cycles on an endless loop, and if you’d like to add widgets or channels, you log into Chumby’s site to do so (though you can delete widgets and freeze the display right from the device itself if you need to). By entering the control panel, you’ll find a night mode that offers a super-dim clock and alarm display for bedside duty, though we wish this mode could be triggered automatically by light sensor (very early Classics had sensors, but for whatever reason, they were later removed). This is also where you’ll go to set alarms and play music through any of the impressive variety of services that Chumby supports, including Pandora, SHOUTcast, Squeezebox Server (if you have one on your network), and a handful of podcast services and miscellaneous providers plus iPod, mass storage, and the aforementioned FM radio support. It all works well, and we like the fact that each source has its own customized UI that looks custom-suited to the service it’s for (the iPod player, for example, apes iTunes). Once you’ve started playing your music of choice, you can navigate away and return to your widget channel if you like. We found that the built-in loudspeaker is plenty loud and clear for basic desk duty, and you always have that headphone jack available to you if you’re looking for higher fidelity.

Wrap-up

Unlike the Chumby Classic — which has cost anywhere between $200 and $600 over the past couple years depending on color and cover design — the Chumby One at $100 is cheap enough so that you can effectively buy it without having any idea what you’ll use it for and still not suffer even a fleeting second of buyer’s remorse. Out of the box, it’s a passable streaming media player, an FM radio, a photo frame, an alarm clock, a weather station, a news ticker, and more; all told, you’ve got over a thousand widgets available online, and with enough elbow grease, Chumby gives you the tools to make it whatever you want it to be. A miniature do-anything box for a Benjamin that doesn’t look like it belongs in your toddler’s toy chest? Sounds like a steal to us.

Digital ‘Cloud’ could form over London for the 2012 Olympics

solovekaaqw — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:29:46 +0000

No, we’re not talking about “the cloud” where data goes to disappear and (hopefully) be retrieved again. We’re talking about an actual (well, artificial) cloud that promises to be both a real structure and a massive digital display. That’s the bright idea of a team of researchers from MIT, anyway, and it’s now been shortlisted in a competition designed to find a new tourist attraction to be built in London for the 2012 Olympics. Dubbed simply “The Cloud,” the structure would consist of two 400-foot tall mesh towers that are linked by a series of interconnected plastic bubbles, which would themselves house an observation deck inside and be used to display everything from Olympic scores and highlights to a “barometer of the city’s interests and moods” outside (that latter bit comes courtesy of the group’s partnership with Google). As if that wasn’t enough, the whole thing also promises to be funded entirely by micro-payments from the public (which would also determine its final size), and be completely self-powered, with it relying on a combination of solar power and regenerative braking from the lifts in the towers. Video after the break.

[Via Inhabitat]

SmartPill evaluates, evacuates your GI tract

amitg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:53:11 +0000

We’ve seen a number of medical manufacturers with a common goal: getting you to swallow microprocessor-filled horse pills for things like cauterizing small, internal wounds and dispensing drugs — and now you can add the “evaluation of constipation” to the list! SmartPill is designed to cruise the GI tract, where it measures temperature and pH, provides temporal-spacial analysis, and differentiates between normal and abnormal transit times — you know, “the usual.” The data from the pill is transmitted to a receiver for later analysis by your doctor. As for what happens to the pill itself, we’ll let you use your imagination. This one should be available for shipment in January 2010. PR after the break. And please: keep the comments classy.

[Via MedGadget]

Show full PR text
SmartPill Announces 510(k) Release for Evaluation of Constipation

Physicians Have New Method for Evaluating GI Motility Disorder

Nov 06, 2009

Buffalo, NY – SmartPill Corporation announced today the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) release of the SmartPill GI Monitoring System, version 2.0, for the evaluation of colonic transit time in patients with suspected chronic constipation. The new 510(k) release was an expansion of SmartPill’s previous indication for use in evaluating patients with suspected delayed gastric emptying (gastroparesis).

“This is a significant milestone for the Company,” remarks David Barthel, President and CEO of the SmartPill Corporation. “The new indication expands the market capabilities of SmartPill, allowing the device to evaluate an additional disease (chronic constipation) and more importantly, enhances our objective of improving patient care.”

The SmartPill GI Monitoring System, version 2.0, allows physicians to measure pH, pressure and temperature throughout the entire gastrointestinal (GI) tract, providing whole gut and regional gut (gastric, small bowel and colonic) transit times, a pH profile of the entire GI tract and GI tract pressure patterns. SmartPill’s ability to differentiate slow (abnormal) transit from normal transit, while providing regional transit times for both the upper and lower GI tract, is an important assessment for physicians when evaluating GI motility disorders and guiding appropriate therapy.

“SmartPill’s recent validation study has proved it to be a reliable, ambulatory and standardized technique for measuring transit throughout the entire GI tract,” comments Dr. Satish Rao, a distinguished clinician in neurogastroenterology and GI motility, from the University of Iowa. “For clinical purposes, SmartPill provides a single test that comprehensively assesses regional transit times and reduces the duration of colon transit study, thereby improving patient compliance and providing physicians with better direction for managing their patients.”

The SmartPill GI Monitoring System features the SmartPill Capsule, a wireless, ingestible medical device about the size of a large vitamin pill. The patient ingests the single-use SmartPill Capsule in the doctor’s office and then returns to their daily activities. As the Capsule travels through the GI tract, data is wirelessly transmitted to the SmartPill Data Receiver. The SmartPill Data Receiver is later returned to the physician’s office where the data is downloaded to a computer providing gastric, small bowel, large bowel, and whole gut transit times.

The SmartPill GI Monitoring System, version 2.0, will be available for shipment in January 2010.

About SmartPill Corporation

SmartPill Corporation is a leading manufacturer and developer of capsule-based medical devices that aid in the diagnosis, definition and therapeutic intervention of gastrointestinal (GI) motility disorders and diseases. The company’s flagship product – the SmartPill GI Monitoring System – features the SmartPill Capsule, an ingestible medical device that provides data, heretofore unavailable, that can assist physicians in the evaluation of gastroparesis and chronic constipation. The SmartPill GI Monitoring System was granted initial 510(k) release from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2006 and for the evaluation of colonic transit in October 2009. Dr. Satish Rao serves as a scientific advisory board member to the SmartPill Corporation. Visit www.SmartPillCorp.com for more information.