Having trouble losing weight? This little patch is about to change all that. It’s being produced by a company called PhiloMetron and here’s how it works: slap it on your arm and sensors will measure your energy and calorie intake. From there, the data is beamed to your phone via Bluetooth where you can measure how much you’ve eaten in a day. Afterwards, you can cry and commiserate over a box of Girl Scout Cookies. Enjoy.
Alright. Stick with me on this one. You crazy Europeans love to created weird names for products, like The Mirror by Violet. That being said, The Mirror’ is one of the neatest gadgets I’ve seen in a long time. Hook the $60 plate up to your Mac or PC and get ready to read some RFID tags. The set includes Ztamps (glorified RFID tags) that you can stick in objects and assign actions. For instance, say you shove one inside a sandwich. When you put the sandwich on top of the The Mirror by Violet, it could open up Firefox and surf to the Scanwiches blog.
Sounds like a creative tool. I’d like to know how you’d use this cheap RFID reader. I’d probably shove some in empty CD cases so that the songs would automatically play in iTunes when activated.
The Arduino continues to power innovation and creation well into 2009. This blender, created by Matti Niinimaki, is rigged to create beats. No smoothies here, folks, just pounding techno full of cheesy sound FX. The Beat Blender prototype reads fruit embedded with RFID tags that are dropped into it. Hitting different blending speeds (Puree, Liquify, Blend, Grind, etc.) will add different effects and filters to the music, allowing for a unique style of making new music.
Matti’s setup makes use of a combination of hardware and software, including Max/MSP, Ableton Live, an RFID reader and of course, the Arduino. What gives Matti? Max/MSP? You know Pure Data would work just as well and we’d all be able to play around with your code.
I guess when God gives you lemons, you make music.
Children are increasingly interested in social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook. However, children under 13 don’t really have a lot of safe options for an online presence and the technical curve can be difficult for some. This is all solved with the RFID-enabled Poken.
These little toys come with big hands for high-fiving. Two kids can high five each other’s Poken and their information will be transferred to the device. Once they get home, they can use a USB cable to download their friend’s information. It’s a unique way of interaction that really brings people closer. You have to actually talk to people in real life? Now that is innovation.
While it’s currently the dead of winter, summer is right around the corner and what better way to stay cool than with this Wi-Fi fan. It won’t give you the Internet but in return, you’ll receive sexy looks from the geeky housewife next door. It’s a product of Atypyk, some company that’s based in France. Unfortunately, like all good things, there’s no set price yet.
Imagine if the edges were razor sharp on this thing. You’d be all like, “Yo girl, trying to connect to my network?” and she’d be all like “Nah, your WEP is WACK!” and then you’d slice her in half like Katana in Mortal Kombat II. Mmmhmm.
T-Mobile has been long overdue for a new RIM device and the Blackberry Curve 8900 will do just fine. The phone will drop sometime next month and has plenty of features that make us drool with jealousy. Try out some WiFi, GPS, headphone jack, microSD slots and of course, myFaves for size. Too rough for ya? Didn’t think so. All those cool new apps like the Facebook and Flickr app will work just dandy on the 8900, most likely ages better than the Blackberry Storm. It’s also thin as hell.
Oh yeah. Almost forgot the 3.2-megapixel camera and 512MHz CPU. Take that, iPhone.
This is a video I recorded earlier today demonstrating iTouchMidi, a program we wrote about the other day. I demonstrate how it works and show you how you can use your iPod Touch or iPhone as a beatmaking device. Very cool stuff here. Be sure to check it out and leave comments on those sweet sunglasses I’m wearing.
Have a Macbook or Macbook Pro and an iPhone? Great. You’re officially the ultimate Apple fanboy. Now that that’s settled, let’s review Balmuda Software’s Numberkey Connect software. Install it on your Mac then shell out $1.99 for the iPhone app and you’re done. You have a nice-looking numeric keypad you can use in conjunction with your laptop. A savior for accounting students, I’m sure.
Over on Howard Forums, a cellphone forum I stopped going to years ago, some kind stranger was nice enough to leak a screenshot of some placeholder pages on Verizon Wireless‘ website. The Blackberry 9530 Storm is going to cost $219 with a two-year contract and a killer $519 if you decide to pay month-to-month. A one-year contract upgrade will net you the Storm for $289. If you want the Storm, I’d say this is your best bet.
Don’t get me wrong. These screens could very well be doctored or ’shopped, but for now, it’s nice to have a little more information on Verizon’s upcoming iPhone killer.
(more…)
If you’ve ever lost your keys while out on the town, you know there’s no way in hell you’re getting them back. Luckily, we tend to clutch our cellphones dear to our heart, never letting them out of our site. If you have a Schlage LiNK system, you need not worry about having keys anymore.
Essentially, the LiNK system uses the ‘net to give you full control over your door locks. Install the locks and you can use a laptop or Blackberry/iPhone/cellphone to control your locks from anywhere. Wife needs to be let in and you’re at the bar? No problem. A touch of the screen and the door is unlocked. The system shows the status of each lock, so you’ll know if someone is snooping around in your home. The lock will even text message you if there’s an issue. Sounds like a very cool idea, but also expensive. I suppose it depends on how much you value convenience and security.
