The Jetboil Personal Cooking System is a funny looking gas cooker that uses an innovative heat exchanger mechanism to cook things faster while using less gas. We’re talking boiling two cups of water in two minutes here, which is most excellent when you’re thirsty on the trail. In the time it takes Jed to scramble around gathering twigs and two horseshoes to rub together we can be chowing down on our favourite vittals while watching City Slickers on the solar powered…
Read MoreMonthly Archives: September 2008
T-Eye ADR3000 Drive Recorder – silent impartial witness proves it wasn’t my fault, m’lud
The T-Eye ADR3000 Drive Recorder contains two VGA quality 170 degree video cameras, a GPS receiver and a solid state recorder which constantly capture footage of your car journey at 20 fps. Immediately something like an accident happens, the G-force sensors detect the impact and freeze the important 4 minutes of video and audio, along with GPS details of your vehicle’s movements. Voila, an impartial, reliable and incorruptible passenger to prove that it was the other guy speeding what caused…
Read MoreChevy Volt revealed – OK, so what bright spark…?
OK, so they’ve finally revealed the Chevy Volt electric hybrid car, which is scheduled for delivery to a salivating public sometime in 2011. At a $40,000 price point. I just have a few points to make here: A lot could happen in 3 years. Perhaps even a massive recession or a runaway inflationary boom induced by desperate global governments. Or something. Three years is a long time in Japanese development terms. Toyota is not sitting still. What on earth makes GM think they can…
Read MoreFairSoftware – start your own online business
FairSoftware is a new business portal to help people set up online service businesses like software developers, web designers and web publishers. The idea is you sign up, list your project and find collaborators to invest time and skills, after which you can set up an online store to sell your stuff as well. In return for their help in setting up, finding colleagues, offering legal infrastructure and a shopping cart, you pay a 9.9% fee which seems reasonable. Of…
Read MoreUbiquity – the awesome web task engine for Firefox
I’ve been playing with Mozilla’s new free Ubiquity plugin for Firefox and it’s fab. It basically provides instant access to a whole bunch of web applications and other useful tools via a really easy to use command line interface. Now don’t get scared, it’s really really easy to use and incredibly flexible. To access the proglet you hit CTRL key and spacebar together, and up pops a small box waiting for your instructions. There are 50 commands in existence right…
Read MoreWorldwide Travel Adapter – power to the people, wherever they are
Jet lag. It’s a pain in the neck. Your head’s in one time zone, your feet are in another and on top of that you’ve got to find the right power adapter, figure out what you can plug into the wall and avoiding dying of electricity poisoning. Well with the Powerbright Worldwide Travel Adapter, travelling just got that little bit easier. Looking like a cross between an ordinary travel power adapter and a Keyport, but cheaper, the Worldwide Travel Adapter…
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JVC HXD77J Mini System – put down the remote, sir, and step away from the power supply…
JVC HXD77J Mini System. So, y’know, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with designing a home stereo system around an Apache attack helicopter motif, but we just wish they’d cut the coy and stick the proper USAF decals on the twin gun turrets to make us all feel safer. After all we live in troubled times, don’t we Marsha? $261.99. This system includes a five-disc changer which can play your favorite DVD movies, along with your CD collection. It can even play…
Read MoreInteractive Talking First Aid Guide – calm vocal assistance when you need it most
This Interactive Talking First Aid Guide may look as ugly as they come, but we suspect that it could be rather useful at 3.30 in the morning when you’re desperately trying to find out why little Jimmy’s not feeling so clever. We tend to gallop towards Google search here at Ferret Towers, but this is definitely an alternative worth considering if you’re not that web search savvy. The audio comes in a choice of English or Spanish (tough luck if you’re from Munich eh?) and the thing…
Read MoreEyeToy Kinetic Fitness Video Game – the puffstation fights back
The more cynical amongst you might suggest that this EyeToy Kinetic Fitness Game is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Sony to win back gamers from the Nintendo Wii Fitness gear and you’d probably be correct. Of course the one thing to remember is that living room fitness regimes probably aren’t as effective as the marketing would have you believe, although in my case just turning the console’s power on gives me enough exercise for the month. $99.95 excluding Sony Playstation. Jump…
Read MoreHotel Visualiser – using the power of image to locate your favourite vacation spot
The new Hotel Visualiser from hotels.com uses the image psychology tech from Imagini that we first came across a while back, to build a picture of the kind of place you’d like to stay on vacation. Now choosing your holiday spot via photographs rather than long descriptions may not be to everyone’s taste, but it has a certain logic about it. And it’s interesting to see the technology actually find a real world use which is more than just finding…
Read MoreiPod Audio Book Maker – easily convert MP3 files to audio books
This MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter freeware takes ordinary MP3 files and turns them into either a single large iPod audio book file or separate files. By doing this you can take advantage of the iPod’s bookmarking functionality and resume where you left off listening, and you can also adjust the reading speed. Both of which are pretty cool. I suspect it will also be very useful for anyone who wants to combine a set of podcasts – like a lecture series…
Read MoreTimeMug – caffeine and clocks in perfect harmony…
So let me get this straight. The TimeMug is the world’s first ‘time-telling’ mug. Riiight. So while you’re getting yourself all wired up for the day with the caffeine hit, you can keep tabs on the time to make sure you’re not late, and thereby lower your stress levels, which you then increase by taking another jolt of Joe and…er…so on…? Wonderful. $29.95. TimeMug, LLC, based in Spring Valley, NY, created the world’s first 100% dishwasher safe time-telling drinkware. Combining…
Read MoreCompushade Laptop Visor – ’cause the future’s so bright…
The Compushade Laptop Visor is the perfect answer to those bright sunny days which threaten to ruin your vacation on the beach. Just pop one of these puppies over your laptop screen and you can continue slaving away on those reports which your loved ones frolic, cavort and otherwise have a life. Aww…a truly noble product. $27.95. Laptop screens can be very difficult to see when used outdoors or in brightly lit rooms. The CompuShade laptop hood solves this problem…
Read MoreThe Wyzo Bittorrent Browser – free Firefox offshoot offers integrated Bittorrent downloading
The Wyzo Browser is the latest freeware offering from the guys who brought us the excellent FireTorrent Bittorrent plugin for Firefox. They’ve clearly decided to forego upgrading Firetorrent to work with the latest Firefox 3.x, and instead have brought out their own web browser based on Firefox which incorporates the Bittorrent feature as standard. The product also offers a mega search engine start page and a handy small bookmarks bar to get to favourite sites faster, but overall I’m not sure they’ve…
Read MoreSnappages – free online website creator goes all beautiful Web 2.0 on our heads…
Snappages is a gorgeous free online website creator and editor, which goes waaaay beyond your conventional services by offering some really cool editing features, so you can actually create sites that look….gasp….modern and hip. The editor is clean and simple, and although the developer has deliberately restricted the amount of customisation you can do in order to keep things under control, there are enough variations to keep most people happy. I especially liked the ability to customise a theme separately to…
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