The TrueCall call monitor sits on your home telephone line to protect you from unwanted insurance salesmen and bogus warranty renewal calls. The thing interrogates every new call that comes in – ‘und just how long hav you bin in zis country den’ – consults its whitelist database and shepherds good calls to your ears, and bad ones to a massive black hole of disappointment. Yay for the good guys. £97.50. When an incoming call arrives, trueCall checks the caller’s number,…
Read MoreMonthly Archives: July 2009
Omron HBF-516 Full Body Scales – check the whole of your body, one piece at a time
The Omron HBF-516 Full Body Composition Scales provide accurate, probably too accurate, confirmation of your worst fears. Yep, that last triple-decker, fat battered, crispy deep fried chocolate bar was probably 1 calorie too many today. Or this year. Anyhoo, it’s apparently the next most accurate scale after a medical model, so stop your bleating, hand over the $119.95 and discover just how much of a blubbery porpoise you are. It uses bioelectrical impedance technology that sends a harmless bioelectric…
Read MoreProfessional Flash Set – turn your DSLR flash gun into a real top gun
This Professional Flash Set may not make your photos come out any better, but it’ll certainly make you look more manly and efficient. Or not. The kit comprises barn doors, honeycomb, snoot, diffuser and other stuff we know nothing about as well. But just pop one onto the end of your Speedlight and watch as friends and family start cavorting around like sheep in headlights. Brilliant. $88.00. Professional Flash Set – Soft Diffuser + Honey Comb + Conical Snoot…
Read MoreSondata Shake-A-Pix – world’s first motion sensing digital photo frame
This Sondata Shake-A-Pix digital photo frame comes with an integrated motion sensor which means you navigate from image to image simply by giving a flick of the wrist. Cool eh? Of course, all this jiggling about is bound to have a detrimental effect on the longevity of the thing, but in our current age of obsolescence who cares? Shake away and be done with it. Sale price £22.99/$37.81. The world’s first portable digital photo album with motion sensors – shake…
Read MoreTonido – the brave little desktop that could…
Tonido is a fascinating example of a well thought out product which could have its work cut out gaining exposure and market success. This freeware desktop environment is multi-platform (Linux, Windows and Mac), nicely designed and offers an innovative shell from which to access your data and multimedia. The key to the whole thing is the TonidoPlug which is a $100 plugin hardware dongle which hooks up to your router and gives you instant access to all your computer files over the Internet via…
Read MoreGame Crafter – DIY online game maker fun for all the family
Game Crafter is a new online games making service and portal. Got a great idea for a game? Think you could do something better than Monopoly? Then this is your chance. The site contains everything you’ll need to construct a game, including templates for board layouts, playing card decks and cover art. Upload all the materials, assemble them and design your game box and you’re set to go. You set the price of the game, and the profit (price –…
Read More6-in-1 Solar Robot Kit – eco bargain lets you play with light
The 6–in-1 Solar Robot Kit promises to deliver hours of happy fun from nothing more than some plastic, a few gears and the output from any nearby solar object. Not only can the kit be assembled into a Mars Rover clone, with its own funky solar power source, but also a fan, windmill, boat or nuclear submarine capable of sustaining life under the polar ice cap. OK, so we lied about the last bit, got a little over excited. Best…
Read MoreUV Monkey – keep your radiation exposure to a minimum
This UV Monkey offers ample warning if you’re in danger of over-cooking your sensitive skin with too many of those nasty ultraviolet rays. Man. Of course if you’re a ginger haired person that means not getting too close to the television, but for the rest of us, outdoors now becomes a much safer place. $9.99. This small keyring gadget is like your own personal space monkey. The UV Monkey will assist you by checking UV levels so that you know when to charge…
Read MoreInvisible Micro Earpiece – the smallest listening bug ever made
This Invisible Micro Earpiece listening kit is scarily clever. The earpiece is actually small enough to fit completely inside your ear canal, which makes it the smallest of its type in the world. The developers have achieved this by removing any speaker or battery requirement, instead the thing vibrates the audio directly to your auditory system, using what they call ‘passive’ vibration. The user has to wear an induction loop around their neck (presumably hidden under a shirt or jacket)…
Read More10 Quick Ways to Print Calendars Online
I like this list of 10 Quick Ways to Print Calendars Online. Because, y’know, you can never have enough calendar love in your life. I’m totally calendarised now with Google Calendar – yes yes, I succumbed – but there are always going to be times when you need to make a paper based version for some project or another. Or even to give away to the relatives with photos of the kids. Bookmark it and you can thank us next…
Read MorePiggy Speakers – oinkers and squeakers
Pink, powered by four AAA batteries, 3.5mm input and you adjust the volume by twisting their tales. There, I’ve just read you the instruction manual for these delightful Piggy Speakers. AU$17.95 Whether your desk is like a palace or a pigsty, these squealers are must have music accessories or those of you that love anything quirky, and they’re guaranteed to bring a smile to anyone’s face! Tags: gadget, pig+speakers, piggy+speakers
Read MoreGraphene – from the humble pencil to the strongest material in the universe?
They’re calling Graphene the strongest material in the universe, and it’s hard to argue with the figures. It can be made into a carbon sheet one atom thick, conducts electricity 100 times faster than silicon and it’s stronger than diamond. Oh and it’s flexible enough to wrapped up in a roll. But before we all run around cheering, as with all new materials, it’s going to take time – lots of time – to perfect the manufacturing process. The good news…
Read MoreOpenBitTorrent – a free BitTorrent tracker for anyone to use
OpenBitTorrent is a new free BitTorrent file sharing tracker which lets anyone assign a tracker to their Torrent file. What does this mean to you and I? Well let’s just say that it makes it a lot easier for the ordinary Joe on the street of life to set up BitTorrent file sharing for their stuff without the techy headaches of setting up a tracker et al. More here. Why the need for an open bittorrent tracker? There are many…
Read MoreDannmar D7 Four Post Car Lift – car goes up, car goes down, car goes up …
Is the Aston taking up too much room in the garage? Never fear, the Dannmar D7 Four Post Car Lift should see you right. Provided your second car is shorter than 1.8 metres and your garage is 4.3 metres wide you’ll be fine. It’s electro-hydraulic with a single hydraulic cylinder powering the four lifting legs, it’s completely freestanding and there are even detachable drive on ramps if you dare. The best bit is the US$2099 price, so even British MPs…
Read MoreGrouply – all your Yahoo! and Google groups in one place
Grouply is a cool way of managing your Google and Yahoo! groups all from a single login. Not only can you read all your messages in a handy collated digest form, but you can interact with friends, post Facebook type messages and generally mess around with your groups from a single nicely arranged location. You can’t create or join groups directly from within Grouply yet, that’s apparently coming later, but as anyone who’s ever suffered through the Google Groups interface will know, anything that makes…
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