Lately I have found myself envious of people who have their own personal assistants. Small tasks are easy to accomplish, but when there are so many of them on your plate, just checking your email can seem like a chore. Obviously hiring a personal assistant takes a lot of money, and such a thing is beyond most of our means. However, for a much smaller price, you can hire a virtual assistant of your very own. I don’t mean that…
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In this economy, everyone is looking to cut corners and save money. Naturally, we tend to turn to our technology to help us do exactly that. For instance, if I’m planning on buying something, I almost always look around online to see where the best deal is. After all, there’s nothing worse than finding out you overpaid for something, just because you didn’t take a minute to look. Sometimes there are local deals that you might not see online, which…
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When you’re traveling, it’s always important to go as light as possible. This is when multipurpose gadgets really come in handy. My favorites are ones that require me to use less outlets to charge more things. I’m rather happy to find this Plug Bug, which turns my boring old MacBook power adapter into an iPhone/iPad charger. The neat thing about this is that plugs into your existing MacBook power adapter, and becomes a part of it. Sure, it does add…
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Cloud hosting services are a great way to keep your files backed up off-site, and share them with others. However, if you’re hosting sensitive files, it can almost be a scary thing, not knowing if someone could hack into the server, and get access to them. There are a number of ways to protect them, one of which is Safebox. Safebox is a relatively simple way to make sure that the files hosted by Dropbox are kept secure. It gives…
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Here’s a quick round-up of Red Ferret posts from the past week for those who missed them. Enjoy. LomoKino turns 35mm film into a 144-frame movie – There’s something beautiful about… The Bullet Ice Cube Tray � For all of your bullet ice cube needs – If you’re hosting a party and want… Add NFC to your smartphone – The slow rise of NFC (near field… Kickstand desk lets you bike while you work – If you’re reading this on…
Read MoreIf your town has a good public transportation system, you might find yourself on a bus regularly. That’s the case where I live, as most of the college students find it much easier than trying to find parking at the university. Sometimes you might be on the bus for 20-30 minutes, and if you’re generally low on free time, you might use this as an opportunity to nap. But what if you sleep through your stop? With BusChecker, you don’t…
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There are the standard alkaline batteries we’ve used for years. There are rechargables that supposedly last for 50 or more charges (but they don’t) and are supposed to help reduce the number of batteries that end up in landfills. In the U.S. alone, some 3 billion batteries get dumped in landfills. EarthCell batteries hope to change all that. EarthCell are low self-discharge, disposable nickel metal hydride (LSD NiMH) batteries that are supposed to have a longer shelf-life than NiMH batteries…
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The Penclic mouse is a new style of computer mouse. It a funky-looking five button high-precision mouse and Wacom-style pen pointing device. It looks like a great idea and the nice people at Penclic have sent me one to have a look at. So let’s go ….
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It’s generally understood that driving while under the influence of many substances can greatly increase the chance of getting in an accident. As such, it’s common for police officers to use a breathalyzer to check someone’s blood alcohol content, to ensure that they aren’t impaired. Unfortunately, alcohol is one of the only substances that they can check for, and receive immediate results. But that looks to be changing soon. A company called Intelligent Fingerprinting has just unveiled a prototype hand-held…
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For many years I’ve said that Internet Explorer is good for one thing, and one thing only: To download a better browser. With it generally lagging behind other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox in the areas of speed, security and features, there aren’t a lot of reasons why a tech-savvy person would want to use it. Well, Microsoft has given us at least one reason to use the browser for more than downloading a replacement. They’re offering up free…
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Both of Valve’s Portal games have spawned a legion of followers who love nothing more than to quote the game on a regular basis. It shows just how much that company knows their audience. Thankfully, they also realize that those same people crave real-life products that reflect the ones they love in the games. The latest such product is a simple picture of Cave Johnson, which is a replica of one seen throughout Portal 2. Well, I suppose it’s not…
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Solar battery chargers for your phone are great. They give you a nice way to charge your phone that’s environmentally friendly, and to get more juice when you’re in a pinch. Well the SoliCharger-SP is a new charger that gives you those same benefits, and does something a little extra. It helps you blast your music a little louder with two built-in speakers. So providing you with a couple of amplified speakers might not be the most amazing thing in…
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We managed to grab a couple of hours face-time with Sriram Peruvemba, chief marketing officer of E Ink Holdings, the other day and ran through a couple of the new products percolating out on sale using the ubiquitous E Ink display technology. The last time we met he showed us some prototype stuff which was very interesting, and this occasion was just as exciting, since we got an exclusive first look at the brand new, hot off the shelf Plastic…
Read MoreWe humans seem to have this fascination with robots. We write stories about them, produce high-budget films about them taking over the world, and even work to create robots that look and act like us. Unfortunately, creating these robots is no easy task. Honda has been working for a number of years on their ASIMO bots, and while they’re still a long way from creating a true human-like device, their latest model is getting close enough to be creepy. One…
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If you’ve ever played a first person shooter game, you’re familiar with the HUD (heads-up display) that gives you a readout of everything from your health, to your location on a map. In many of these games, it’s assumed that your character can actually see these things from within a helmet, or even a pair of glasses. I know I’ve thought about how cool it would be to have something like that for myself, but the technology just isn’t there….
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