Hasta La Gadget!

The Gadget: Philips’ goLITE BLU, a blue light dispensing clock that helps reduce the effects of seasonal affective disorder, a.k.a. the winter blues. It’s best used in 15-30 minute daily intervals when it’s dark out.

The Price: $250

The Verdict: I’m pretty sure it works. Unlike normal things we review, which can (for the most part) be expressed quantitatively, a device that raises your mood is by nature, subjective. But this little blue clock has noticeably eliminated my seasonally-created low energy, low mood and a general sluggishness in the past few weeks.

The goLITE is supposed to be placed about 15 degrees off center to where your attention is—the monitor, in our case. You use one of the four brightness settings for somewhere between 15-30 minutes (or more if you like) every day in order to simulate the missing sun. The light works through your eyes, which explains why it needs to be in your field of view. Even at the lowest setting, this thing is bright as hell, so avoid looking directly at it.

Whether or not I’m actually feeling better because the blue light’s rays are working or it’s just me and the placebo effect wanting myself to feel better, I don’t know. But there are other reviews out there that say that it works. And I believe this does. My energy is up, I don’t feel as depressed, and as a result, I don’t feel like I’m trudging through the day.

The $250 price tag may seem like quite a bit to pay for something you only use 30 minutes a day, but think of it like this. We buy electronics all the time in order to give ourselves and emotional boost; the goLite is one that’s actually designed for that purpose. [Light Therapy and Amazon]

Nintendo’s Wii has been maiming careless gamers since the day it was launched, but an inexplicable uptick in Britain has professionals scratching their heads. According to Dr. Dev Mukerjee of Broomfield Hospital: “There has been a 100 percent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis.” Turns out, Wii-itis is their word for playing so much Wii that you injure yourself. Astonishingly, up to ten people per week are being “hospitalized with injuries caused by playing Nintendo Wii games,” which has forced medical personnel to “issue warnings of the dangers associated with the video game system.” Some of the most common injuries are Wii-knee (seriously) and tendon stretching / tearing, both of which could likely be avoided if gamers would bother to stretch before breaking a sweat. Sheesh — what do folks even learn in Physical Education these days?

Filed under: Gaming

Wii blamed for ridiculous increase in British hospital visits originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Macworld coming up in just two weeks, the parade of Apple-flavored rumors, wishes, and murmurings continues.

Guess which one is the rumored iPhone Nano?

(Credit: MacRumors.com)

The latest to surface–or resurface–involves a purported concept photo of what’s said to be an “iPhone Nano,” a more or less …

Wood paneling and silver-painted plastic used to be cool; so I wonder when our current metal and glass gadgets will go out of style, and if so, what will future gadgets be made from?

I asked several designers what they thought, but Kara Johnson, the lead of the Materials Team at design company IDEO, had the final word based on her focused expertise related to the question at hand. Her answer is a bit heady, but I won’t get in the way of what she’s telling us about tomorrow’s gadget materials.

“Plastic as we know it is kind of on the way out, especially when it’s painted. No one likes the way your phone’s paint chips at the corners after a few months of use. Unpainted plastic is the future. And we need to move beyond injection molding, look at sheet processes to build structure from a series of 2d layers, instead of molding a complete 3d structure.

Glass, as a part of the screen, won’t go away very quickly. But maybe we’ll find ways to use glass so that it’s more difficult to create cracks with an accidental drop on the kitchen floor. Maybe there are lessons to be learned from automotive glass windshields or scratch resistant coatings on eyewear. And why not etch the glass?

Metal will continue to be a player in the world of gadgets. It’s beautiful and appropriate to create thin, mobile, technology-based products. Extruded aluminum is a design opportunity that has not yet been fully explored in terms of form or function. With the introduction of laser etching or chemical etching or a detailed craft process like wire filigree, we should be exploring the use of pattern on metal or to create surfaces. This is more evident in large-scale products or architecture where metal is used to create elegant structures or to create a frame for other elements of pattern. By translating innovations in metal from a large scale to something small, we will find new design opportunities, too.

So what’s next?

I think we need to experiment with how we design the buttons that connect hardware and software experiences. This is a design element whose materiality has been relatively unchanged, and there is more opportunity here to create ceramic or wood details (where the drop test requirements can be quietly avoided)…What if the power button was made of stone? What if the LEDs shine thru a thin layer of bamboo? We also need to experiment with the screen itself, this element has been limited to the display of information. What if the screen folds or unfolds? What if the glass is textured or etched with communication icons or pattern? Finally, in the future, I think that we should experiment with creating decoration or function by introducing incredibly surprising technologies (high-tech or low-tech) – like ferrofluid or starch-based plastics.

If the next generation of gadgets is about experimenting with materials or materiality, then it will only be not about what materials we use but how we use materials to tell stories.

What does vinyl mean to music and media players? Can phone be made of fabric so it is ready-to-wear, like the clothes you keep in your closet? What does traditional craft mean to high-tech products? What is the physical connection between these objects of fetish and the internet buzz that proceeds/follows each product launch? How do we create real and tangible advertising for the next CE products? And look for the introduction of “new” materials in the small details of each product…the platform of these devices is relatively standardized by its components, phones and laptops are a commodity. The design is in the details and the story you tell.”

—Kara Johnson, lead of the Materials Team at IDEO, is the co-author of Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design and the forthcoming book, I Miss My Pencil

This TiVo-in-a-box comes with everything you need for PC DVR goodness.

(Credit: Nero)

Many times in this space I’ve sung the praises of TV tuners, which let you watch and record shows on your PC, TiVo-style. Well, now you can get more than just the style: Nero’s LiquidTV TiVo PC brings the actual TiVo software to your system….

Originally posted at The Cheapskate