Now that second-generation pico (i.e. really tiny) projectors are hitting the streets, you can pick up first-gen models for a song.
Witness the 3M MPro110, on sale at Newegg for $149.99 shipped. It’s a refurb, but given that it sold new for $359 just 10 months ago,
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Originally posted at The Cheapskate
With the introduction of a solar-powered e-book from LG Display, owners will soon be able to read for hours on end, so long as they’re outside and the sun is up.
This is because the new offering boasts both an e-book and a thin-film,
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Granted, the winter is coming upon us (in the populous northern part of the planet at least), so your thoughts may be turning more to toasty woolen slippers and scarves than open, flip-flop style footwear, but these Japanese slippers are both ingenious and probably easy to make yourself. Pair with thick socks for winter warmth, but please don’t go out wearing such a combination unless you are a genuine Embarrassing Dad.
The Pop-Up Slippers are simply two ovals of foam, cut to allow the edges to be folded over the foot and secured with a hole and a metal stud. Ingenious, and as easy to make as a trip to the hardware store to buy the foam and a craft knife.
In fact, would this work with old car tires, or are they too heavy to bend (and we know how hard they are to cut, having hacked a few from wheel rims in our younger days)?
Or save yourself the trouble of making this fold-flat, suitcase-friendly flip-flop by buying one for $25 ($35), made in Japan.
Product page [Curiosite via Book of Joe]
We like it when GPS is feeding us information, telling us when traffic is causing a problem and indicating when a bridge is out so that we can warm up our voices ahead of all the hootin’ and a hollerin’ required for our General Lee replica to clear the gap. However, we’re not too keen on the All-Seeing Eye aspect of GPS, and that’s what we’re fearing in Ford’s latest research. The company gave a $120,000 grant to the Auburn University’s GPS and Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory to look into using GPS for accident prevention, and while results won’t be unveiled until later this week, descriptions of “an early warning system that detects when a vehicle is about to lose control” and then tweaks vehicle traction and stability control settings based on the speed of the car and the severity of upcoming bends sounds a half-step away from the auto-braking assist in Gran Turismo. Or, perhaps that’s just Ford-speak for an Aspid-like system for optimizing suspension based on road twistiness. Given that Ford no longer makes a car designed for going around corners quickly, we find that unlikely.
Update: Wes Sherwood from Ford took the time to comment, indicating that “wide-reaching privacy laws prevent the type of monitoring suggested in this post.” That’s very good to hear. Still no word on when the Mustang will get independent rear suspension, though.
[Via Carperformance]
Filed under: Transportation
Ford GPS tech could tell cars when you’re going too fast originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The umbrella is, like the chair, something designers can’t seem to stay away from. The portable, ribbed rain-protector has been modified to do all kinds of double-duty, from melon and head smashing weaponry through death-dealing, spy-killing poison delivery device to the hands-free numbrella.
Now there is an umbrella which actually enhances the core purpose of the brolly — keeping the rain off. The Inside Out Umbrella folds down after a shower like any other brolly, but it has a double skin, the inside layer of which can be pulled out and wrapped around the outside. This keeps the brolly drip free for quick trips inside.
The Inside Out Umbrella is a concept design, but the Brit in me has his miserable, rain-wrinkled fingers crossed for a production model.
Wet Umbrellas No More [Yanko]
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Several of the documents hidden from our anxious eyes during the FCC filing have now gone public. Not only can you visually inspect its innards, the feds have also laid bare the full spec sheet for the ASUS Eee Keyboard model EK1542. Beneath the 5-inch, 800 x 480 pixel touch panel (with stylus) we’ll be getting Windows XP Home running on an Intel Atom N270, 945GSE / ICH7-M chipset with Broadcom AV-VD905 video decoder, 1GB of DDR2 memory, either 16GB or 32GB of flash storage, 4-hour battery, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and VGA outputs, integrated stereo speakers and mic, 3x USB, headphone and mic jacks, and external WiFi / UWB antenna. The Eee Keyboard’s on-board Ultra-Wideband (UWB) throws 720p content to your TV within a 5-meter range (10-meters for non-video transmissions) via a UWB receiver packing 2x USB ports, another mini-USB port, audio out, and HDMI. You can even connect to two external monitors at the same time using UWB and either VGA or HDMI cable. Now all we need is a final date and price… ASUS?
[Via EeePC.it]
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Eee Keyboard splayed, detailed by FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Endoscopy, or the examination of a person’s bowels via a tube-mounted camera, is not exactly the most pleasant medical procedure one could undergo. In 2004, we noted the early stages of a project to alleviate the (literal) pain of the procedure with a spider pill, which — once swallowed by the hopefully willing patient — can be remotely controlled and positioned inside the human body. Yes, it’s a tiny, wirelessly communicating robot with a camera for a head crawling inside you. Hit the read link for the full BBC report, it really is worth seeing, and start your Innerspace jokes … now!
Filed under: Portable Video, Robots
‘Spider pill’ bowel scanner will be ready within a year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ThinkGeek’s amazingly cute/icky Tauntaun sleeping bag began life like many of ThinkGeek’s products — as an April Fool gag. Popular demand and now the (probably smiling) approval of George Lucas will make your kids’ night-on-Hoth-inside-dead-biped’s-carcass sleepover parties a reality.
In fact, the polyester, machine-washable sleeping bags also fit adults (just like a real dead Tauntaun), making it the perfect, and surely most appropriate, attire for those marathon winter-time Star Wars-watching sessions. It even keeps the lightsaber zipper-pull from the original design, and intestines printed on the lining.
Pre-order for November delivery. $100, and worth every penny.
Product page [ThinkGeek via the Giz]
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Think the CTIA is only good for swank trade shows? Think again! It’s actually a trade group created to fight for your interests — or at least those interests of your duly elected wireless providers — and apparently top among those lists of interests is plug standardization. Yes, we’re not the only ones sick of still having a sprawling mess of a gadget charging station, so CTIA is saying that micro-USB will be the power standard for all handsets and mobile devices. Likewise, the 3.5mm audio plug will be the standard for audio output on those same gadgets. It’s shocking, we know, if only because we thought the entire gadget universe was already on board, with everyone and their mommas signing up for micro-USB and even HTC finally making room for a 3.5mm hole in the bottom of their handsets. These standards are set to go into effect in January of 2012, meaning we should get a good 11 months or so of dongle-free gadget harmony before the apocalypse.
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video
CTIA jumps on the micro-USB bandwagon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There will always be paper books for die-hard romantics like my friend Jimmy, who actually smells a volume before he reads it and then, when done, can sit for hours in almost-darkness, stroking his calloused poet’s fingers across the smooth wood-pulp and dreaming of the good-old days of cotton paper and cow-skin covers.
But for more normal people, the technology that we use to read books in the near future will be based on silicon, not cellulose, and the e-book market is heating up. One of the big benefits of e-paper is that it sips electricity allowing devices to work for days rather than hours. LG’s foray into the e-book world extends this with a solar panel, helpfully placed on the front inside cover of the reader itself, and at just ten grams and less than a millimeter thick, it will be almost unnoticeable.
If exposed to the sun for five hours, the TFT solar panel will give enough charge for a day of use. LG plans to up the efficiency and we can see a time when e-books will never need to be charged. Remember the first solar-powered calculators? They were a novelty which is now ubiquitous. And e-books are especially well suited to solar power, as they need to be read in a bright place and few of us want to recharge our books.
When, or even if, this prototype will go on sale is unknown. But it doesn’t matter. Somebody, somewhere, will make one soon enough.
Solar Cell e-Book from LG Display [OLED Display]
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