Hasta La Gadget!

Few designs are as close to perfect – or as well-tested – as the modern double-triangle bike. It is comfortable, strong, amazingly efficient and compact enough to carry, but that hasn’t stopped designers trying to find a better way, year after year. Not since the chair has an object inspired so many crazy interpretations.

Popular Mechanics showcases some of the weirdest (and coolest) takes on the bike in a gallery of redesigns. The list of designers runs from backyard makers (Georgi Georgiev’s amazing 83 mph Varna Tempest) to car companies (Lexus’ odd hybrid with the frame of a racing bike and the wheels of a granny’s shopper).

You’ll also find a modern take on the penny farthing, or p-far, in the form of the Mini-Penny (below) which comes on like a cross between a chopper and a shopping cart.

They’re not all oddballs, though. In the gallery you’ll see the Strida, that folding triangular bike with tiny wheels that was born back in 1987 and despite looking almost impossible to ride is seen zipping around cities the world over.

But the most fantastic of all is Blair Hasty’s machine (top), a machine of which the designer seems to have missed the point entirely. From the name (“Collapsible Bike”) to its purpose (relief of rider back-pain) it is humdrum through an through. But look at it. It’s a human-powered Tron Light-cycle!

10 Brilliant Redesigns for the Bicycle [Popular Mechanics. Thanks, Rob!]

See Also:

• Peugeot Concept Bike Channels Tron
• Scary-Looking Concept Bike is All Corners
• Flawed Bike Concept for Danger-Loving Hipsters
• Six Crazy Concept Bikes You'll Never Ride
• Future Bike Design Concept Misses Point

It’s a sad fact of life, really. Regardless of where you go, you’ll end up needing to recharge something in your carry-on. Just the mere thought of locating an AC adapter in that airport you’re headed to is enough to give even the most hardened traveler a reason to think twice, and tracking down one of those inverters for your road trip is just about the last thing you’d like to be doing. DigiPower has just pushed out the solution to all of your problems, with the JumpStart Dual 2-in-1 battery / AC adapter offering the ability to juice up a pair of USB devices via the internal 1,700mAh rechargeable battery. Each port is capable of rejuvenating 5V devices, and there’s a status indicator, emergency flashlight and folding plugs for “easy transport.” The company claims that this can be recharged over 500 times, after which you’ll need to contact Sir Odor Blocker after the break for a pinch of P-P-P-P-P-P-Power.

Continue reading JumpStart Dual USB charger sports an integrated rechargeable battery

JumpStart Dual USB charger sports an integrated rechargeable battery originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Right up until the iPad became real, one of our favorite pastimes was to chuckle at the Pogo Stylus, a pen designed for capacitive touch-screens. After all, who needs a pen for the iPhone when it is designed to work great with a finger?

But the iPad is also a rather nice electronic canvas. Drawing and painting with your finger will give you a picture even your mom wouldn’t hang on the refrigerator, so the little foam-tipped Pogo has finally become quite a valuable tool. In fact, it has now gotten its own accessory: the Particle Case, also from Ten One design.

The case is really little more than an extended clip for the Pogo. A rubberized strip runs around the edge of the iPad, similar to the new iPhone Bumpers only they wrap around a little more . There are cut-outs for the ports and buttons, and a little clip in which to hold your Pogo stylus. And that’s it.

You do at least get a Pogo thrown in, and the little rubber feet on the back stop the iPad from wobbling when placed flat on a table, but its hard to see the market for this. After all, it offers almost no protection (the back is open, for example) but will stop the iPad from sliding into a more substantial case.

The Particle Case will cost you $35.

Particle Case [Ten One. Thanks, Jenny!]

See Also:

• Pogo Stick Turns Mac Touchpads into Graphics Tablets
• Pogo Stylus: The Most Useless iPhone Accessory. Ever
• Pogo iPhone Stylus Bounces Back. Again

If you’ve been bragging about your all-encompassing 7.2 surround-sound system to of your friends, prepare for a mighty dose of humble pie. Audi has hand-crafted what it calls the Sound Concept, an in-car sound system so excessive it should be able to cause your soft, fleshy bits to pulsate in new and exciting ways. There are five tweeters scattered across the dash and the doors, five woofers (four in the doors and a monster in the back), and then a whopping 52 mid-range speakers encircling the entire enclosure, creating a package that’s not likely to show up in the options catalog anytime soon. All these have been wedged into the interior of a Q7 SUV in the interests of Wave Field Synthesis, minimizing a user’s ability to hear specific speakers — and blowing Audyssey’s paltry 11-speaker DSX system right out of the water.

Audi’s Sound Concept cabin defines auditory excess: 62 speaker surround-sound originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Cnet, Autoblog  |  Gizmag  | Email this | Comments

Lately Apple is trying to throw itself down a recursive rabbit-hole. First there was Apple Store, the iPhone app to buy an iPhone. Now we get Find my iPhone, an iPhone app to let you find your lost iPhone.

The free download from the App store works on any iDevice and requires a MobileMe account. Essentially, it is the same service that you would use if you signed in to MobileMe on your desktop browser, allowing you to see the lost iPhone’s position on a map, send a message and alarm sound to the device, lock it, or remotely wipe all data if it is truly lost.

You’ll the Find my iPhone setting on any iPhone already, as well as having it connected to your MobileMe account, and you’ll also need to have the battery-sucking “push” setting switched on for the account. Push keeps a connection open with compatible accounts so things like email can be pushed to the iPhone as they arrive.

Does it work? Sure. And on the iPad it is especially nice-looking, with a big map to show you just where your lost phone is. But there is one huge problem. You have to enter your MobileMe password every single time you launch the app. If you have a proper, secure password that includes symbols and numbers, you’re going to have a fun time doing that on the iPhone’s keyboard.

Apple suggests that “if you lose your iPhone or iPad while on the go, simply install this free app on any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to find it.” Sure, Apple. My MobileMe password is a huge, randomly generated chain of nonsense made for me by 1Password. Maybe I should change it to something easier to remember, like 1234?

As it stands, the idea is great, but the implementation is kind of hopeless. Avoid.

Find My iPhone [iTunes]

See Also:

• 'Apple Store' Application: Buy an iPhone with Your iPhone