Perhaps one of the least protective iPad cases available but simultaneously one of the coolest ones, Colorware’s new Grip for iPad is the first product that Colorware actually manufactures. The company has made its success on providing customization and color options for a gaming consoles, laptops, and other devices that you couldn’t get from their manufacturers.
The new Grip for iPad is made of aircraft aluminum and fits snugly around your iPad to keep it protected. It features a prominent handle on the side of the case, and comes in virtually any color you choose. It’s available in three different models: the version that fits an unpainted, stock iPad, or one of the two versions that fits an iPad that’s been painted by ColorWare with wither a glossy finish or the “softtouch” matte finish.
The Grip for iPad will cost you $300, regardless of which model you select, and each one comes with tools and instructions to make sure you install it around your iPad for the best fit and protection. New orders will ship in 3-4 weeks.
We took delivery of a Recompute recently. This doesn’t sound like a stunning statement: we get fancy new tech to play with all of the time, some of it stamped with the “green” moniker for better or worse. But the Recompute is just so far fetched: an entire desktop PC… built with cardboard! Sure, the internals are standard off-the-shelf PC components, but from the outside Recompute looks like nothing we’ve ever seen, and that’s really saying something for a desktop industry that’s tried just about every look twice. Check out our impressions of the green machine after the break.
Let’s end the week with something really wonderful, shall we? Check out the SLR Pinhole Lens from Photojojo. It’s a sublime little combination of hi- and lo-tech, bringing the simplicity of a pinhole camera to the body cap of your Canon or Nikon D-SLR. Pretty clever, right?
Of course, the fact that you can create a similar effect using an actual pinhole makes us wonder whether this thing is really worth the $50 Photojojo is asking. Though, as the site points out, the thing has been created using lasers. And lasers are pretty neat.
Also, this thing also does its job as a body cap, keeping your camera sage from harmful dust, so two birds for one arguably over-priced stone.
With summer officially over, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll spend the upcoming snowy months. If you’re a skier, snowboarder, snowshoer, or any other outdoor winter sport enthusiast, there’s a new piece of gear available this season for the first time ever. The Recon-Zeal Transcend goggles is the first set of GPS-enabled goggles in the world to feature a head-mounted display system.
British Columbia-based Recon Instruments teamed up with with Colorado-based Zeal Optics to create the revolutionary goggles that feature an integrated display. According to Recon Instruments’ Web site, “Transcend provides real-time feedback including speed, latitude/longitude, altitude, vertical distance travelled, total distance travelled, chrono/stopwatch mode, a run-counter, temperature and time.” In addition to its GPS capabilities, it features USB charging and data transfer, and free post-processing software.
The goggles come in two models: the Transcend SPPX, which come fitted with SPPX polarized and photochromic lenses ($499); and the Transcend SPX, which feature SPX polarized lenses ($399). Recon is currently offering a limited release for shoppers in Canda. For U.S. pre-orders, check out Zeal Optics. The goggles will be fully available on Oct. 10, 2010.
There are Jell-O shots. And then there are the shots from My Jello Americans: Cory Kete, Moe Sheehan, and Megan Booth have elevated the Jell-O shot into an art form. An art form that gets you wasted. More »
He’s pioneered the personal computer, Segway polo, reality TV dance programs, and showing up in public with Kathy Griffin–is there anything Steve Wozniak can’t do? If you listed acting on a prime time sitcom, you, my friend, are severely mistaken.
The Woz, who, all things considered, has made a pretty good career for himself being the other, less famous guy from Apple (he’s also had a decent post-Apple side career in the technology industry), popped up in last night’s episode of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory.
Steve Job is discussed, turtlenecks are mocked, studio laughter is heard, and a generation of nerds raised on network television think they’re in on an inside joke. Go team.
Editor’s note: Wired.com contributor Jeremy Hart is making a 60-day, 15,000-mile drive around the world with a few mates in a pair of Ford Fiestas. He’s filing occasional reports from the road on gadgets he’s road-testing.
I hate to rave about any gadget now. Seems the minute I like something, it goes and fails on me.
The latest one to struggle with the vigors of the Fiesta World Tour is the Spot tracker.
It worked fine as we left Europe to cross the Bosporus for Asia. But with internet a hit-and-miss thing in places like Jordan (at the Movenpick Hotel on the Dead Sea I’ll admit we were more preoccupied with floating like a cork), I did not check if it was pinging our location every 10 minutes, as planned.
So by the time we hit fast internet at the large pink, peanut-shaped Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi, I realized our trans-Arabia blast had been invisible to the orbiting satellites that are supposed to track the Spot’s progress.
Turns out the lithium batteries had run out — in a mere 10 days! I’m glad my life did not depend on the thing. So, with new juice installed, you can see now that we reached Dubai at the end of Leg 2 of our four-leg expedition to Sydney, Australia.
But, it was a close thing. We lost a crew member to a family emergency back home. With two crew and three cars for the Saudi Arabia crossing, we pulled in a good Saudi friend, Eias, to help with the driving. So: 900 miles in 14 hours. You do the math …
Eias is a gadget freak. He loved the kit we had aboard. His favorites were the iridium sat phone (it works great, but we found there is cell coverage even in the most remote corner of the Empty Quarter — they must turn sand dunes into cell towers), the plug-in Camping Gaz fridge full of cold water (it hit 125 degrees north of Riyadh), and the Handpresso machine plus accompanying plug-in kettle. This from a man with 25 motorbikes and a house full of other toys.
Making the perfect cup of espresso in the middle of the desert with the Handpresso.
“Excellent coffee,” he declared when we made him an espresso close to the Iraqi border. But sweet Arabic tea is the thing out here. A portable tea maker might sell well in Saudi.
Right now the Handpresso is up there in our top travel gadgets, too.
When it gets to 125 degrees, this plug-in fridge by Camping Gaz is a welcome friend.
Another great gadget is the Tom Tom satellite navigation app for our photographer Anthony’s iPhone. It has kept us circumnavigating when road signs and local fixers have failed. We just hope it works, as advertised, by using satellite signals, not cell coverage — otherwise Anthony’s going to owe his cell provider a pile of money.
With the family emergency for our technician, I had to nip back to London for 36 hours. Based on advice from our photographer in the upcoming China section, I picked up the Huawei E5 mobile Wi-Fi unit and plan to feed it a supply of local data SIM cards in each place we go. I will use it for the first time when we hit Hong Kong. The photographer also told me of a gadget market where we can indulge our desires. I cannot wait.
I also brought out the wireless keyboard for my iPad, in hopes of making it feel more like my trusty 15-inch MacBook Pro. The keyboard makes the iPad more friendly for a writer for sure, but I still dislike the lack of road-office support from the iPad.
I frequently want to find old files and images and trawl old e-mails for information, and it’s hard to do that with a tablet. The iPad, I conclude, is a great piece of kit for short flights or commuter train trips or a tool for viewing or showing off pictures and video. But as a mobile office for a two-month trip, it fails.
My blogs from now on will be on the MacBook Pro.
We crossed Saudi Arabia with just two cars and almost no spares. Long hours with not even a camel to say hello to brought the need for our Motorola walkietalkies into focus. Powered by the car’s USB link, they kept the intercar banter flowing.
Lastly, and another of my top gadgets, is the Flip Ultra HD. We have been using it for blogs and even for as secondary camera for our TV work. I’ve even done a short video blog for you, shot with the Flip Ultra — so now you can see us and our road-worn cars and kit in glorious high-def video — assuming you’ve got the bandwidth, that is.
Glu Mobile has released a port of its Transformers G1: Awakening iPhone game to the Android Market this week. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20018346-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p
And this, folks, is a lesson of what not to do if you’re a major carrier with a majorly perturbed user base. In a way, this sort of feels like the Instinct update debacle all over again, with users claiming that a promised software update was being held beyond the 30 day return window in order to keep contracts alive. 24 hours after a Sprint forum administrator proudly proclaimed that a long-awaited Epic 4G software update was rolling out over the next few days, another admin has chimed in with a nearly-audible “sike!” Rather than letting users cheer its hard work over the weekend, Epic 4G owners are now being told that “administrative issues” are to blame for a new delay — a delay that’ll stretch on for an undetermined amount of time, to boot. Oh, and back on the topic of what not to do, the operator’s forum admin has also thrown a jab at all of you out there that would even think of accusing Sprint of pushing this update beyond the 30 day return window. Look, we all know it’s a baseless conspiracy theory, but there’s really no need to get feisty, is there? Full announcement is after the break.
Update: Looks as if the update is out there if you’re brave enough to do it yourself. But honestly, is it worth it? Probably.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Perhaps one of the least protective iPad cases available but simultaneously one of the coolest ones, Colorware’s new Grip for iPad is the first product that Colorware actually manufactures. The company has made its success on providing customization and color options for a gaming consoles, laptops, and other devices that you couldn’t get from their manufacturers.
With summer officially over, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll spend the upcoming snowy months. If you’re a skier, snowboarder, snowshoer, or any other outdoor winter sport enthusiast, there’s a new piece of gear available this season for the first time ever. The 
