Hasta La Gadget!

The PenMoto uses magnets to stick pens and styluses to your finger

Kelvin Geis’s PenMoto is not yet another iPad stylus. What it is is an accessory thatwill make the pen or stylus you already own a lot easier to use.

The PenMoto consists of two parts, both containing magnets. Let’s assume you’re right handed (although it works fine on the left hand, too). The first part is a ring that encircles your index finger, and puts a flat surface in the left (thumb) side. This surface has large and a small rare-earth magnets embedded in it.

The second part is a smaller ring that clips onto a pen or stylus. The pen sticks to your finger when you write. You just flick the pen and it flips 180º, allowing you to use an eraser, or you can just ignore it and it is stowed on the back of your hand so you can type or use your fingers to touch a screen.

The magnets are coated to make them slide over each other. The larger magnets form the pivot and the smaller magnets let the pen snap into place. Here’s a video of it in action (the demo starts at 38 seconds in):

The set comes in different sizes. A split ring will fit most fingers, but the couplers are sized for a capacitive stylus, a Pilot G2 pen or a Wacom Intuos4 tablet stylus. I love the idea. I can already see plenty of places I would use it: in Spanish class, when I’m flipping between writing on paper and using my iPad; at home, using a Wacom Bamboo tablet and also pretty much anywhere I’d use a pen. Also, you have magnets on your finger, so you can play at being a weak, underpowered Magneto.

Geis’s project is being funded by Kickstarter, and pledges start at $10 for a G2 pen kit (pen not included). There are 36 days left to reach the $40,000 goal. Go pledge now, because I want to buy one of these for myself.

PenMoto project page [Kickstarter. Thanks, Kelvin!]

See Also:

• Frikkin' Magnets. How Do They Work?
• IFixit Smart Cover Teardown: Contains Magnets. Lots of Magnets …
• Now You're Cooking … With Magnets!
• Joby's New Tripod Gear: Magnets and Balls

There’s probably no better tool in the gadgeteer’s box than a roll of Gaffer Tape (or duct tape, if you don’t mind sticky or crumbly residues). But what about its humble household cousin, Scotch Tape? Traditionally used for wrapping gifts or taping broken spectacles back together, it has another amazing talent. It can let you see through solid objects.

If those solid objects are in fact sheets of frosted glass. If you have a frosted window that you need to take a peek through, tear off a strip of tape and press it down firmly onto the pane. The roughened, opaque surface is transformed into a smooth, shiny one, and the light that was previously scattered into vague suggestions of shape and color now comes through sharp and clear:

I’m amazed we never saw this trick in a MacGyver episode.

Weird Tape Effect [YouTube via Core77]

See Also:

• Scotch Tape
• Can Scotch Tape Really Boost iPhone Signal Strength?
• Video: The Scotch-Tape X-Ray Machine

Scan It! Lets you shop with your iPhone

Shoppers in U.S supermarket chain Stop & Shop can use their iPhones to scan and pay for their groceries. A new app from Modiv, called Scan It!, uses the customer’s loyalty card and camera to do the work historically done by underpaid humans.

You know how self checkout usually makes you want to throw your shopping onto the floor and storm out with a cloud of red mist swirling around you? First, the damn scanner won’t work, and this is even more stressful as there is a line forming behind you. Then you need to follow the byzantine instructions designed for trained professionals, not casual shoppers. Then your credit card won’t work. It’s maddening.

With Scan It!, you scan the barcode of your loyalty card and go shopping. As you scan the groceries, the total is totted up for you. You bag items as you go and, when you’re done, the app sends the details to the store’s computers. When you reach a register, you scan the loyalty card, pay as usual and leave.

It’s a simple extension of Stop & Shop’s existing handsets, made much easier with your phone. and of course you’ll be happy to know that personalized offers will spam your iPhone constantly.

If Apple gets around to adding an NFC chip to upcoming iPhones, which will allow direct, contactless payments from the phone itself, then you could — in theory — shop, scan and pay, all without visiting a checkout at all. And this may in turn lead to TSA-style security setups at the door to check your honesty. I can’t wait.

Scan It! product page [Modiv via MIT Technology Review and Counternotions]

This article was written on July 07, 2006 by CyberNet.

It looks like eBay has now done everything that they can to prevent Google from stepping onto their turf. Just yesterday eBay added the Google Checkout system in their Acceptable Payments Policy terms under “Payment Services not permitted on eBay.” If you violate the policy you could get your eBay account suspended.

While I understand where eBay is coming from, it is funny because Google Checkout doesn’t allow users to transfer money between each other. If you want to perform a transaction it has to be completed at an Online store that accepts Google Checkout. There is a pretty nice list of merchants that are already using the Google Checkout system and some even offer a discount for paying with Google. Maybe someday Google will decide to let users send money to eachother, but for right now PayPal still owns that world.

News Source: BetaNews

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Photos of Sony’s next NEX camera have leaked onto the internet. It’s called the NEX-C3, and it looks like a slightly rounded out version of the existing NEX-3 and NEX-5, as if these cameras had spent the last year eating potato chips and playing Angry Birds on the sofa.

The NEX lineup is Sony’s mirrorless range, which puts SLR-sized APS-C sensors into usually slim bodies with interchangeable lenses. The NEX-3 and NEX-5 both launched on May 11th last year, after several pictures had already leaked out.

The NEX-C3 adds a flip-out screen, which likely accounts for most of the extra girth (it wasn’t really potato chips), packs stereo mics and has a 16.2 megapixel sensor. It also shoots HD video, but as we can’t read any numbers on the pictures, we’ll assume it is 720p like the NEX-3.

Will the NEX-C3 replace the existing NEX-3? Unlikely. I see quite a lot of tourists (mostly from Sony’s home, Japan) carrying the little NEX cameras here in Barcelona, and part of their popularity probably comes form their tiny size. The flip-out screen makes the body a little too thick, so my guess is that we may also see a NEX-C5, and the existing models will either remain unchanged, or see their own updates soon.

First images of the Sony NEX C3 camera [Photo Rumors]