Hasta La Gadget!

The bulletproof clipboard will protect you from inattentive and yet highly accurate shooters

I’m surprised those buttonholers who stop you in the street and try to convince you to give them your bank details for charity don’t get beaten up more often. Fortunately, we don’t yet live in a world where people get shot just for being (really, really) annoying.

But if we did, those persistent, pain-in-the-ass professional panhandlers would probably carry the Bulletproof Body Armor Clipboard, a 9 x 12-inch slab of level II body armor with a clip attached. It will stop 9mm bullets.

So next time a charity beggar walks up to a psychopath in the street and asks “Would you consider donating to…” and that psychopath lets loose with an automatic, the poor minimum-wager can just duck behind their little rectangle. Then, when the clip has been emptied, they can cheerily wish the shooter a good afternoon, and implore them to “Have a nice day”, before moving onto the next poor sap who is only trying to walk to the coffee shop.

The only problem with this otherwise entirely realistic scenario? The clipboard weighs three pounds, which is pretty heavy to carry around all day. $45.

Bulletproof Body Armor Clipboard [ThinkGeek]

See Also:

• Extreme Test: Going Ballistic on Bulletproof Vests
• President Obama Wears Bullet-Resistant Suit at Inaugural
• Bulletproof Handkerchief Protects A Gentleman's Heart
• Exploding Bullet-Proof Vest: Worst Armor Idea Ever?
• Paranoia! Bulletproof Backpack to Keep your Kids Safe
• Bulletproof Baby Stroller for the Smart Urban Baby

Google has been working long and hard on self-driving cars. You may remember late last year when Google’s fleet of self-driving vehicles were caught on the road. Google initially said the technology was at least eight years away from prime time. Even if that’s still true, it hasn’t stopped Google from quietly lobbying the Nevada […]

The iKeyboard adds tactile feedback with minimal bulk

Despite writing over 1,200 words in his product’s description, inventor Cliff Thier doesn’t once describe how it actually works. No matter. With a little sleuthing, we see that his iKeyboard is quite clever indeed.

Cliff’s iKeyboard is an overlay for the iPad’s own soft keyboard. Instead of carrying a bulky external keyboard, you can just slap Cliff’s floppy accessory onto the iPad and enjoy the tactile feedback you don’t normally get with a touch screen.

The iKeyboard has two main sections. A sheet has cutouts for each key, and underneath this are the keys themselves. These are rectangular panels, curved so that they only touch the screen along their upper and lower edges. They are presumably made of conductive material, and when you press one down the key is activated.

I spent the last few days with my family in dreary, rundown England, and — aside from getting poisoned by English food — I showed my iPad 2 to my mother. She loved it, but as a touch-typist she kept resting her fingers on the home keys, with predictable results. The iKeyboard lets you do this, perhaps making typing easier for some people.

Cliff’s project is up on Kickstarter, where it has already reached its $4,000 funding goal. The price looks as if it will be just $30. which is just right for this kind of thing.

iKeyboard [Kickstarter]

See Also:

• Writer, an iPad Keyboard Case for Pros
• Keydex: The Ugliest iPad 'Keyboard' Ever?
• ThinkGeek Joins iPad Keyboard Case Cavalcade

Steffi Min’s Peg is as ingenious as it is simple. It’s a ceiling lamp which looks like a clothespin, only instead of screwing in the bulb you just prize open the jaws and slide the bulb in.

The jaws contact the base and thread of the bulb and allow the current to flow. It couldn’t be any simpler, and it also means an end to that dangerous practice of trying to unscrew the jagged remains of a broken bulb from a stubborn fixing.

Steffi’s design is not yet commercially available, which is a shame as I would love to try one. Not for plain lighting, though. I want to see what happens to a red-hot bulb when it is dropped, almost still glowing, to the floor.

Peg [Vimeo via Oh Gizmo!]

Steffi Min’s internet home website [Steffi Min]

See Also:

• What's Inside a Lightbulb? Twenty Inches of Tungsten Coil
• Three-In One Lightbulb Is an Energy-Saving Matryoshka
• Oct. 21, 1879: Edison Gets the Bright Light Right
• 'World's Only' Solar-Powered Light-Bulb
• Beautiful Sculpted Lightbulb Too Good for a Shade
• Levitating, Wireless Lightb

  
  

  

  

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The G3 has the looks of an SLR, and the size of a compact

Panasonic’s new G3 Micro Four Thirds G3 continues the trend set by its two predecessors: Not only is it smaller, but it continues to exploit features that aren’t available in DSLRs.

First is a brand new sensor. Instead of Panasonic’s favorite 12MP sensor, the G3 has a 16.6MP chip. Next is the styling. The G3 looks a lot more like a compact camera, with a smaller finger-grip than the more SLR-style G1 and G2. This reduction continues with the dropping of some manual hardware features: gone is the eye-sensor, which would switch between the rear LCD and the viewfinder automatically. Now it is a manual control. And while the G3 has stereo mics for video, you can no longer connect external mics.

Gone also are the manual focus controls. Instead, you can now touch the screen to choose a focus point, just like the iPhone. And according to early hands-on reports, the entire touch-screen interface is easier to use.

The aluminum-bodied G3 will be available from today, in black, red, white and brown (!). It will come with the adequate 14-42mm zoom in a $700 kit.

Lumix G3 press release [Panasonic via DP Review]

See Also:

• Panasonic G2 Adds Touch-To-Shoot Screen, 1080p Video
• Panasonic Launches First 'Micro Four Thirds' Camera
• Hands-On With Panasonic's Leica-Lite GF1
• Panasonic Falters With Button-Light Lumix GF2