Aug 05

$100 LiveRider Kit Turns iPhone into Bike Computer

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, apps, ios, iPhone, Software, Today's Chili

Oh man. If the LiveRider is anywhere near as good as it looks, then it’s going to sell roughly one zillion units. It’s a hardware/software combo that turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a cycling computer, and it looks pretty hot.

First, the hardware. It comprises a frame-mounted sensor which cable-ties onto the chainstay and senses speed and cadence via magnets attached to the wheel and crank. This beams its info via 2.4 GHz RF to a dongle plugged in to the iPhone. The iPhone itself sits snug in a shock-absorbing handlebar-mount.

You then fire up the free companion app and get access to all the usual data: speed, cadence, calories burned and so on, but on the big screen and in easy-to-view color. If you have GPS in your iDevice, it will also use that to let you know where you are.

My favorite feature is called “Chase Rider”, and it is like nothing so much as the ghost-driver feature in Super Mario Kart. It will remember past rides and play them back so you can race against your own best times. Neat.

The whole setup weighs in at just 3-ounces, and costs a very reasonable $100. You will, of course, need to supply your own iPhone (everything fits except the first and last iPhones). UPDATE the folks behind the LiveRider tell me that it will fit all iPhones, including the 1G and the iPhone 4. Available now.

LiveRider [New Potato Tech]

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Aug 05

None More Minimal: Tiny Mini Riser Notebook Stand

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Notebooks, Today's Chili

Laboratory 424’s Mini Riser laptop stand is so simple you could make one yourself in minutes. At $8 for two, it is also so cheap that you don’t have to.

Laptops run hot, and you are almost obliged to get a little space between base and desk if you want to stop those fans kicking in as soon as you go near YouTube. Laboratory 424’s boffins realized that most stands aren’t as portable as the notebooks they are supposed to accompany, so they made one so minimal that it can slip unnoticed into a laptop bag yet be strong enough to support up to 16-kilos (35-pounds) of hot metal and glass.

The Mini Riser is little more than a sturdy, bendable wire with a rubberized vinyl coating. The amorphous “m” shape is reminiscent of a million badly-designed corporate logos, and comes in almost as many colors (ten). Once out on the desk, it just slides under the back of you notebook, propping it up and giving both a better viewing angle and keeping the air flowing.

But what I love the most about the Mini Riser is the gallery on the website. Why use boring old modern laptops in your photo-shoot when you can use old toilet-seat iBooks and even more ancient hardware instead? There’s even an OS X joke in the captions.

Mini Riser [Laboratory 424. Thanks, Jeff!]




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Aug 04

4G WiMax Hot-Spot for iPads, iPhones

Posted in: 4G, Accessories and Peripherals, router, Today's Chili, WiMAX

Once a novelty (a very handy and popular one, but a novelty nonetheless), MiFi-style personal hotspots are now popping as fast as new cellphones. But these 3G-data-sharing boxes are swiftly getting old. The new hotness is 4G, and the iSpot from Clear is one of the few around.

The iSpot uses Clear’s own WiMax network and allows up to eight devices to connect at a time. Weirdly, it is billed as working only with Apple devices (hence the white styling which matches all of Apple’s mobile products… Wait, no) but as it send the 4G signal out over WiFi, it should be fine with anything (it looks like USB-tethering to a laptop has been disabled, though).

As for specs, the iSpot will serve 4G at speeds of 3Mbps to 6Mbps down, and will do it for up to four hours. It costs $100 and you’ll need to be on Clear’s $30-per-month plan to get it. Perfect for adding 4G to your white iPhone. If it ever ships, that is.

iSpot [Clear via Slashgear]

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Aug 04

PVC-Pipe Speakers for Space Age Bachelor Pad Music

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, diy, speakers, Today's Chili

If Stanley Kubrick had decided to make the plumbing in 2001’s Discovery One spaceship visible, it would have looked like this. These gorgeous speakers are hand-built by Etsy seller Ikymagoo, and are little more than cleverly-joined sections of PVC-pipe with a pair of speakers shoved in the ends.

The Ikyaudio Sea Cucumbers Audio Speakers use three-inch magnesium/aluminum alloy drivers in the ends, and the tail of the caterpillar-like curls has a hole in the end which acts as a bass-port. The amp is connected via binding posts (and you’ll need an amp – these speakers are unpowered) and Ikymagoo says they have a “nice sound and a very good sound stage, lots of low end bass for a small speaker.”

The Lady pegged them as Japanese in styling right away, and suggested I clear out the living-room and put in some tatami-mats, a couple cushions and these speakers. I would have to pay for this, of course, and the Ikyaudios are a rather steep $200 a pair, so I’d probably make my own.

Lucky for me, Ikymagoo has posted an extensive how-to on his speaker constructions At DIY Audio Projects, complete with a video of the prototypes in action. It actually looks pretty easy, but if you would rather get a pair of these instead, they also come in red and yellow.

Ikyaudio White Sea Cucumbers Audio Speakers [Etsy via Make]

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Aug 03

Pimp Your Ride: Cyglo Bike Tires with Embedded LEDs

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Today's Chili

Cyglo bike tires are the pimped-out equivalent of spinners for bikes. They have LEDs embedded into the rubber which will glow in a perfect circle of light as the wheels turn, making you safe but also making you look awesome/stupid as you ride.

The design, patented in the US and the UK by inventor James Tristram, is powered by the spinning of the wheel itself. The big question about the Cyglo Tyre (it’s English, hence the spelling) is whether putting LEDs directly onto a tire-tread is a good idea. They’d last fine in the sidewall (on of the planned positions) but in the actual road-contacting center, surely the hard lights would eventually get scraped to death? Or perhaps not, if they were recessed far enough that they only touch asphalt when the tire is bald and needs replacing anyway.

These are certain to be pricey, which excludes the perfect market: fixed-gear riders who love to pretty-up their machines. Because it is so damned cool to ride without brakes, the fixster must skid his way through at least a tire a month just to be accepted by his peers. Add in the lights, and things could get expensive.

Cyglo Tyres [Night Bright Tyre via Urban Velo]

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Aug 03

New Huawei MiFi is One Hot-Looking Hot-Spot

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, OLED, router, Today's Chili

That little gadget up there isn’t a cellphone, although it certainly shares some design points with the old G1 Googlephone. It is actually a MiFi-like cellular hotspot, a little battery-powered box which shares a 3G data connection over Wi-Fi.

Like the MiFi, the Huawei E583C will support up to five devices over Wi-Fi, plus one more over USB, and it has a microSD-card slot for storing and streaming data. The E583C is functionally very similar to Huawei’s UK-only MiFi E585, with an OLED display to show you the router’s status: which network you’re on, the router’s signal strength and battery level. Lest you think that this is a mere gimmick, I’d point out that one of the biggest annoyances with the original MiFi is the lack of visual feedback, especially on battery status.

The price, when it launches in Hong Kong this month, will be HK$1,380, or $178. And before you go, here’s a fun snippet from the press release: “gadget lovers can now experience the excitement of on-the-go wireless internet.” Excitement!

Huawei Debut Next-Generation Personal Mobile Wi-Fi Device [Huawei via iTech News]

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Jul 30

Genius: FridgePad Turns iPad into Giant Fridge-Magnet

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, ipad, Today's Chili

The FridgePad is billed as the “ultimate fridge magnet”. I’d say it’s probably the ultimate anything. Think about it. Even with my obviously awesome “Waterproof, Kitchen-Proof iPad Case” (a ziploc bag), your iPad still gets in harms way in the kitchen. The FridgePad fixes this by mounting the iPad up where nature intended: on the front of the refrigerator.

Made of aluminum with a big old magnet on the back to keep it firmly stuck to the fridge, the FridgePad holds the iPad with four plastic corner clips. Once secured to the door of the smallest and coldest room in the house, you can use the iPad to play music, podcasts or audiobooks, show you recipes or, well, anything the iPad can do. The more I think about it, the more it is clear how perfect the iPad is as a kitchen computer. And if you’re really messy when you cook, you could even slip the whole rig, magnet and all, into the ziploc bag and just slap that onto the refrigerator.

The stand will cost £50 ($78) when it ships, and will be available through Amazon. There’s no word yet on a launch date, but you can sign up for email alerts on the product site. In the meantime, I have a feeling that a trip to the hardware store is in order.

FridgePad [Woodford Design via CrunchGear]

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Jul 30

GPad: Another iPhone Gamepad Case

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, controller, Games, iPhone, Today's Chili

Somebody needs to make an iPhone game-pad already. The iPhone is great for games and all, but for old-school platformers and beat-’em-ups like Streetfighter IV, nothing beats having some real buttons to mash. Enter the gPod, a be-buttoned case into which you slide the iPhone. It has a d-pad, four control buttons along with select, start and a pair of shoulder-buttons. It is the perfect thing for playing old Super Nintendo games.

But we doubt you’ll ever be able to buy one. It could be easily made, we’re sure, even though the current prototype is compatible with the first-gen iPhone only, but games would have to be written to use buttons. As only a small percentage of iPhone and iPod Touch owners would have this add-on, that would be a tiny market.

I’d buy one, though, even if it only worked with jailbroken iPhones: what would be better than spending an afternoon with this and a SNES emulator full of old game ROMs? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing at all. It even makes a pretty cool-looking case.

iPhone Game Pad [CP Design via Dr. Crypt]

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Jul 30

Bottle Cap Punch Makes You Look Pretty Tough

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Today's Chili

The BottleBob Bottle Cap Punch is a gimmick, a gee-gaw, a single-purpose uni-tasking tchotchke. But despite this, what it does is pretty awesome. It cuts holes in the metal caps of soda-bottles so, when you insert a regular plastic straw, it looks like you somehow punched that thing right through it, you old tough-guy you.

The plastic and metal punch also falls firmly into the category of “tat”. For those unfamiliar with this word, it comes from British English (aka “quaint” English) and has the following meaning in the New Oxford American Dictionary: “tasteless or shoddy clothes, jewelry, or ornaments”.

Still, imagine what this little widget could do for your reputation. If you can pierce a metal cap with a flimsy plastic tube, you could probably also… Well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination. $27, available now.

BottleBob Bottle Cap Punch [Epaulet Shop]

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Jul 29

The Cult of Apple: When Even a Battery Charger is Big News

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Apple, Today's Chili

Over the last few days, one of Apple’s new products has been all over the internet. Nothing new there, right? But which one do I mean? The new iMac? The 12-core Mac Pro? The cool new Magic Trackpad? Nope. I’m talking about the Apple Battery Charger.

It’s a nice charger, to be sure: it minimizes “vampire draw” by shutting off the power when the batteries are charged. It ships with six batteries which should last up to ten years and it has the usual Apple polish in the form of coded flashing or steady amber and green LEDs. But does this really warrant the amount of coverage that is being given to a battery charger? After all, there are countless chargers out there that are better featured, or simpler, and certainly cheaper.

What this insane news coverage really tells us is that, despite the endless whining comments to the contrary, Apple news is big news. People read it, people want it, and people click on it. Sure, Apple benefits from the almost continual din of free publicity, but so do the people publishing the news. And so do you, the reader: From the amount of interest in any Apple news, it’s obvious that it is in demand.

But back to that charger. The one that costs $30, that only holds two batteries that takes five hours to charge them. I’ll probably buy one. Why? Because it uses the little interchangeable power-prongs, which means one tiny thing less in my luggage.

Battery charger [Apple]




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