Hasta La Gadget!

We recently got some hands on time playing Microsoft’s new motion based Kinect at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. Just as Chris Kohler reported over at Game|Life, the interface definitely gets you off the couch causes some copious perspiration. And, yes it’s much like the Wii; your butt is no longer anchored to the futon and you’re actively engaging with your video games.  But the lack of any sort of physical controller is extremely odd. (Your body is scanned and tracked as your avatar mimics the movements you make in meatspace.) The self-conscious weirdness of reaching out into the air and gripping a non-existent steering wheel is something I’m not sure folks who spent the better parts of their childhoods gripping a Nintendo controller will readily take to.

And that’s a serious question that Kinect raises: is this active way of interacting with your video games sustainable? The fact that Wii Fit has sold over 22 million copies might seem to be a resounding “yes” but I’m not sure if it’s something that will translate over to games where you’re racing cars or blowing aliens up. Will you want to come home after working for eight hours, fire up Kinect and traipse around Reach, looking for the Covenant? Or would you rather gun down some Elites from the comfort of your couch? Unless it meant exercising Force powers, I think I’d rather have some sofa time.

After playing Kinect Joy Ride and Kinectimals for the better part of a half hour, I was a tad tired physically, but mentally wiped out. At the end of the day I’m not entirely sure if people will want to shell out $60 for a game that demands so much active participation. I can see Kinect becoming a fun little silo of games you play at parties on multiplayer mode. But for solo campaigns, I seriously doubt gamers will be able to maintain steady interest.

Wet Circuits may sound like a porn-site for robots, but it is in fact a store dedicated to a waterproof power-strip. The $40 strip, seen doing its stuff in the video above, has a few tricks up its sopping-wet sleeve to prevent you from electrocuting yourself when plugging things in.

The strips are sealed and the conductive parts are coated to stop them coming into contact with water. The power only flows to the plug when the pins are fully and correctly inserted. This has the pleasant side-effect of allowing your kids to poke paperclips into the socket in safety, and also cutting the risk of sparks. There is also a cut-out which cuts in at 100ºC (212ºF).

All this ignores the fact that you probably shouldn’t actually be plugging anything into the strip anyway: Your TV isn’t going to be any safer when perched on the end of your bathtub if used with this adapter. In this regard it seems about as practical as a pair of bulletproof contact-lenses.

So, a website with a “Dr” Jolin pouring water onto electrical outlets and conducting snuff-tests with deadly current, all on video? Maybe this is a porn-site for robots after all.

Waterproof Power Strips [Wet Circuits via the Giz]

See Also:

• Modular Power Strip with Ejector Slots
• Clockwork Power-Strip Rations Juice
• iGo Green Power Tower Surge Protector
• Power-Strip Extender Means You'll Always Make Friends
• Power Plugs

This is the sticker your iPad was made for: The iconic rainbow-colored Apple designed by Rob Janoff back in 1976, reproduced in self-adhesive vinyl.

Due to all that battery packed inside the iPad’s slim frame, no light reaches the rear case, so we are deprived of the glowing apple found on the lids of MacBooks. The black plastic apple that sits there instead provides a welcome textural difference for the fingers to fondle while reading, but it lacks glitz. Still, it’s a lot better that the almost impossibly lame original Apple logo, which featured ragged scrolls and a picture of Isaac Newton under an apple tree. That logo, swiftly replaced, would have looked more at home on a Lynyrd Skynyrd album cover than on a piece of consumer electronics.

This multi-hued sticker will cost you just $3.50 from the Etsy store. If you buy any other, larger vinyl design from the same seller’s store, they’ll throw this one in free. Not bad. If Apple was in any way nostalgia-minded, it should include these stickers in the boxes of its products instead of those awful, thin white stickers that we throw away by their thousands every day. Or worse, find stuck on the back of a Toyota Prius, like I saw once on a visit to – you guessed it – San Francisco.

Retro Apple Logo Decal for iPad [Etsy/CoolDecal]

Meet the Sniper Stand, a tiny, adhesive-backed plastic carbuncle which sticks to you iPhone (or any other small flat-backed device) and lets you use a credit-card as an impromptu kick-stand.

The lump remains attached, limpet-like, to the rear of the iPhone and has two perpendicular slots crossing its ABS dome. You slide any convenient plastic card into one of these and set the whole assembly down, your phone now tilted back ready for some movie-watching or, more disturbingly, some hands-free FaceTime.

The Sniper Stand comes from Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based bartender (and avid Gadget Lab reader) Arthur Larsen, who tipped us off to his patent-pending design. And before you make the obvious complaint about the permanent plastic pimple attached to the back of the iPhone, let Arthur have his say:

It’s actually kinda nice having a bump on the back of your phone; the bump holds up the phone just a tiny bit of an angle for viewing, that tiny bit makes it much easier to grab your phone (especially a really thin iPhone 4), holding it in your hand the bump of the Sniper Stand makes a nice spot to place your finger and balance the phone in your hand with less fear of it sliding out of your hand, etc… What do you think?

Well, Arthur, I think it’s pretty cool.

Sniper Stand – Convenient Smartphone Support [Sniper Stand. Thanks, Arthur]

See Also:

• Simplest and Best? The MoviePeg iPhone Stand
• The One Minute Hack: DIY Suction-Cup iPhone Stand
• DIY iPhone Dock Made From Dead CDs
• Wired Bureau Chief Builds iPad Stand from $6 Doorstops
• The $5 iPad Dock
• Quirky's iPad Case With Two-Way Kick-Stand

How do you carry your iPad? Do you have a big bag with a purpose-made pad-pocket? Do you go commando, tossing the iPad into your purse to fend for itself against the keys and cables therein? Or do you, like me until a couple days ago, use a padded envelope that came free with some other parcel in the mail?

I use these Jiffy Bags for all my computer carrying needs, but for the iPad they don’t work well. First, the bubbles leave a honeycomb pattern on the screen, which combines with my left-over finger-grease to make a distracting design. Second, it offers no protection to the screen, and sliding in a piece of cardboard is less than ideal.

So I bought a case. The €40 PadCover from Dicota, a German company that usually besmirches its bags with names like the “LadySuccess”. Seriously.

The PadCover is a simple envelope-like sleeve, fashioned from a herringbone-patterned wool and acrylic mix. This somewhat conservative design is contrasted by a brightly colored pink or blue nylon lining. Running around and between is gray leather edging.

Why is it better than a shipping envelope? First, one side is reinforced, making it stiff enough to protect the iPad’s screen from bumps and sharp knocks. The other side is thick, but soft, so it curves with the iPad’s aluminum back.

Getting the iPad in and out is also easy, thanks to an ingenious tab. A thick strip (pink, in my case) is fixed to one interior wall and runs under the iPad, back up the other side and out through a leather-trimmed slot. Pulling on the exposed tab lifts the iPad up so the top third protrudes, ready to be yanked out of the rather tight-fitting case.

Should you prefer to go old-school and tug it out manually, there is a triangular cutout in the leather strip on the top edge which will let you get a grip. It is on the screen-side, so it also exposes the home-button, which seems like a pretty bad idea.

I carry a man-bag at all times, and the PadCover is slipped inside whenever I leave the house. I really like the pull-to-eject tab as it lets me pull the iPad out for use without removing the case first. This makes it a lot more likely I’ll grab the iPad to look something up quickly. It also makes it easy to slide back in.

The obvious disadvantage is that the case is always open, will let in dust and won’t protect the end of the iPad. For that you’ll need a folio-style case, or something with a zipper or flap. The trade-off there is speed of access.

Do I recommend it? Sure. It does one thing, and does it well. If you’re looking for a case that will tilt the iPad for typing, or double as a stand, or anything else, then look elsewhere. For a tough, stylish (if you like blue or pink) single-purpose case, at a not-too-expensive price, the PadCover does the job great.

PadCover [Dicota]