Hasta La Gadget!

We have seen enough crazy mousepads but here’s a wacky mouse for Nascar fans or geeks obsessed with cars.

The Motormouse is a computer mouse modeled on a classic sports car design and takes the toy shape factor very seriously.

The trunk of the car-shaped mouse opens to store batteries and the receiver and even has a ’spare tire’ scroll wheel in there. And if that isn’t enough,  the motormouse’s wheels are are real rubber, says the company.

As for its tech cred, the mouse has a 2.4 GHz USB receiver so it can wirelessly connect to your keyboard. The $50 mouse comes in three colors: silver, red and black.

The question is would you buy one to actually use it or is it just a tech gag gift?

Photo: MotorMouse

Jonathan Clifford Bergqvist is a pretty cool guy. When he decided that he needed a shoulder-mounted rig for shooting video with his Canon 7D, he decided it should be home-made, and fashioned from wood. But his dad, Erik, is flat-out awesome: Not only did he build the rig from scratch (and we mean from scratch – he starts off with a tree-branch with the bark still on it), he added a pretty intricate focus-pulling mechanism. Check the video of Erik in action:

Yes, the shoulder rig is impressive. The beautifully turned handles contrast with the precision-machined focussing apparatus, but the real star is Jonathan’s dad. I could watch videos of craftsmen like this at work all day long. MkII is already planned: The hose-clamp is tricky to get onto the lens, so that will be changed for an as-yet undecided replacement, and Jonathan has the cheek to complain that the rig “does not fold.” Just do us one favor, Jonathan: When your dad makes another one of these things, remember to post the video.

DIY Shoulder rig [Athanse Media via Switched]

If your Bell-supplied Mi-Fi cellular Wi-Fi modem died yesterday, here’s why: The batteries in some MiFi 2372 units are swelling and causing malfunctions. Bell Canada is recalling units (an envelope is likely already on its way to you) to replace both battery and battery cover.

This will take from six to eight weeks, so in the meantime you’ll be given a Novatel U998 Turbo Stick – a USB 3G dongle – to tide you over (not so good if you’re using the MiFi with a non-USB equipped gadget, like an iPad or iPod Touch).

So why did your MiFi stop working? After all, your battery appears still be at its normal, non-swollen size. Well Bell, in order to keep you from using the modem, has reached into your device from afar and remotely disabled it. Between 10PM and 11.59PM Eastern on May 3rd (last night), all units were killed.

Although the recall notice doesn’t spell it out, we’re pretty sure that swelling batteries are a precursor to exploding batteries, and this is why Bell has gone in so hard. Sorry, Canadians. There is a bright side, though: Y’all don’t yet have the iPad, so at least you’re not losing connectivity there.

Bell Novatel MiFi 2372 “battery may swell” [Mobile Syrup via Engadget]

The Dual GPS Navigation and Battery Cradle is an accessory which adds proper GPS navigation to the iPod Touch. You slide in the iPod and it gets full navigational functionality, just like the iPhone. For the past few weeks, I have been testing it.

The iPod Touch is often thought of as a phone-less iPhone, and although that’s true, it’s only half the story. Aside from the lack of phone functionality, the Touch misses out on a camera, always-on internet, a compass and a GPS chip. The Dual cradle adds this last back in, letting you use the iPod as a GPS tracker for geo-tagging photos and as an in-car, turn-by-turn satnav system.

The Dual comes with a lot of accessories. First, the cradle, which plugs into both the dock connector and the headphone socket. It more than doubles the thickness of the iPod, but also adds a beefy battery pack which powers the GPS or recharges the iPod. A three-way switch on the back lets you choose between GPS or battery, or to switch it off. There is a mini-USB port in the bottom which will let you charge and sync the iPod while in the case, but you need to slide the switch to “Battery” to make it work. There is also a speaker (with volume switches) and a pass-through headphone jack.

Also in the box is a windshield-mounting kit: another cradle which attaches to the glass with a suction cup. This hooks up to the car stereo via 3.5mm jack and to the cigarette-lighter socket via included cable.

I don’t have a car, so I used my bike, and my good friend Francesc modded the bracket to fit my handlebars. I also ignored the free NavAtlas GPS application that is made by the same company for use with the unit: it is USA and Canada-only, and therefore useless outside those countries. Fortunately, an iPod in the cradle just passes the GPS info direct to any GPS-aware app. You can use anything that works on an iPhone.

Out on the sunny Barcelona streets, I fired the cradle up. It can take a while to get a fix, and you’ll need a very clear view of the sky to get one. I had to wait for a few minutes each time, and found that moving slowly along on the bike seemed to speed things up. One the unit is locked on, it stays locked on, though. In fact, once it gets going, the GPS tracking appears to be flawless, holding on even in brief jaunts through tunnels or indoors.

On the bike, the audio is loud enough to hear, as long as you aren’t on a busy road (and the speaker is quite a bit louder than the iPad’s own, making this a good way to listen to podcasts while cooking).

The battery is long-lasting, with a 1,100mAH-rating. Dual claims ten hours when used in GPS mode. I didn’t get anywhere near this time in my testing, but the four-LED battery indicator never came off full even after a couple hours. This is good: The iPod battery itself drains scarily fast when tracking with the screen switched on, so you will want to use the cradle’s battery for a top-up at journey’s end. Many apps will let you track with the iPod display switched off, however.

In use, there isn’t much to fault with the Dual cradle. It does what it says it does, and build quality is fine. The trouble comes with the size and the price. The kit costs $200, double that of rival TomTom’s car-kit. For that price, you could buy a standalone GPS and never have to worry about your iPod’s battery life.

That choice is up to you, though. If the price and features of this cradle seem good to you, then go ahead and buy it. It works great, and does it without fuss.

Dual XGPS300 [Dual]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel

See Also:

• First Look: Dual GPS Cradle for iPod Touch
• TomTom for iPhone Boosts GPS, Adds Turn-By-Turn Directions …
• GPS Add-On Case For iPod Touch
• TomTom GPS Car Kit for iPhone Could Cost $200

The two-part, leather (or leatherette) “ever-ready” camera case used to be pretty much your only choice back in the days of the all-manual film SLR. They were expensive, made-to-measure for your specific camera model and they would last pretty much forever. The one thing they weren’t was convenient. Their slow-to-open design earned them the nickname “never-ready”. I just bought one for my Panasonic GF-1.

The case is a custom-designed model made in Hong Kong and bought new on Ebay (from seller Kanye Wayne) for a probably ridiculous $120 (plus $10 shipping). It costs more than the official Panasonic version, but both looks better and hugs the camera closer, keeping things compact. So why the hell did I buy it?

Two reasons. The retro-design means I can carry it around and most people will think I have an old film-camera slung over my shoulder. Even if it were slow to get to the camera and take a shot, it would still be quicker than digging in a bigger bag.

Second, it is actually pretty fast to get in.

The case is hand-stitched and made to snugly fit the GF-1 and the 20mm pancake lens. Any other lens won’t fit, although you can just use the bottom half-case. This part joins to the camera by screwing into the tripod socket. You do have to remove it every time you change the SD card, but this is better than the olden days, where you had to swap films every 36 exposures. Some other designs also hook over the strap-joints, but that just adds more things to undo.

The top section is joined by two press-studs at the sides, and a magnetic clasp joined underneath. The case pivots on the studs and swings back, over and down underneath the camera when shooting.

How does it perform? Pretty well. The lower case is snug, and the soft, plush lining cossets the body. The extra thickness and the small finger-grip on the front make it a lot more comfortable in my big hands.

The top case needs to age a little, though. Right now, the new leather is rather springy. While the magnet clasp makes opening and closing quick and easy, the stiffness makes the case stand out straight towards you when open. This is less of a problem when using the LCD screen to compose than it would be with the viewfinder. A few months of use should make things a little more floppy, though, and you can always just pop the whole top section off for longer shoots.

The other glitch is that, when you open and close the case, it rubs against the bottom edge of the lens-barrel and sometimes knocks off the lens-cap. Again, this should ease up as the leather softens.

Should you buy it? That depends. The price is high, but you get what you pay for. The stitching and leather are top-notch, and the details are well thought through (the tripod screw has another female thread in the base so you can still mount it while in the case). It is also perfect for carrying the camera everywhere, and if you care about looks, you’ll love it (you can also choose white, black and dark brown versions).

But it does only work with one lens, the 20mm, and there is no space for storing extra SD cards or batteries. In the end, you’ll have to decide: it’s a specialty item with a price to match. The good news is that, if you need such a thing, then you certainly won’t be disappointed. The worst part? Now I need to find a matching leather strap.

Panasonic GF1 GF-1 Genuine Leather 20mm Case [Ebay/Kanye Wayne]

See Also:

• A Month With the Lumix GF1, And Why I No Longer Use The Nikon D700 …
• Hands-On With Panasonic's Leica-Lite GF1
• Panasonic GF1 Updated With Colors