Hasta La Gadget!

The awesome, ultimate PixelPad gets a mention as much for its revolutionary, magical, unbelievable website as much as for the pad itself. The paper notepad is made for mocking-up iPad app designs, and the website is for just plain mocking Apple’s hyperbolic iPad marketing engine, as you can tell from the superlatives I lifted for that awful first sentence.

The PixelPad isn’t just a notepad, either. It is sized and shaped just like an iPad, complete with bezel and home button, and has a gridded, graph-paper design for pixel-perfect planning. The backing card is even triple-thick and formed like the back of the Jesus pad itself.

Tear a page and flip it over and you have a 4-up layout for story-boarding transitions and the like, and in each corner you’ll find a 72×72 pixel icon view, complete with rounded corners. It really is a remarkably well thought out pad for iPad programmers.

The site is pretty hilarious, so you should check it out – especially the features page, which points out the infinite battery life (”fueled by imagination!”) and the printing method (”precision + vegetables”). The PixelPad comes in a selection of bundles, from $24 for the Starter which has one pad, one refill and some (good) pens, up to $99 for the Ultimate pack, containing four pads, eight refills, enough pens to fill a pencil case and – best of all – a carton of 12 Crayola crayons.

I’m seriously considering placing an order. Until Apple sells the iPad outside the US, it’s the closest I’m going to get to the real thing.

PixelPads [PixelPads. Thanks, Jonny]

Sure, you’ve seen bike frame bags before. But have you seen any this gorgeous? Moreover, have you ever seen one made in the USA by “Amish leather workers”? You have now.

This is the Billykirk frame-pouch, a simple, one-chamber bag which straps to the top and seat tubes. It is hand-made in brown leather, and costs an astonishing $145. It will also look just dandy on your fancy fixed-gear or your stately Dutch city bike, should you decide that you can afford it.

The Billykirk fixes in place with belt-style straps and closes with press-in fastenings. These kinds of fixtures will probably outlast your bike, but they’re also a pain to attach and remove, meaning you’re likely to leave your investment either on the bike while parked or at home in a closet. Leaving such a lavish bag out on view might be fine in a homely Pennsylvania village, but don’t try it in NYC.

Do I want one? Of course. Will I buy it? Do the Amish drive cars?

Billykirk frame-pouch [Blackbird via Uncrate]

See Also:

• Hambone Frame-Bags for Stylish Cyclists
• Archie's Grobag, Like a Bag-of-Holding For Bikes
• Bags
• Hipsters Grieve: The $150 Walmart Fixie

As the world goes crazy for touch-screen tablets and cellphones, the little mouse is getting left behind. But what of those who can’t even use Doug Engelbart’s most famous invention? What of those who can’t use their hands at all?

They could try out the iPad at leg’s length, we guess, but that might necessitate an additional pair of binoculars to read the screen. Better is this foot-mouse, a computer controller designed to be operated with the toes. The Toe-Mouse concept comes from designer Liu Yi, and is shaped like the stalk of the strap on a pair of flip-flops. The user inserts this sculpted stalk between the big toe and the second toe, and moves the Toe Mouse around on the floor to control a cursor.

Right and left-clicking are done by pressing switches with those same toes. And if you think controlling a pixel-perfect cursor with your feet will be, well, like having two left feet, then you’d be wrong. The tootsies are surprisingly agile, especially with some practice. As I think I may have mentioned (too many times) before, I used to thrash an old student housemate of mine at Streetfighter II on the Super Nintendo, playing with my feet. Merciless humiliation aside, if I can pull of a Dragon Punch with my toes, surfing the web should be easy.

Flip Flop Mouse [Yanko]

How neat is this little U-Lock tool? It’s a 15mm wrench – the size of pretty much all axle-nuts – in the form of a sleeve which slides onto the barrel of a Kryptonite lock.

The chromed steel tool fits onto Evolution and Gray Kryptonite locks, and the curved section of the lock slots through a hole in the tool to keep it safely in place when you’re bike is unattended, thus avoiding the number-one problem with bike-mounted tools: they’re pretty handy for a thief.

The lock comes in at just 100 grams, making it lighter than many wrenches, and of course you don’t need extra space to carry it. You can also use the lock itself as a lever.

The tool is designed by the folks at Monkey Likes Shiny, and has been in testing for a year. At $30 retail, it’s certainly more expensive than even a top-brand box-wrench, but then you’re not just paying for utility, you’re paying for convenience and style, along with a healthy dose of clever engineering. There are no retailers yet, but you’ll soon be able to order from tool-supplier Tom Hall Enterprises.

U-Lock Tool Released [Monkey Like Shiny via Trackosaurus Rex and Corpus Fixie]

See Also:

• Hands Off! With the Kryptonite Evolution Mini
• Custom Bike Features Built-In U-Lock
• Hands-On: Surly Jethro Tule Bike Wrench and Beer Opener
• Tools

ThinkGeek has established a weird kind of yearly tradition. Every April 1st for the last few years, the nerdwear and gadget store has come up with a spoof product. And every year, that spoof has been so good that customer demand led to ThinkGeek actually making and selling it. Past hits include the Tauntaun sleeping bag, the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt and the wonderful 8-Bit Tie.

This year, as you see above, the iPad gets its turn with the iCade Arcade Cabinet, a kind of retro dock with old-style arcade joysticks and mashable buttons. It’s gorgeous, and despite its phantom status, I want one.

The iCade’s fantasy specs go like this: you slide the iPad in and it becomes the brains and the display of the cabinet. You would then run old arcade games in emulation, games like Donkey Kong, Dig Dug and the frankly awesome-looking Super Steve Bros (Jobs and Wozniak vs. Ballmer), with the cabinet controls talking to the iPad through the 30-pin connector. There is even a companion MAME application to run all the games, and which is “coming soon to the App Store”.

We’re sure ThinkGeek would love to sell this $150 cabinet, but we fear it will be the first prank product never to be realized: Apple’s ban on apps that can run interpretive code (emulators) mean that the MAME application at least could never make it into the App Store. A shame.

iCade – iPad Arcade Cabinet [ThinkGeek]