Hasta La Gadget!

Have you ever wondered how a bike saddle is made? It just plops out of a replicator or something, right? If that seat is a handcrafted Brooks saddle, then the answer is “no.” Gadget Lab reader Graham Glen was lucky enough to get a tour of the Brooks factory in Smethwick (in the West Midlands in England), and he snapped some photos of the goings-on there, which he has very generously allowed us to use here.

The thing that strikes me is the simplicity of the process. Metal parts are stamped out and heat-treated, flat pieces of leather are soaked and then formed in molds and the parts are all assembled by hand. After seeing how much work goes into a single bike seat, these famously expensive saddles start to look cheap. Follow along for a tour of the factory.

Quirky’s new Weigh to Go takes two boring, tedious luggage tasks and combines them into one almost fun product. The Weigh to Go is both luggage tag and weighing scale, and sits on the handle of your suitcase quietly displaying your name and address. When you need to know just how much crap you have to remove from the case to get through check-in, the little label leaps into action.

The tag comprises an ABS plastic body with a rubber rim, a steel carabiner with combination lock (to stop the tag itself from being stolen — the contents of your bag will still have to take their chances) a pair of Velcro straps to keep the tag from swinging, and a digital scale.

To use it, you just un-stick the Velcro, hit the on-switch and pick up the bag by the tag. After five seconds you get a readout, and you can decide whether you really need to take that fifth pair of shoes with you.

Quirky, if you remember, takes pre-orders for its community-designed products and only starts the factory lines a-rolling once the minimum number is reached (Quirky doesn’t charge your credit card until the products are done). This time the number is 775, and the price is $33, which you’ll save on overweight baggage charges on your first trip.

Weigh to Go [Quirky. Thanks, Tiffany!]

See Also:

• Powercurl Cord-Winder Makes Magsafe Heatsafe
• Kickster Adds Stand, Handle and Case to iPod Nano
• Beamer Makes a Case for Flash on the iPhone

The Multi-Tab Power Strip is a modular plug-extender with – of course – a nifty gimmick. The concept design comes from Soon Mo Kang, and immediately makes me wonder why so many power-strips power-strip designs are concepts. Why doesn’t somebody just make them already?

The strip comes in blocks, and the idea is that you buy just the ones you need. Each block hooks up to the next one into what could presumably be a very long strip indeed. All the blocks have an icon on top so you know what is plugged into it without having to follow the cord back through the tangles to its source.

It’s good looking and practical, which is already enough. But if you press down on one of those top-plates, it turns into a lever and pops the plug out of its socket. This might seem trivial, as you can always yank a plug from the wall by its cable. Power strips, though, move when you do this, and they’re also usually tucked away where getting a grip is tricky.

If anyone does take this to market, I’d buy one. But then, I’d buy any snazzy power-plug. It’s an obsession. I even have an app on my iPod Touch called PowerPlug, which details the different sockets from around the world.

Tab The Power Strip [Yanko]

See Also:

• Plug-Watch: Cute Power Cube, The Best Adapter Yet?
• Smart Plug Could Save You $150 in Electricity
• Five Dollar Wall Warts Add Individual Power Switches
• Geek Out for Earth Day: 7 Gadgets to Green Your Lifestyle

Don’t tell me. You wanted a Mi-Fi personal wireless hotspot, and all your boss bought you was that lousy 3G USB dongle. Well, quit fretting: with just one more ugly chunk of plastic in your stuffed and dorky nylon laptop bag, you can have what you want.

The Wi-Reach 3G Personal Hotspot doesn’t even require that you pull the SIM card from your existing USB modem. The plastic box, which resembles a battery charger, has a USB port inside into which you slot your stick. From there, it takes the EVDO or HSPA modem’s connection and turns it into an 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi hotspot, powered by a lithium-ion battery for up to five hours (or powered via its mini-USB port). It’ll even work with 4G dongles when they start to show up.

Its a neat solution, marred by one detail: at $100, it costs the same as a Mi-Fi, meaning you could clear some space in your ugly bag by sucking it up and buying one of those instead.

Wi-Reach 3G Personal Hotspot [Connect One]

There are many kinds of schwag to be had a trade-shows, and high-tech trade-shows like CES and the Mobile World Congress offer equally high-tech junk. Years ago, the branded give-away of choice was the ballpoint pen. Then, when people stopped writing things down, the PR people would try to buy you off with a useless CD.

Then a strange thing happened. USB sticks started to replace CDs as the method to pass on press info, but they were still expensive. Many of the PR people acted like they were giving you a precious 128MB gift, and that you should be grateful, dammit!

This last year has been different again. Presumably the prices have dropped below that of the CD, because I wasn’t given a single optical disc this year. Instead, the PR people were almost desperate to dish out the USB sticks. It goes something like this:

Me: “Hi. I’m Charlie from…”
PR person (hysterically): “Have you got a PEN DRIVE!?”

Above you see the selection from just the first day of the show, spent and tired after delivering their payload of specs and product shots into my soft, welcoming MacBook. How did they do? Clockwise, from the one that is plugged in.

SanDisk Cruzer, 2GB

This should be the best, as it comes from the daddy of flash memory, SanDisk. It opens like a switchblade, the USB plug popping out to enter the port. The sliding switch doubles as an orange lamp that flashes on activity and otherwise glows sleepily like a Mac’s sleep light. The added bonus comes in the form of its recursive contents, which is the product details of other SanDisk flash drives.

Result: A solid standard

Opera, 2GB

Next is Opera’s offering. The browser company chose a case that mimics the color and logo of its product. The metallic red finish is rubbery to the touch, and inside is a smokey-brown plastic body. The keychain-ring is flimsy, though, and the removable cap easy to lose.

Result: On message.

Pepcom, 2GB

Pepcom is a company that organizes get togethers at CES and MWC. High-profile vendors pitch their wares from tables and invited guests (mostly journalists) get free booze and canapes. For such a well organized and stylish event, this rather pedestrian Kingston pen-drive is a disappointment. It contains contact details of everyone showing at the event, but doesn’t even have Pepcom written on the outside.

Result: Nothing to see here. Move along. And pass me another sausage roll.

Powermat, 2GB

2GB is proving to be the new 1GB — plenty of room for the PDF boarding passes you take once a year to be printed at Kinko’s. Powermat’s 2GB drive conforms, but is non-impressive in any other way. Actually, that’s not quite true. The Powermat pen wins my award for the ugliest stick of the show. The company might make some rather popular wireless charging mats, but whoever chose the USB stick supplier was having a bad day.

Result: Fugly, with metallic trim.

Sony Ericsson, 1GB

This little number was pushed eagerly into my hand by the Sony Ericsson press person, and no wonder: At just 1GB it must have cost just pennies. It is also hard to operate as the hinged, two-part case initially appears to be a slider like the SanDisk. Worse, it has a couple of files on there named MEMSTICK.IND and MSTK_PRO.IND, which cannot be moved to the trash.

However, it wins points back by having a cute green glowing light which matches the equally nice 3D logo, just like you find on SE phones. It also has a removable Memory Stick Micro inside, which would be neat if you own any Sony products.

Result: Stylish and yet hard to use and packed with proprietary technology. More Sony than Ericsson.

Marvell, 2.11GB

Who knows where the extra 0.11GB comes from? This little stick is, apart from the color, the double of the Pepcom pen, although at least Marvell bothered to brand it. It is cheap and ugly in every way, but it does the job it’s meant to do, just like Marvell’s cellphone processors. Dull but functional.

Result: Over-clocked?

SanDisk microSD Card and Reader, 16GB

Yes, 16GB! This monster is not technically schwag or even “press materials”. Instead it is a “review unit” in that it is the product whose details are contained on the other SanDisk drive above. The tiny card reader comes equipped with an even tinier microSD card, which could be put in a phone to store music and photos. To me, this would be completely useless, but hey, it’s so small I’ll probably lose it before I get a chance to test it out. Wait? Where is it?

Result: Already lost.