Hasta La Gadget!

Just $16k will buy you this ridiculous piece of over-compensating jewelry for the short man in your life

It’s said that if you squeeze this Rogue Breacher Bracelet, testosterone will drip freely from the beautifully-engineered gaps between its links. These links are fashioned from suitably tough-sounding titanium. “Mil-spec G-5 aerospace-grade titanium,” to be precise.

Each link, lubricated as it is with mythical man-juice, rotates in two axes allowing the bracelet to “flow freely” across the wrist and “constantly adapt to the natural movement of its wearer.” If James Dyson was commissioned to build a robot’s spine (and had his primary-colored paints confiscated), it would look like this.

According to the maker, these things take 100 hours of “machine time” to make, which explains the limited production run (just 20 are being made) and the price, a chest-beating $16,300. Part of that might be cost of materials: the titanium plates I carry in my leg cost a similar amount. The rest of it is clearly designed to make an otherwise pedestrian piece of jewelry attractive to a certain kind of man.

Rogue Breacher [Rogue Design via Uncrate]

See Also:

• Tyre Rings: Get a Grip
• Circuit Board Skull Bracelet: Puts the Eek in Geek
• Tenderizer Ring and Other Weaponized Jewelry
• Eye Watering Eye Jewelry Is Hard to Even Look At

The DIP switches on these circuit-tastic watches actually do things. Photos Watchismo

These Click watches are probably the nerdiest timepieces we have ever seen. And we love them. They come in two main flavors, DIP Switch and Turn Switch, both using switches found on old-school circuit boards like those in 1980s arcade machines.

DIP switches were used to diddle with the way the machine worked. I always dreamed of a combo that would let me let me play the games for free, but as the patrons of my local arcade frowned upon the use of a screwdriver to open up the game cabinets, I never got to try. With these watches, though, I can flip the switches as much as I like.

Sliding the switches toggles various functions, from 12/24 hour display to the day of the week, a backlight or something only known as “meter.” Those who don’t fancy hooking tiny switches with their fingernails can opt for the Turn Switch model, which does much the same with a twisty knob.

The watches come in a rainbow of colors, and cost $150 for the ribbon-strapped version and $170 for the steel-strapped model. Available now from Watchismo.

Click Watches product page [Watchismo. Thanks, Mitch!]

See Also:

• LED Nerd Watch Tells Time in Hex, Binary, Octal
• Nerd Watch Museum. Birth of the Uncool
• Casio Spruces Up Nerdy Calculator Watches

Burton’s iPhone-controlling gloves cost ‘just’ $160

I might never have been near a snowboard, but I can see how these iPhone-remote gloves from Burton could be really, ahem, handy. The Burton Mix Master Glove/Mitt doubles as a wireless controller for your iDevice while the phone itself sits safely inside a cozy, warm pocket.

Instead of running cables through clothes, the Mix Master communicates with the iPhone or iPod via an RF dongle which plugs into the dock connector. Thus prepared, you can press buttons on the back of your hand to skip and play/pause your music, and adjust the volume.

The gloves themselves have leather palms, and are covered with a breathable, weatherproof, wicking membrane so your hands stay dry.

The only problem might be the price. At $160, you could afford to buy an iPod Nano and put that on the back of any regular mitten.

Mix Master Glove [Burton]

See Also:

• Gesture-Based Computing Uses $1 Lycra Gloves
• Webbed Latex Diving Gloves Will Terrify Mermaids
• Touchy-Feely: Finger-Baring Gloves Allow Winter Gadget Use …
• Bluetooth Gloves Let You Talk to the Hand

The Mutewatch is like an iPod Nano, without the annoying iPod part

You know those silicone armbands that turn the touch-screen iPod Nano into an oversized watch? Imagine that you could have one of those, only without the Nano, and for €200 instead of €150.

You have now successfully imagined the Mutewatch, a watch named (presumably) for the silence that will gush from friends and coworkers when you tell them how much you paid for it.

The Mutewatch is actually pretty cool: Its face is a multitouch display. Tap it (or flick your wrist) to light up the LEDs which show the time, and tap above and below the digits to set the time for alarms. A motion sensor knows when you’re moving fast or hard and increases the vibrating alerts to match, and the watch lasts for a week or two on a single charge (charging is done via USB).

Actually, now I think about it, this might be better than the Nano, Apple’s most annoying iPod yet. At least the Mutewatch does one thing, and does it well. Apple’s crappy Nano attempts to do everything, and ends up doing nothing properly.

The Mutewatch comes in red, white or gray and is available now.

Mutewatch product page [Mutewatch via Uncrate]

See Also:

• HEX iPod Nano Watch-Band with Nike+ Cut-Out
• Inevitable Strap Turns iPod Nano into a Watch
• Apple's Newest Watch Is … Wait, What? It's an iPod Nano?

The power created from walking creates a bridge from the phone to a cellular network, which dramatically extends battery life. Image courtesy of InSetep NanoPower

Taking the stairs could mean more time between charges for your phone.

Researchers at University of Wisconsin at Madison have developed a shoe insert that uses the impact of your strides to generate electricity for your phone. The prototype “footwear-embedded harvester” consists of two pouches filled with nanoparticle liquid metal called galinstan. It generates electrical current as it is forced through narrow channels, a process the researchers call “reverse electrowetting.” Power is stored in a battery in the arch of the shoe.

Other kinetic energy harvesters use piezoelectrics, which feature crystal sheets that polarize and produce energy through movement. The drawback is the technology generates so little power that an iPhone 4 wouldn’t notice the boost.

The power sneaker features the option to plug a phone into the shoe, but researchers Tom Krupenkin and J. Ashley Taylor sought a less cumbersome approach. They found the biggest draw on your phone’s battery occurs when it’s searching for Wi-Fi or a cell tower signal, so they attached a Wi-Fi transmitter directly to the harvester. The shoe, not the phone, powers the connection to wireless signals. They say that means your battery can last up to 10 times longer.

The device is also able to be directly connected to a phone, which could be useful for soldiers toting night-vision goggles, or marathoners who rely on their iPhone 4’s music for motivation. And with no moving parts, the system requires minimal maintenance, making it a boon for those in areas with little or no electricity.

Krupenkin and Taylor plan to commercialize the technology through their new firm, InStep NanoPower. They’re courting shoe makers to design an incorporated piece of footwear.