Hasta La Gadget!

If you have even just one important digital file, you owe it to yourself and that intangible bundle of electricity that you hold dear to sign up for a cloud file storage service. Many of them have entry level services that offer a few gigabytes of storage for free. Of course they’ll happily sell you more space if you need to back up more data. But a small startup called Space Monkey wants you to trust in other users instead.

Space Monkey is a backup service that will offer 1TB of both local and online storage for $10 (USD) per month. The local storage is straightforward – you will simply use a complementary app to back up your files to the Space Monkey computer (pictured above), as if you were using an external drive. The online storage is where Space Monkey gets eccentric. Instead of setting up expensive and complicated datacenters, all Space Monkey subscribers act as each other’s datacenters. Bits of your data are encrypted and scattered among the Space Monkey computers of other subscribers, and vice versa.

It’s like the reverse of Bittorrent. In theory, the more subscribers that join Space Monkey, the more collective storage you all have and the more secure your data will be. And because they don’t have to setup datacenters, that also means less expenses and maintenance on the part of Space Monkey. Clever eh?

Is it just me or does the name Space Monkey just not fit into the product? They should’ve called it Data Offcenter. A pledge of at least $119 on Kickstarter lets you sign up for a 1 year 1TB subscription with Space Monkey.

If you’re not that familiar with online storage I highly recommend you shop around first. I can see what Space Monkey is getting at but there are dependable and affordable cloud services out there like CrashPlan or Backblaze. Or as I said earlier, try a free service first like the ones offered by Dropbox and Google to see if it’s good enough for you.

The rumor about that more affordable iPhone just keeps coming back, but this time we’re finally seeing some sort of progress. Courtesy of case manufacturer Tactus, we’re apparently looking at the upcoming budget iPhone’s polycarbonate shell, which was spotted at a factory that provides parts to Foxconn. It’s the same story for the “iPad 5” case leak that Tactus published two days ago (the same day as our own scoop), so the company does seem to have a good contact for these kinds of goodies — and it is a very competitive market, after all.

Compared to the old polycarbonate iPhone 3G and 3GS, this mysterious shell appears to have a flat back instead of the old curved one, meaning it should reduce manufacturing complexity and therefore the cost as well. Another notable difference is that the old volume rocker is split into two, and then there’s also the LED flash that was absent on the old polycarbonate iPhones. Tactus adds that this body is slightly taller, wider and thicker than the iPhone 4 and 4S, but what we do struggle to believe is that apparently the same factory is producing this shell in black and white as well as blue, red and yellow. A decoy, perhaps? Only time will tell.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: Tactus (budget iPhone leak), (“iPad 5” case leak)

…Let me explain. You know how you can place a pencil and other small objects behind your ears? The Grip Clip lets you do that using the temples of your sunglasses, so you can store more things on your head! It’s great for craftsmen, students and even posers!

Ironic nerd charm get!

A pledge of just $5 (USD) on Kickstarter already gets you three Grip Clips. I wonder if you can clip two Grip Clips on one Grip Clip.

[via Incredible Things]

I’m not sure what it is with the cheap Chinese gadget makers and their desire to make things that look like the Sony PSP, but they keep doing it. Funny thing is, the latest PSP lookalike has better specs than the PSP itself.

The Megafeis G600 handheld runs the Android 4.0 operating system. Under its hood it’s got a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU (compared to a 333MHz CPU in the PSP), along with a PowerVR SGX531 GPU. And unlike the PSP-3000, the Megafeis has a hi-res 800×480 display (more than twice the resolution of the PSP). It’s also got an HDMI 1.4 compatible video output and support for full 1080p video output.

It’s only got 512MB of DDR3 memory built in, but you can expand up to 32GB of storage with a microSD card. You’ll also find a built-in motion sensor, and a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen – both of which aren’t present on the actual PSP. Wi-fi supports only 802.11 b and g, but still that beats the 802.11b PSP-3000.

Of course in addition to running Android games on it, you can use it with emulators to play classic N64, PSX, GBA, NES, SNES, and Genesis games on it. However, one thing that the Megafeis G600 can’t do out of the box is play actual PSP games – although you might be able to get the PPSSPP emulator to run on it.

One other thing that the Megafeis has going for it – it’s dirt cheap. It sells for under $85(USD) over at DealExtreme.

There are tons of keyboard add-ons for the iPad, but who are we kidding? Admit it, you’ve found it hard to actually get anything worthwhile done with your iPad. A few hours of browsing Reddit here and a few rounds of playing Magic there and suddenly it’s 4 AM. The perfect time to fire up Netflix and catch up on Archer. So really, we don’t need a keyboard. We need the iBed.

It’s out of stock – unsurprisingly! – from maker Kikkerland as of this writing, but you can get the iBed from Taylor Gifts for $19 (USD) or from Amazon for $15. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. Don’t buy one then use it to eat while you poop. Come on man. Even slackers have standards.

[via Craziest Gadgets]