Hasta La Gadget!

Do you ever think back to the glory days of gaming with the one button joystick? It was simple and classic.

Well dream no more, because this classic stick is up for grabs on thumbsupuk.com. Relive the old days on your Mac or PC with the USB joystick. The controller is compatible with Mac OSX and Windows versions 98SE up to Vista. The joystick is also compatible with any game that can utilize a standard gamepad controller.

The price is £19.99 and will be available until July 6, 2009.

Luxury puts up a good fight, but necessity is still the true mother of invention. Innovations in assistive technology, such as Bluetooth hearing aids and Braille-input PDAs, are helping the physically and mentally disabled and impaired keep pace with our increasingly tech-dependent world–at least, for those who can afford them! Here’s a look at some of the latest tech products for people with visual disabilities.

GW Micro makes a portable notetaker called the Braille Sense Plus, pictured above, that lets users input text using a Perkins keyboard–six keys that correspond to the six Braille dots, plus Space, Backspace, and Line Space keys. The device can then output messages via synthesized speech or its 32-cell Braille pad; the dots move up and down to produce scrolling lines of text.

With these features, even those with total blindness have access to email, MSN Messenger, word processing (with formatting), an address manager, a media player, and more. The 2-pound device goes for $5,995 (street). The Voice Sense, a smaller PDA without the Braille pad, weighs just over half a pound and costs $2,395.

More after the jump.

Insulting as it may be to our film-splicing predecessors, the task of manually uploading a video from a camera to a card reader to a computer to YouTube has become an unbearably burdensome process for some folks.

Eye-Fi has taken that excuse right out of their hands with its automatic-upload wireless memory cards. Today Eye-Fi announced that users can now directly upload their videos to Picasa Web Albums, Photobucket, and SmugMug (in addition to YouTube and Flickr). With a choice of five video-sharing sites and more than 20 photo sites, winging over a Mother’s Day video greeting to Mom come Sunday is easier than sending flowers, and only a hair more complicated than a phone call.

The 4GB Eye-Fi Share Video card ($79 list) and the 4GB Eye-Fi Explore Video card ($99 list) can both bypass your home computer entirely to upload videos. Whereas the Share works through trusted wireless networks, the Explore can also upload through hotspot access (over 10,000 Wayport locations in the U.S.). The Explore also automatically geotags your videos with location/time information. Both are on sale nationwide.

Posted by Matt Reichman

Art. Lebedev Studio’s quirky, clever computer, home, and office accessories always make me smile. (Perhaps you’re familiar with the shaped-like-a-speaker-icon Sonicum Speakers, which we’ve featured here on Gearlog in the past?)

If you’re into tech and design, the Moscow-based company’s selection of home and office accessories are definitely worth a look. A sampling:

Deletus, a jumbo eraser that looks like an extra-large delete key.

Folderix, a 4GB flash drive shaped like the classic desktop folder icon. Bonus: Folderix recently become available stateside; pick one up for $60 at charlesandmarie.com.

Computer icon fridge magnets, available in Arrow Cursor, Hourglass, and Hand Cursor, to name a few. 

Launching today, the SideWinder X3 mouse is the latest to join Microsoft’s line of gaming mice. The X3 will be available in May for $40 (street). Gaming features include a 2,000-dpi laser-tracking engine, five programmable buttons, and macro recording. The included Quick Turn macro enables gamers to check their surroundings within a game with a single click.