Hasta La Gadget!

Remember the Drones for Peace? The project that wants to sell drones with cameras for just $250 (USD)? If you think that that’s too much to ask, check out what we have now. This is Lehmann Aviation’s LA100, a drone that’s meant to whisk away a GoPro camera or two. Along with your money.

Whereas the mythical peaceful drones are barely controllable – you point them to a spot via a mobile app and they’ll fly to it on their own – the LA100 is completely autonomous, flying on a broad, pre-set trajectory and then back to it’s master. You don’t get a remote control, an app or even a whistle. What you do get is a 2lb. foam and carbon fiber drone that can soar almost 330ft. up for up to 5 minutes.

The LA100 comes with a mounting kit for GoPro cameras. If you have the GoPro Hero3, you can mount your camera at the bottom or at the top. The older GoPro Heros can only be mounted at the top though. But if you do have an extra Hero3, you can mount two cameras to the LA100 at the same time.

You can order the LA100 from Lehmann Aviation’s website for €990 (~$1,330 USD). Don’t even ask how much Lehmann is charging for the ones that come with remote controls.

[via Uncrate]

While they’re not capable of moving you through space and time like a Hot Tub Time Machine, these Hot Tub Boats can at least transport you through water – because why bother swimming, when your boat can do it for you?

These fun boats will help you relax and unwind as you set sail. Its tub is positioned in the vessel’s center of buoyancy, making it quite stable and drafting only 20 inches when it’s filled up with 2,100 lbs of water and six adults. In case you’re wondering how you pilot a boat while you’re taking a bath, it’s controlled via a joystick.

The hot tub boats were engineered and are built in Seattle by a marine carpenter. They have a vinyl-ester hull that’s topped off with a slatted deck, handcrafted from African teak wood.

Its diesel-powered boiler has an adjustable thermostat, and heats the water up to 104° F. There is also a waterproof MP3 stereo system and two flush-mounted 50W speakers that pop-up from the deck. A 24-volt electric motor makes this thing go up to 5mph.

The Hot Tub Boat is available from Hammacher Schlemmer for the low, low price of just $42,000(USD).

[via Uncrate]

Because I grew up with video games, pixel art looks great to me whether it’s made of paint, thread or LEGO. But nothing makes pixel art pop more than its original medium: light. Case in point, this nifty interactive picture frame that is simply called PIXEL.

Invented by Al Linke, PIXEL is an LED display that shows pixel art images or animations. The default build of the PIXEL consists of a frame with 1,024 LEDs arranged in a 32 x 32 matrix, so it’s been designed to scale images or animations to 32 x 32. Linke partnered with several pixel artists to make art especially for PIXEL. They come in the form of free Android apps that you can use to beam the images or animations via Bluetooth. Yep, there’s currently no iOS app, which is unfortunate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes soon.

PIXEL can also be used as a mirror when the LEDs are turned off. It also has a proximity sensor, which programmers can use to toggle or change the animation automatically.

You can reserve a ready-made PIXEL by pledging at least $229 on Kickstarter. PIXEL has been a huge success on the fundraising site. It’s already earned nearly $25,000 (USD) in pledges as of this writing, way more than the $8,000 target and with 48 days more to go.

Linke is also selling a parts kit with only 512 LEDs for the much lower price of $99, but Linke admits that the existing art was made only for the 1,024 LED version. Fortunately you can just create your own art and then send it to PIXEL via an Android device. Or you can just mount a CRT TV on your wall.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Panasonic has pulled the covers off a couple new tablets that fall in the company’s rugged Toughpad line. The most interesting, and expensive of these new tablets is the ToughPad FZ-G1. The tablet has a 10.1-inch screen and runs Windows 8 Pro.

The super-sharp screen sports a full HD 1920 x 1200 resolution, and is designed to be readable in sunlight. The tablet has a third-generation Intel Core i5-3437U vPro CPU operating at up to 2.9 GHz. The tablet has storage options up to 256 GB and can be fitted with up to 8 GB of RAM.

The ToughPad FX-G1 is aimed at industrial users and is ruggedized to military specifications with the ability to survive drops from up to 4 feet. The battery is user-replaceable and promises eight hours of use per charge. The tablet has integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, optional 3G or 4G LTE broadband, USB 3.0, HDMI out, a wired Ethernet port, and an optional microSDxC memory card slot. While that all sounds great, the biggest problem with this tablet is going to be price. When it ships this March it will start at $2899(USD).

Kingston just unveiled a technological marvel at CES 2013: a 1TB USB 3.0 flash drive. A terabyte on a stick. If you can make something as insane as that, then you deserve to name it whatever the hell you like, which is what exactly Kingston did. Behold: the 1TB Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator. I say the name doesn’t do it justice.

According to Kingston the flash drive can achieve 240MB/s read and 160MB/s write speeds on a USB 3.0 connection. Maximum PC got a look at the massive pocket drive on Kingston’s CES booth; skip to around 0:25 to see it.

Some of you may remember that Victorinox showed off a 1TB thumb drive as part of a Swiss army knife almost a year ago, but I don’t think it ever went on sale. As the Kingston rep said in the video, their 1TB flash drive should be out in a couple of months. You probably won’t be buying one though. Pocket-lint says it will cost a ridiculous $3,400 (USD). But I can believe that price tag, because the DataTraveler HyperX Predator that “only” has 512GB is already available and it lists at $1,750.

[via Pocket-lint & Kingston]