Hasta La Gadget!

I’ve been dunking my cookies ever since Oreo launched their Twist, Lick, and Dunk campaign. Suffice to say, I’ve encountered a number of problems in the dunking process that you might have experienced yourself.

For example, spilled milk. When you’re dunking in a full glass of milk, there’s bound to be some spillage. Then there’s the opposite problem of too little milk left. You have to tilt the glass and push your hands as far into the glass as you can to dunk your cookie. Not a very pleasant experience.

So for these and all your other cookie dunking woes, there’s the Cookie Dunker.

Cookie Dunker looks like one of those wide-mouth cups that toddlers use to practice drinking from a glass, but there are a couple of marked differences: the rounded internal bottom, to fit the curve of your cookie perfectly; and the narrow cross section at the bottom that makes dunking in lower milk levels easier to achieve.

These are all first-world problems, of course – problems that we’re all very lucky to have.

The Cookie Dunker is up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $23(USD) will get you a two-pack. Because one should never dunk alone.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you desperately needed a flash drive but couldn’t find one to save your life? It’s times like these where something like the GIGS.2.GO would’ve been useful.

The question is, what’s GIGS.2.GO? It’s about the size of a credit card and it’s basically just four USB drives arranged into one neat little package.

The premise that Kurt Rampton and the BOLTgroup were working with when they designed GIGS.2.GO was to provide people with emergency thumb drives that they can just keep in their wallet.

Thanks to the “Tear and Share” technology, the card of drives will come in especially handy for people who work with large teams. Just tear off a drive, save your data, and pass it along to whoever needs it.

GIGS.2.GO is designed to be produced from 100% post-consumer molded paper pulp, so they can be labeled easily with a pen or marker.

There’s no word on if or when you’ll be able to buy one though.

[via Yanko Design]

Automation company Festo loves showing off its technologies and expertise by creating robot versions of animals. We’ve featured the company’s SmartBird before, and you may have also seen its AirPenguin in action. Now the company has released information about its latest pet project, the BionicOpter.

With the BionicOpter, Festo set out to replicate the flying capabilities of the dragonfly. The company says the insect is unique in that it can move in all directions, glide, hover, turn and accelerate quickly and even fly backwards. By replicating how dragonflies use their wings, the BionicOpter ends up being more versatile than a plane, helicopter or glider.

The robot has an aluminum body and carbon fiber wings. It has one external brushless motor and eight motors that handle the movement of its wings. Speaking of which, the robot can orient its wings vertically or horizontally as needed, just like the real deal. The BionicOpter can fly on its own but it can also be controlled remotely. All of that in a machine that weighs only 175g (approx. 0.39lbs.).

If you ask me the best feature of the BionicOpter is that it has a gracefulness to it that I previously thought could only be exhibited by a living creature. Check out Festo’s report (pdf file) if you want to learn more about the robot.

[via Slash Gear]

The iPhone charges up pretty quickly, but once you run out of power, there’s not much you can do except stow your phone until you find an outlet, or a batter pack and enough time to juice it up again. This case proposes that you use a crank to manually charge your precious smartphone.

The Gridcase Reactor is an iPhone 5 case that includes a crank to give your iPhone a little extra juice. It’s definitely something interesting, especially if you’re stuck somewhere without any outlets or external batteries. Hand cranks won’t generate huge amounts of power, but it will be enough to get that extra little something to save your work and apps before your phone powers down.

The kit will come with a two-piece case with a built-in micro-generator, a 400 mAh boost battery,  and a 500 mA manual generator. The case was launched as a Crowd Supply crowdfunded project, and you can get yours for $99(USD) if you pledge by the beginning of May. The case is expected to launch in October, after which time, it’s expected to retail for $149.

[via TechCrunch]

A low-cost, Android-powered mini-computer has turned up on Kickstarter looking for funding. The machine is called the MiiPC and is designed specifically to help parents keep an eye on exactly what their kids are seeing online and how much time they spend online. The machine runs Android 4.2 and works in conjunction with a special application on an Android or iOS smartphone.

Using the application, parents can see every website their kids visited, how much time they spend online, and block access to specific websites. The app also allows the parent to set a time limit that their kids can spend online or on a specific website. That means if you don’t want your kid to be on Facebook for any more than 30 minutes, you can set that via the app. You can also configure the system for multiple children, each with their own usage rules.

The hardware inside the computer is pretty basic, with a 1.2 GHz Marvell Armada dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM. The machine has 4 GB of integrated storage, an SD slot, and built-in Wi-Fi. Other connectivity options include an Ethernet port, Bluetooth 4.0, dual USB ports, and an HDMI output. The MiiPC can be pre-ordered via Kickstarter for just $99(USD). They expect to start shipping the system late this summer.