Hasta La Gadget!

While Leap Motion and Google Glass are real products, the BAT Levitating Mouse is unfortunately just a concept. That doesn’t mean it can’t be real in the future, but unlike the previous concepts mentioned which have a range of uses, what would people get from having a levitating mouse aside from the coolness factor?

Could it perhaps offer better usability that will reduced the likelihood of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? I’m skeptical, but that’s basically the premise that KIBARDINDESIGN Studio worked with when they came up with this concept.

As you can see, the BAT levitating mouse is made up of two parts: the base (which is basically its fancy mouse pad), and the actual mouse which is fitted with a magnetic ring.

As is often the case with prototypes and concept designs, there’s no word on an actual production run of the BAT mouse. However, its designer does have a history of actually bringing his design concepts to market, like the cool White & White Clock, so there may be hope for floating mice in our futures.

A girl can never have too many clothes. That is, if she has unlimited funds and unlimited closet space. Unfortunately, that happens to be false (on both counts) for regular working girls like you and me.

But fortunately, innovations in fashion like Affectation exist. Or at least, they’re trying to, since this design is currently up for funding on Kickstarter.

It’s a magnetic fashion line that emphasizes the interchangeability of clothes with a few quick and easy snaps of the magnet. Articles of clothing available include ties, scarves, skirts, jackets, vests, and dress shirts.

Interested? You can head on over to the Affectation project page to check it out and view your options. A minimum pledge of $50(USD) will get women their very own multi-way magnetic scarf, while the men will receive a tie with an extra, interchangeable tail.

[via CNET]

If only telekinesis were a real thing, we wouldn’t need to resort to such cheap parlor tricks as sticking magnets inside our gloves, but unfortunately we live in the real world, and as far as I know, The Force doesn’t actually exist in our universe. But if you’ve been thinking about dressing up as Darth Vader this Halloween, and are looking for that finishing touch, then you might want to grab one of these.

This is the Darth Vader Force Glove – which is basically just a glove with couple of big-ass magnets in it. The glove comes with a couple of small magnetic  toys that you can practice your Force Push and Force Pull with. There’s a small cutout of some droids that you can push along your tabletop, as well as a tiny lightsaber you can pull towards your glove. It’s too bad it’s not strong enough to pull a can of beer out of the fridge and fling it across the room, though.

In addition to manipulating these little playthings, you could always use the glove for truly Dark-Sided tricks, like erasing your buddy’s ATM card, or wiping out the hard drive in their MacBook. Probably not a good idea to do either of those things if you don’t want them to chop off your hand with a lightsaber, though.

You can grab the Darth Vader Force Glove over at ThinkGeek for $19.99(USD).

Much ado has been made of weather-resistant cameras, but it’s all a moot point if the memory card dies, isn’t it? Panasonic wants that level of survivability in its SDHC and SDXC cards, and its new UHS-I-level SDAB and SDUB lines are tested for the kind of abuse that could see the camera give up the ghost first. The cards can take the kinds of punishment that we often associate with rugged gear, such as temperatures from -13F to 185F, immersion in 3.3 feet of water for half an hour and the usual steep drops. It’s beyond this that the resistance levels become truly exotic: the cards are also built to survive zaps of electricity, proximity to magnets and exposure to X-rays. If it all becomes too much to bear, the design will even fuse on the inside to prevent fire burning the card from within. Those who like what they see will only have to decide whether or not they want the SDAB range’s 95MB/s read speeds and 80MB/s writes or are willing to settle for the SDUB line’s respective 90MB/s and 45MB/s transfers. We have yet to see if or when the SD cards cross the Pacific after their September 8th launch in Japan, although we hope so — with that kind of extra-tough design, our photos are more likely to endure than we will.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Storage

Panasonic preps SD cards that survive heat, water and X-rays, will probably outlast you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 05:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You won’t find this on its official specs list, but Google’s Nexus 7 tablet apparently has a magnet-enabled sensor that’ll automatically set the display to sleep — it’s hard not to think of the iPad’s Smart Cover. YouTube user wwscoggin was able to discover and pin-point the functionality near the bottom left of the device by gliding a magnet along its bezel. As Android Police notes, this appears to be the only Android tablet with such a feature, yet there’s no word on whether ASUS’ decidedly Smart Case-esque cases will make use of it. We’ve been able to replicate the action on our end, but don’t take our word for it, catch the video after the break.

Continue reading Google’s Nexus 7 discovered to have Smart Cover-like magnetic sensor

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Tablet PCs

Google’s Nexus 7 discovered to have Smart Cover-like magnetic sensor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 17:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android Police  |  wwscoggin (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments