Hasta La Gadget!

One of five finalists in our first-annual Insert Coin: New Challengers competition, the Snapzoom is an adapter that lets you connect a smartphone to a telescope or a pair of binoculars for some long-range snapshots. We gave you a brief look at the product earlier in our contest, but we went hands-on with the Snapzoom ahead of Engadget Expand — with the San Francisco Bay serving as our test subject, no less.

The Snapzoom isn’t the only product of its kind, but it stands out for being universal. Though we tested the adapter with an iPhone 5, it will work with virtually every smartphone, thanks to adjustable clamps. Connecting the handset (in its case) to a set of binoculars was seamless: we just attached the device via the self-centering clamps and tightened it into place. It’s easy to get excited when the setup brings you up close and personal with Alcatraz, but Snapzoom basically assumes you have some stunning imagery to shoot. We’ll have to wait and see how our elite panel of Insert Coin judges thinks this contestant stacks up. In the meantime, check out the video demo past the break.

Filed under: Cameras, Peripherals

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Who knew that smartphone owners were suddenly such temperate drinkers? Just days after Alcohoot unveiled its take on a phone-friendly breathalyzer, Breathometer is here with its own way to watch our tipsiness. The namesake, FDA-approved gadget will plug into the headphone jack of an Android or iOS device and warn if our blood is too alcohol-rich, all while staying small enough to fit on a keychain. Plans are underway to eventually let soused users hail a taxi from the native app. The Breathometer won’t be available until we’re at the height of summer party season, but it should be cheap enough to eliminate any excuses: its Indiegogo campaign is asking for just $20 to secure a Breathometer alongside a pledge, or less than a good night out.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile

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Source: Breathometer, Indiegogo

At a show where developers are rock stars, Leap Motion just might be this year’s Beatles. SXSW isn’t the first time the company has given demos of its motion-controlled input devices, but it really seems to be the moment the world is taking notice — and realizing the potential — of its offering. Over the weekend, co-founders Michael Buckwald and David Holz addressed a packed Austin Convention Center hall, ahead of keynote conversations with Al Gore and Elon Musk.

The company set aside some time this morning to speak with us and offer up some demos of the technology, expanding upon what we saw on stage the other day. At present Leap Motion’s primary offering is a small box that sits by a PC, just in front of your keyboard. The little sensor detects the motion of your hands with a precision that allows it to distinguish the movement of individual fingers.

Filed under: Peripherals, Wearables

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The standard crop of 3D printers are all well and good, but what about those times when you need to print something really, really big? Gigabot’s hoping to fill in that gaping void with a build envelope of 24 x 24 x 24 inches — 30 times the volume of a standard consumer device, by its calculations. The device is a beast, naturally — and metal one, at that. It’s so big, in fact, that it can support a full-sized laptop sitting atop an attached arm.

The project is the brainchild of re:3D, an Austin-based startup, which has turned to Kickstarter to help bring the Gigabot into the world — and from the looks of it, the company should hit its $40,000 goal, no problem. You can pick one of these up for a $2,500 pledge, which gets you everything you need to build one at home. Video of the printer in action after the break.

Filed under: Peripherals

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Source: Kickstarter

Microsoft has talked up its Kinect Fusion tool since 2011, but it took some time at TechFest this week to show off how the software could be useful in operating rooms. For those who need a refresher, Redmond’s solution can create 3D models of whatever an attached Kinect sensor lays eyes on, but in this instance it was leveraged to create an augmented reality experience. Using an off-the-shelf Kinect camera duct-taped to a tablet, Microsoft researchers layered a model of a brain onto a mannequin’s head, making its would-be mind viewable on the slate from different angles. Ballmer and Co. reckon that neurosurgeons could use the technique to visualize what’s in a patient’s noggin and plan how they’ll guide their scalpel. Word that Fusion would come to the Kinect for Windows SDK first surfaced last year, but Microsoft now says it’ll hit the dev kit’s next release, which should arrive shortly. Head past the break to catch a video of the medical concept app in action.

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Science, Microsoft

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Source: IEEE Spectrum