Hasta La Gadget!

Garrison Bespoke is a luxury suit tailor in Toronto, but its latest product might as well come from the research labs of a secret intelligence agency in the UK. It’s a three-piece suit that’s strong enough to withstand attacks from a hunting knife and even 9mm bullets fired at close range, thanks to several layers of carbon nanotubes hidden inside the vest and suit jacket.

According to The Globe and Mail, Garrison Bespoke co-founder Michael Nguyen started development of the stylish life-saving device when one of their clients was assassinated. But because they are suit makers – and because bulletproof vests already exist – Garrison Bespoke ensures that its clients will enjoy protection without sacrificing style or comfort.

The company outlined its goals in developing the suit as follows: “First, to be modern and stylish. Second, to be light and comfortable. And, third, to be reliable and safe.” The video below is from CityNews’ report on the custom suit:

So how much will this ballin’ bullet-stopper cost you? The Globe and Mail says that a custom three-piece suit will set you back at least $20,000. I’m not sure if that’s in Canadian or US Dollars, but there’s not much of a difference between their values anyway. Garrison Bespoke also has a bulletproof polo shirt for $800, for casual yet life-threatening Fridays.

[via Garrison Bespoke, The Globe and Mail & CityNews via Laughing Squid]

About a month and a half ago, after years of relentless Blackberry mockery from my plugged in coworkers, I did something pretty out of my typically Luddite character: I bought a smartphone. And so far, I like it just fine. I can listen to Spotify on my phone now, which is nice. And the picture quality is much better than my old phone’s. The biggest problem? My phone was clearly designed for someone with hands much, much bigger than mine. And I’m not the only woman with this problem.

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If you’re in the market for new tablet and you like Amazon’s Fire HDX line, the company announced that its latest tablet began shipping this week. As of yesterday the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX tablet began shipping to customers around the world.

The tablet promises three times the processing power, two times the memory, and four times the graphics performance of previous generation Kindle Fire tablets. Its stunning 8.9-inch screen has resolution of 2560×1600 and a pixel density of 339 ppi. It runs the Fire OS 3.0 Mojito operating system.

The $379(USD) tablet has 16 GB of storage and includes special offers, which are ads. If you don’t want the special offers to show up, the tablet will cost $394 for the Wi-Fi only model. The 32 GB tablet starts at $429 with the 64 GB version starting at $479. Wi-Fi/4G LTE versions are available starting at $494. The top of the line 64GB LTE model goes for $594, which is a steal when you realize that the equivalent iPad goes for $829.

Have you ever wanted to shoot the sort of 360-degree panoramic images found in Google’s Street View? While there have been numerous attempts to create add-on lenses to capture spherical images, this upcoming gizmo looks like it could be the best solution yet.

The Bublcam is a portable device that uses four cameras to capture a true 360-degree spherical image of your world. Each camera overlaps the field of view of the other cameras, and then its companion app stitches images together to create one contiguous picture.

Still image resolution for the Bublcam is 14 megapixels, and it can also capture HD video at 720p 30fps or 1080 15fps. Another cool feature of the Bublcam is that it’s got onboard Wi-Fi, so it can stream its 360-degree video in real time. You can also store your images and video on SD card or stream via its USB connection.

If you’re interested in checking out some example 360-degree video content from the Bubl prototype, you can find some samples here, here and here. While the prototype videos are far from perfect, they’re still an impressive demo of the potential of Bubl’s technology.

Bublcam is currently raising funds for production on Kickstarter, and has already surpassed its $100,000 (CAD) goal. A pledge of at least $449 (CAD) (~$430 USD) will get you in on the 360-degree action.

Everyone loves a good summer. The smell of freshly cut grass, the fact that everyone moans about getting sunburnt but secretly likes it, and of course, the privilege of being able to garden away to the heart’s content. Well who says summer has to end? At least when it comes to the gardening bit. Yep, bursting on to the scene is a new food invention from the mind of Jim Ruck which goes by the rather snazzy name Breathe.