Hasta La Gadget!

There are plenty of apps that allow you access to some of your content when you’re away from home, but what if you want to access all of it at the same time? The new Slingboxes might fit the bill, since they will allow you to do that.

The Slingbox 350 and 500 offer support for place-shifting video in up to 1080p quality, as well as integrated IR emitters for controlling set-top boxes from across the globe, and without ugly wires hanging from the box. The 350 model works over a wired Ethernet connection, while the 500 has built-in Wi-Fi, as well as HDMI input/output and SlingProjector technology to wirelessly share media from a smartphone, tablet or TV.

The Slingbox 350 sells for $180(USD) while the 500 sells for $300. Both of them look unique, instead of basic, ubiquitous black boxes.

[via Uncrate]

Some people have green thumbs while others are known for their plant-killing black thumbs. The former are naturally great at keeping their potted plants and gardens alive and green, while the latter are notoriously known for causing plants to die or wilt a few weeks after they start ‘caring’ for them.

Regardless which group you might belong to, I’m pretty sure you’ll find the Wi-Fi Plant Sensor useful. All you have to do is stick it into your plant’s pot and log on online (or run the iOS app it works with). Select what species your plant is and keep the sensor there for a week, because that’s how long it’ll take for the sensor’s app to come up with a care plan specifically put together for your plant.

After seven days, you can move the sensor to another plant to start the whole process all over again.

The Wi-Fi Plant Sensor was designed in Switzerland by Koubachi and is available for CHF 99.00 (~$104 USD.)

[via Dvice]

It’s true that surfing the web through public connections isn’t that safe. I still remember a crazy computer virus I got in Thailand that migrated from my compact flash card onto my home system. Cloak aims to improve network security by sending traffic through a VPN that encrypts all of your Internet traffic.

Cloak is easy to set up and currently only works for iOS devices and OSX computers. Android and Windows versions are coming along though. This app is to be used in unsecured networks, like at the airport, coffee shops, and while you’re traveling. It looks like something that’s worth using if you use public connections a lot.

Cloakis free for the first 2 hours per month or 1 GB, but after that you’ll need to sign up for a premium account, which cost between $8 and $15 per month depending on your data needs.

[via The Next Web]

The 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London will officially commence this Friday, the 27th of July. If you’re planning to spend your weeks watching the games, you might want to leave that wireless router behind. That’s because the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) is adding wireless access points and 3G hubs on the list of restricted items, let alone walkie-talkies, phone jammers, radio scanners, laser pointers, and strobe lights.

“Personal/ private wireless access points and 3G hubs (smart devices such as Android phones, iPhone and tablets are permitted inside venues, but must not be used as wireless access points to connect multiple devices),” LOCOG writes. This is bad news for journalists who will most probably rely on their mobile hotspots during the big event to cover the latest sports news. Also, LOCOG did not explain the reason behind the restriction, although it could be possible that they want to ensure crisp Wi-Fi signals without interference in the Olympic venues.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: London ready to get Wi-Fi throughout the city in time for 2012 Olympics, Super fast Wi-Fi coming your way?,

Just how fast is your current Wi-Fi connection? Well, it seems that scientists have managed to figure out a new method of transportation for wireless data, where they managed to eke out a theoretical figure of 2.5 terabits of information for each second that passes by. To put things into perspective, that would translate to the Wi-Fi connection being up to more than eight times faster compared to Verizon’s fastest wired home Internet connection known as FiOS, which manages to eke out 300Mbps – which is rather paltry in comparison.

How about another mind boggling example? We are looking at complete transmission of seven full Blu-ray movies as the second hand on the clock ticks by once. The entire concept thought up by this brilliant team of American and Israeli researchers will rely on electromagnetic waves which normally carry data that have been twisted into vortex beams.

These twisted signals will rely on orbital angular momentum (OAM) so that it can ferry far more more data on a single stream compared to what we currently use, where Wi-Fi, LTE and COFDM protocols modulate the spin angular momentum (SAM) of radio waves instead of the OAM. Now, if only all of that theory can be put into practise – which is pretty much a long time to wait still, if ever.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Scientists Make Wi-Fi Twenty Times Faster, Delta regional jets to receive Wi-Fi service ,