Hasta La Gadget!

Some things are cool for a very short time, before becoming totally dorky. The aluminum, fold-up “adult” scooter, for example. This flash-fashion in the early oughts saw creative types in London’s Soho scooting from meeting to meeting along crowded sidewalks, bellies wobbling as they turned heads, and then heading down to the Met Bar for an after-work cocktail. And then, mere weeks later, you were a loser just for touching one.

The iPad’s cachet has already proved longer lived, but Assero seems hell-bent in changing that. The company’s Defender and Protector bags are backpacks that are worn backwards, sitting over your chest and belly. The iPad sits in a front pocket which can be opened up and hinged down, suspended at your chosen angle by two straps. Thus positioned, you can attack the screen with both hands, just like using a laptop.

These bags are clearly the iPad equivalent of the fanny-pack, itself something only worn by people who have given up on life and switched to elastic-waisted jeans and shoes that can fold up to be packed easily. Is the iPad so big and awkward that you need to have a desk for it suspended above your gut? Apparently so, according to the people Assero managed to extract quotes from:

My Apple iPad is heavier than I expected; and, to carry it with patient files and everything else was just not convenient.

So heavy… What about this one:

I thought the Apple iPad was going to revolutionize my industry, but while it’s convenient – it requires a desk which isn’t often available to me

A desk? Really?

The Apple iPad wasn’t an option to me because it is awkward to use while standing.

Well, that one’s true.

The Protector is the smaller of the two, and is pretty much a sleeve for the iPad. It costs $90. The Defender is more like a cross between a laptop bag and a backpack, with pockets for phones, pens and cables, and costs $130. Both can, of course, be worn as regular backpacks, but then you’re giving a pickpocket the same easy access to you iPad that you enjoyed when it was up front.

Assero Defender and Protector [Assero]

See Also:

• Slim, Minimal iPad Bag is a Purse for Men
• Dodobag, a Murse to Hold Your Dodocase
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• Murses

Just in case you thought I get a little too mean when writing about certain products, here’s an email from the people at Waterfield Designs regarding a writeup of their keyboard carrying case. You may remember that it caused “tears of pity and sorrow to moisten my normally parched, cracked ducts.”

Since the keyboard case signaled the end of civilization, I thought you’d enjoy this new case too. (End of the planet as we know it?)

And what is this mystery new case, the accessory that will extinguish all life, not just human, from this abused sphere we call home? It’s the SuperDrive Sleeve, a pouch that makes the keyboard case (and its good friend, the trackpad cover) seem positively useful.

Item: You haven’t used the optical drive in any of your computers for the last year. Many of you will have owned a desktop or notebook and not even know whether the SuperDrive even works.

Item: You have bought a MacBook Air, which comes with a USB key to restore the operating system and leaves out the DVD-drive in favor of useful features like battery life and portability.

Item: You can download movies these days, you know.

Despite this, the Waterfield SuperDrive Sleeve presumes not only that you will somehow decide that you need to own a CD/DVD reader/writer, but that you will actually carry it with you. Not only that, but that you will do so often enough to need a purpose-made case. A $25 case with a ballistic nylon shell, a soft, coddling neoprene lining and a mesh pocket for the cable (or a floppy disc, I suppose, considering that you are clearly living in the past).

I’m willing to admit I may have gone in a little hard on the keyboard case, but a SuperDrive case? C’mon. What next? A Fax Bag?

SuperDrive Sleeve [Waterfield Designs. Thanks, Heidi!]

See Also:

• Protective Keyboard Cases Signal End of Civilization
• Protective Keyboard Case Joined By Trackpad Cover
• Leather Case Turns iPad into Netbook
• Aluminum Shell Hides iPad Keyboard

This concept design eases one of the most annoying inconveniences that humans suffer in the modern age: trying to stick USB plugs into sockets, and getting them the wrong way around. We have all done it: you jab the cable into the side of your computer and it just won’t go in. You get mad, your skin grows greener, and your clothes start to tear.

The Double USB-plug will save you, along with your wardrobe. It can be plugged in any way you like, thanks to an intricate and easy-to-break system of internal componentry. If you look into the end of a regular USB plug, you’ll see that it is half-filled with the plastic part containing the contacts. The Double USB has two of these, filling the entirety of the metal tube. Both are spring-loaded, so whichever one is redundant in a given orientation will simply be pushed back as you plug it in.

It’s a solution that would certainly work, but it would also require much more complicated plugs that would bring their own frustrations. Imagine you are away on a trip and you want to charge your [insert gadget here]. You brought one USB cable, the fancy Double USB we see here. Only unlike the million indestructible USB cables you left back at home, this one has taken a whack and is now rendered useless, springs poking out like a Swiss watch that has been hit with a hammer.

This USB plugs in both ways [Yanko]

See Also:

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Das Keyboard, the company behind – you guessed it – the Das Keyboard, will now sell you some mint-green keycaps to replace your WASD keys. Aimed at gamers, the keys can be had with or without letters to fit (or contrast with) either the lettered or blank Das Keyboard. For $15 you also get a red escape key, a key-puller and free shipping.

The Das Keyboard, you might remember, is the rackety-clackety keyboard with the Cherry MX-style key switches, which make a noise fit to wake the neighbors and also give a very positive click to let you know you have pressed the key properly. I reviewed one back in October 2008 and was told by the company not to pop the keycaps off. I did anyway, to make the command and alt keys match the standard Mac layout, and it seems the Das Keyboard has finally agreed.

I’m not sure I’d want these ugly green keys, even if I was a gamer, but for just $15, it’s almost worth it just to have that bright red escape key up inn the corner.

Das Keyboard WASD keys [Das Keyboard via Slashgear]

See Also:

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• Soundproofed Keyboard Cover Has No Reason to Exist
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Guitarists: How much did you pay for your instrument? If it was less than $825, then look away now, because this gorgeous leather case costs more than your guitar.

The case is called the Arizona Arena and comes from the Whipping Post Leather company, a name which neatly evokes the brutal flaying required to skin a dead cow. And unlike its bovine donor (or even your guitar), the case looks like it would last forever, sewn with “marine grade threading” and equipped with stainless steel buckles and loops. It does in fact come with a lifetime warranty.

Inside there is one-inch thick foam padding and outside you get pockets for stowing a pint of bourbon and anything else the modern guitarist might need. There is also a strap which does double-duty as a shoulder-strap or backpack-strap.

The picture above shows the Arizona Arena, and you can also go for the darker Georgia Brown or the pale tan Mojave Sand for the same high, high price.

Arizona Arena product page [Whipping Post Leather via Uncrate]

See Also:

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• Rock Out: Fingerist Turns iPhone into Guitar
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