Powercurl Cord-Winder Makes Magsafe Heatsafe

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If you’re one of those neat-freaks who wraps cords, then may we present to you the Powercurl, a fetching custard-colored, clip-on plastic cord-wrap for Apple’s magsafe power adapters. The original adapters do have a pair of flip-out prongs so you can curl up the smaller of the cables, but the truly obsessive will appreciate the ability to wrap the mains extension, too, as well as the clip to stop it unwinding.

Those of you who gently fold rather than maniacally wrap (in other words, the people whose cords last for more than a few days without internal snaps and breakages) will also find something to love: The Powercurl lifts the red-hot plastic brick off the floor, mattress or sofa and lets a little air circulate around it. For anyone who, like me, works from bed, this is a boon.

Best of all, the Powercurl is cheap. $7.25 cheap, which means spinning your own is pointless. As with all of Quirky’s products, it was designed by the Quirky community and when enough orders are signed up, the production lines will begin to hum and churn out the goods. Fun fact: The Powercurl went from idea to final design in just 24 hours.

Product page [Quirky]


Hambone Frame-Bags for Stylish Cyclists

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There are many ways to carry things with you on a bike, even if you don’t want to go down the pannier/rack or “granny-basket” routes. You can make a saddlebag, wear a fanny-pack or use a handlebar bag. Now you can get a stylish and useful frame-bag which hangs from the top tube and keeps your valuables neat, tidy and safely between your thighs.

Hambones’ Velopocket and Balzac are similar to the many frame-bags already out there, only they look good off the bike as well as on. A rear loop hooks around the seat tube to stop swinging and two internal straps hang around the top tube so you can open and close the flap without the bag falling off.

Handmade by siblings Hernan and Lisa Marie and sold on craft store Etsy, the bags are reasonably priced. Even the larger leather Velopocket costs just $50, with fabric Balzacs (say that name out loud and consider the position of the bag) starting at $20.

Product page [Hambone Designs via Uraban Velo]


Reelight Handlebar Lights. Battery-Free Lamps Climb Higher

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Reelight, the Danish maker of magnet-powered LED bike lights, has announced a new handlebar-mounted version of its set-and-forget lamp.

I have had a pair of Reelights (the SteadyLight) on my city bike for almost a year and I love them. They don’t buzz and grind and slow you down like a bottle-dynamo rubbing the wheel, they’re glowing all the time you are riding, so you can never forget to switch them on, and they are utilitarian enough not to be a thief-magnet.

The one problem is that they sit down by the wheel hubs. The lights work by generating energy from magnets hooked onto the spokes. As the magnets are near the hubs, so are the lights, and down there they aren’t as noticeable as they could be.

The new lamps have a cable running from the generator to the light, which now sits up high. Same battery-free lights, same always-on behavior, only now you can see them properly. If these work as well as the regular low-riding Reelights, and you don’t care about bolting bits to, and running cables around, your bike, there is no reason not to buy a pair.

Reelight at Eurobike [Rad Spannerei via Cyclelicious
Photo: Red Spannerei

Manufacturer site [Reelight]

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Take Note: Scratch-N-Scroll Mousepad

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You may remember Quirky. It is a company that takes submissions for product ideas, waits until enough people have ordered them (usually only a matter of days) and only then does it turn on the production lines for a limited run. We’ve featured a couple of Quirky products before, most notable the double-sided USB stick.

The Scratch-N-Scroll continues the good work. It is a mousepad with a twist — it acts like a Magic Slate toy, allowing you to scribble notes and doodles with the attached stylus. When done, you can erase your artworks and poetry by peeling up the top-sheet, just like the Magic Slate.

It’s a wonderfully simple, and actually pretty useful idea, and it only costs $9.50. The only problem we see is that almost nobody uses a mousepad anymore in the age of optical and laser mice that can even track through a glass, darkly. Also, sticky notes, anyone?

Product page [Quirky. Thanks, Nikki!]


Magnetic Bike Pedals Stick to Your Feet

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Mavic, maker of bike parts and accessories, has gone all Sony on us. The EZ-Ride Evolve pedals don’t look too different from a normal platform pedal, but that little circle in the center is a magnet. When combined with the matching shoes (and here’s the proprietary Sony-style part) which are only supplied by Mavic, your feet will snap into position as the powers of attraction take hold.

Or will they? A small magnet, however strong, will never replace proper toe-clips or cleats as mechanisms for keeping feet on pedals. On the other hand, the stiffened soles will make riding more comfortable and efficient than a pair of Converse, and the matching male and female X-shapes, along with the magnet, will at least keep your feet in the proper position on the pedals.

The problem is that you can only buy your shoes from Mavic. We imagine there may be a tiny demand for these in the mountain biking market, but otherwise, use toe-clips or just learn to put your balls on the pedals (the balls of your feet, that is). Mavic’s magnetic pedals cost around $60 per pair, the shoes $90.

Product page [Mavic via Bike Radar]


Dahon FreeCharge Turns Pedal Power into USB Power

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Dahon, maker of folding bikes, has shown off a rather ingenious and incredibly useful little gizmo at the Eurobike show. The BioLogic FreeCharge is a little silicone-encased box which hooks up to your bike’s generator hub and siphons off power for charging your gadgets. The unit comprises a battery and circuitry to both store electricity and to smooth the inevitable bumps and spikes in the generator’s output.

Then you simply plug in your cellphone or iPod to the USB port, juicing the GPS as you ride. The time to a full charge is three hours, but the most likely use for this is topping-off, keeping your gadgets going indefinitely as you trundle along. And think about cycle touring: you can charge iPods, phones and even camera batteries, freeing you from the tyranny of camp-sites and power outlets. Fantastic, and $100 when it ships in March 2010.

Charge your iPod with your bike [Bike Hugger]


Autograph: Sign Documents with Finger and Trackpad

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The Pogo Stylus is an iPhone accessory that we have mocked mercilessly since its beginnings, in the same way a jock will ceaselessly bully a bespectacled geek until one day, he gets his sweet, sweet (and doubtlessly technical) revenge. Well, Ten One, the nerds behind the stick, just got that revenge.

The Pogo comes in various guises but in all of them comprises a small tubular stick with a wad of conductive foam on the end. This lets you use it as a pen on the iPhone’s screen, and also on the glass touchpads of the unibody MacBooks. Mostly pointless, as the idea of the iPhone screen is to obviate the need for an easy-to-lose pen.

The revenge comes in the form of Mac software which, ironically, works just as well with a finger. Autograph is a tiny application which can add signatures to your documents. Ever been send a pdf form that you have to sign and return, only to end up printing it, signing and then scanning it back in? Autograph is here to help.

Autograph runs in the background and, when you hit a hot-key or click the menu bar icon, brings up a little transparent black square. You use the stylus (or finger) on the trackpad to sign. Hit enter and it is inserted into the document you were working on. And of course you can use it to insert quick sketches.

Autograph is a very neat exploitation of Mac hardware, and cost $7, or comes free with those previously useless Pogo Sticks.

Product page [Ten One]

See Also:


Bookmark 2.0: Page-Marker Updated

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Bookmark II is and elegant upgrade for the old-fashioned slip of card or paper of old, or the awful page-corner folding practiced by neanderthals like me. Actually, Bookmark II is the sequel to a tacky, novelty placeholder which incorporated a “cute” rubber hand waving from the top of the book. We shall ignore it.

The bookmark is a rubber band that wraps around the wad of read or unread pages to keep your place, and has a handy pointer for those so sieve-brained that they can’t remember the last line they read. We like that it also works to hold the pages open for one-handed use, ideal for sipping a platform Heineken while you read.

Keep an eye on the novelty tat-stores and museum bookshops in your town for this to appear, or you could bookmark the product page for an update on the release date… Wait, no you can’t. In a fit of irony, the entire product site is in Flash, and therefore unbookmarkable. Good luck!

Product page [Propaganda Online via Oh Gizmo via Moco Loco]


Boring Keyboard with Interesting In-Built Trackpad

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This keyboard is hideous, a piece of design so startlingly humdrum that, like the perfect spy, it could slip into your office and remain unnoticed for weeks or months. But Adesso’s AKB-440 has one extremely useful feature, especially in an age where almost everyone uses a laptop.

It has an integrated touchpad, along with a pair of mouse buttons, situated below the useless section which contains the “insert”, “page down” and “end” keys. The arrow keys have been shifted across under the, uh, shift key, laptop-style, to make room.

Now a mouse, with all its fancy buttons, might be more efficient than a trackpad, but once you get used to having one there at your finger and thumb-tips as you write, reaching over to grab the rodent starts to get annoying. I have a lovely old sprung external keyboard which is propped against the wall because I am so used to my MacBook keyboard and oversized trackpad.

And even if you love your mouse, there are times when you are surfing one handed (drinking a cup of coffee, I mean) that an integrated trackpad much easier. Hell, just scrolling a long document would benefit.

The $60 keyboard has one other great selling point. If anyone in the office does notice it, they’ll never steal it. It’s just too plain ugly.

Product page [Adesso via Business Wire]


USB Fan, And Not the Kind You Think

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This USB fan doesn’t suck 5 volts from your computer to keep you cool at the keyboard. In fact, using it as an actual fan while plugged in would likely be impossible, or at least damaging. What you do get is a manually operated bamboo and cotton Japanese fan, lacquered for stiffness and longevity, and stuffed with 16GB of flash memory, in which you can store your memoirs, should you be a Geisha (rimshot).

The price? Keep cool — it costs ¥27,500. That’s $300, or almost $20 per gig.

Product page [GeekStuff4U via Book of Joe]