Hasta La Gadget!

A big block of half-formed pencils, ready for chopping

Ever wondered how a pencil is made? Me too, so I will join you as we watch the following video. It’s from pencil-maker Staedtler. Just imagine that I am sitting at your side, perhaps sipping a coffee as we enjoy the movie together. Don’t worry. I won’t do anything creepy.

I’m a complete sucker for movies showing automatic production lines of anything, so I’d love this clip even if I hadn’t learned anything from it. As it is, I found out that the German Staedtler factory uses Californian cedar for its pencils, that the glue that keeps the lead inside is also a cushion to prevent those leads from snapping, and that the pencils are made in a big block before being cut into their individual hexagonal selves.

You’ll also find out how they’re painted, how the erasers and their accompanying ferrules are attached, and best of all, how they are sharpened. This last step is completely unexpected.

And that is all. Thanks for letting me sit with you for five minutes. I had a great time. That coffee you made me was horrible, though. You might want to do something about that.

How It’s Made PENCIL [YouTube via Core77]

See Also:

• Hand-Sharpened Pencils, Just $15
• Sharpie Reinvents Pen with Liquid Pencil
• Mechanical Pencil Sharpener Disguised as Cute Retro Camera …
• The Pencil iPad Stand: Smart Enough to Impress a New Yorker …

Make your iPad stylus look like a rocket ready to take off with the AluCube

Just Mobile, experts in making chunky objects from blocks of aluminum, has come up with a companion for its AluPen stylus. Called the AluCube, it is a desk stand for the capacitive pen.

The AluCube is, as the name would suggest, an aluminum cube. In one side is drilled a pen-sized hole which is padded to make a soft, rubber-lined orifice into which the shaft of your thick stylus can snugly slip. Underneath is a groove through which a cable can be snaked, stopping your iPhone’s charging cable from slipping off the desk when not in use, for example.

I keep my AluPen flat on the desk, as the god of minimalism intended, and its six flat surfaces mean it never rolls away. I can, however, see the appeal of an inkwell-like pot into which to put it. I can also see the AluCube being the perfect fiddling companion for idle fingers.

Available now for $16, or $40 in a set with the AluPen.

AluCube product page [Just Mobile. Thanks, Erich!]

The MyTrek pulse monitor tracks your exercise with an iPhone app

Whenever I see anyone running with a heart-rate monitor, I can’t help but think of bondage . Sweaty and bare chested, these people run with a strap around their glistening torsos and look like nothing more than extras in a fetish movie. I guess there is a bigger number of people who exercise with their shirt mercifully covering their shame, but the kinky-looking ones are the ones I remember.

There will be no suggestions of S&M with Scosche’s MyTrek pulse monitor. The strap fits around your forearm and speaks wirelessly to your iPhone or iPod Touch via Bluetooth. It comes equipped with an accelerometer to help distinguish between your hammering pulse and your lolloping gait, and the rechargeable battery keeps it going for 5.5 hours — longer than you’ll ever need. The measuring is done by LEDs and photo sensors which track blood pressure fluctuations to determine your heart rate.

A companion app offers a live readout, and will also track your progress over time, with graphs, a workout calendar and even calories expended. Now you can run for just long enough to burn off that extra donut, and not a meter further.

Finally, the armband has buttons to control your music.

The MyTrek is available now, for $130. I’d say that’s a small price to pay for running shirtless and not looking like a pervert.

MyTrek product page [Scosche. Thanks, Mark!]

MyTrek app [iTunes]

The good news: Starting next year, the 3-D glasses you get with your 3-D TV may be compatible with displays made by other major manufacturers as well.

The bad news: They’re still hopelessly ugly.

Sony, Samsung and Panasonic have rallied together to support the “Full HD 3-D Glasses Initiative” and will use Xpand brand 3-D glasses for their active shutter sets starting in 2012.

“The companies intend to work together on the development and licensing of radio frequency (RF) system 3-D active glasses technology,” according to the press release. The technology will be applicable towards all kinds of 3-D displays, including computer monitors, projectors, 3-D theaters and, of course, television sets.

To date, adoption of 3-D in the home has been pretty slow, and not without reason. The technology is victim to a number of issues, including causing nausea, eyestrain and fatigue for some viewers. It also has suffered from a dearth of quality content offerings and diminished consumer trust following a slew of 3-D box-office flops. Not to mention most people just don’t want to put on a pair of chunky, unattractive specs to watch Avatar in 3-D or enjoy a 3-D video game.

Perhaps this move to unify 3-D among suppliers will put consumers a little more at ease; if they purchase a Panasonic TV set and a Samsung monitor, they’re at least able to use the same pair of 3-D glasses for both. LG and Vizio are two other major manufacturers of 3-D TVs who at this point are not taking part in the initiative.

Xpand currently has universal 3-D glasses available for $129.

Development for the new, universal Xpand RF system 3-D glasses will start in September. If you’re an early adopter and you’ve already purchased a 3-D TV this year, don’t fret: The glasses will be backwards compatible with the companies’ 2011 active-shutter TVs. However, the press release doesn’t specify if prescription models will also be universal.

Too bad active shutter glasses aren’t as attractive as these guys.

Source: The Giz

Image credit: The Giz

The Elecom Silicone Stand makes your phone look like a tiny iMac

I hate my stupid phone so much that buying a stand for it would be like buying a beer for the idiot who keeps parking his BMW in my neighborhood bike lane — utterly unthinkable. But for those who have better phones (or who drive BMWs and think that the roads were built just for them), the Elecom Silicone Stand is a great way to get rid of $21.

An elegantly-curved polished aluminum base arcs up, iMac-style, to a flat panel up top. This panel is made from sticky silicone, and grips the rear of your flat-backed phone using nothing but the magical powers of friction. It can be placed in portrait or landscape orientations, depending on what your phone will be doing as it sits cosseted on your desk, and keeps your handset both scratch free and mercifully raised above the plebeian hordes of cables, loose change and other common detritus below.

You can pre-order the stand right now, in black or white. Me? I’ll leave my crappy Samsung Beyoncé in the bottom of my bag along with the keys and coins it deserves. I will then take the sharpest of those keys and take a walk with it down to the bike lane, looking for a shiny black German car.

Elecom Silicone Stand [Flutterscape]

See Also:

• DJ Mix Table Resembles Giant, Broken iMac
• Speaker Dock Turns iPad into Tiny iMac