Hasta La Gadget!

If you followed the Apple press event and decided that you should probably get a case for your iPhone 4, you could do worse than to pre-order a Vapor iPhone 4 case from ElementCase. The Vapor is machine carved from a solid block of aluminum to form a metal bumper that’s specifically designed for the shape of the iPhone 4, with precision carved openings for the headphone port, microphone and speaker ports, and volume and mute buttons. Since it’s aluminum, it’s light and fits the overall design of the iPhone 4, and a power button was built into the case so it can be turned on and off without having to remove the Vapor.

The finish of the Vapor case is anodized, and while the first iterations are metallic black on black and black on pink, ElementCase expects to release additional colors soon. The side of the aluminum is laser etched with “Vapor” on it, and the company expects to offer custom engraving in the future as well. Best of all, if you’ve been suffering from the “death grip” issue, the inside of the Vapor case is non-conductive, so you won’t lose signal while the aluminum bumper is on your iPhone. ElementCase has the Black/Black and Black/Pink Vapor models available now for $79.95.

If you have an iPhone 4 and you wish you got a bit more juice from the battery, or you’re one of the people experiencing the now-infamous “death grip” problem, the Exolife rechargeable iPhone 4 battery case may be able to solve both of those problems. Exolife’s external battery case mounts to the back of your iPhone 4 without adding a ton of extra bulk. It completely covers the sides and back, and it has openings cut out for the power button, headphone jack, and volume buttons on the side. There’s also an opening in the back for the camera and flash.

According to Exolife, the case will virtually doubles your iPhone’s battery life with its 1500mAh Lithium-Ion polymer rechargeable battery. The case is designed not to interfere with the signal from your iPhone 4 (although since it covers the sides, it’ll probably help with the iPhone 4’s reported signal issues). The Exolife battery case also turns off automatically when power from the case is not needed, so the extra charge is ready when you need it.

Exolife is taking pre-orders for the black and white versions of the case now. Black versions will ship at the end of July, and white versions will ship at the end of September. Both versions cost $89.95 list. 

Nikola Tesla would have turned 154 years old today, and his technological inventions and discoveries are still very relative to our daily life. He left behind a legacy of ideas in notes and diagrams that engineers still pore over, looking for inspiration.

Born in Croatia at midnight between July 9 and July 10, 1856, Tesla went to study at the Realschule in Karlstadt and the University of Prague later on in 1873. His interest in physics and mathematics gave way to a passion for electricity. It did not take long for him to be hired by Continental Edison Company in Paris, and then be offered a position in the United States to work alongside Thomas Edison himself in 1884.

Charles Batchelor wrote Tesla’s letter of introduction to Edison, stating, “I know two great men. One is you and the other is this young man.” But soon, these two great men would be at war with one another. Edison’s powerhouses ran on direct current, which Tesla demonstrated were ineffective. Tesla felt the solution lay in using alternating current to distribute energy across much greater distances than direct current could. Tesla developed forty patents on the polyphase alternation current system of generators, transformers and motors.

Though Edison felt Tesla’s ideas were impractical, he would soon feel threatened by them. George Westinghouse bought the patents, and both he and Tesla advocated the AC system.

While Edison electrocuted animals in street demonstrations to promote the notion that AC electricity is dangerous, Tesla’s demonstrated the superiority of AC current in 1893 at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The winning battle, however, took place in 1895 at Niagara Falls, where Tesla demonstrated the first hydroelectric powerplant. The world finally saw the benefits of AC electricity, and it became a twentieth-century standard.

Much of our modern technology is based on Tesla’s contributions. He developed and perfected the fluorescent light, laser beam, remote control, wireless communication, and robotics, just to name a few. We owe him the radio, as well. The Tesla coil, invented in 1891, is still used in radios, televisions, and other electronics.

Nikola Tesla died in New York City (where the memorial, above, is located) in January, 1943. He was a genius who stood by his
ideas, and changed the world because of it.

Photo: Tony Hoffman

Information: Tesla Memorial Society of New York

Coming up with a significantly new approach for generating colors in a projector isn’t easy. Neither is coming up with a new approach for generating the light itself. That makes it a big deal that Casio’s managed to do both at once in its Green Slim projectors, with its new Green Slim hybrid light source.

Projector manufacturers all know the harmony to “It’s not easy being green,” because projectors generally are pretty much the opposite of green. The central problem is the standard projector lamp, which eats up lots of power, wastes lots of energy as heat, and includes mercury as one of its components. A few projectors today use LEDs or lasers instead of a standard lamp, but most of those are either pico or palm-top projectors that offer a relatively dim 100 lumens or less. I’ve yet to see any that offer more than 1000 lumens.

Casio’s innovation is to combine LEDs, lasers, and phosphor. The combination lets its Green Slim projectors reach 2000 to 2500 lumens depending on the model, a brightness level that puts them in the same category as traditional projectors aimed at small conference rooms and portable use.

Urbanears has had the Medis earphones on their Web site for ages now, but the company announced today that they would finally start appearing on the shelves of Bloomingdales, Turntable Lab, Rock and Soul, and other retailers both online and brick-and-mortar, retailing for $50.00 USD.

The Medis earphones feature Urbanears’ new “EarClick” technology, which makes the earphones a combination between earbuds and over-the-ear headphones. The earphones come with a clip on the outside to keep them on your ears, and the actual earbud piece fits into your ear, but not as far into the ear canal as normal earbuds would. Even so, the Medis ship with four inserts to make sure that they fit well on any ear.

As with all of Urbanears’ headsets, the Medis come with an in-line microphone so you can use them for your portable audio player and your cell phone interchangeably, and they come in over a dozen colors to match your tastes and preferences.