8 Gadgets For Last Minute Shopper Horde Fighting
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You already know what it will take to beat down a zombie horde, but a throng of frantic last minute shoppers is another matter altogether. Here are the tools you need to win the day.
Overcoming Your Physical Limitations:
HAL Exoskeleton: First thing is first. In order to outwit your opponent and score the last minute deals you desire, you are going to need a strength and speed advantage. Renting a Hal Exoskeleton from Cyberdine will increase your strength up to 10x the norm—making it easy to lift heavy gifts and intimidate the weak. Sure, a rental costs about $2,200—but you have to ask yourself: how bad do I want to win? [Cyberdine via Link]
iShoes: As mentioned, speed will also be a key to victory. These self-propelled shoes will help you travel the store at a whopping 13.5 mph. [iShoes via Link]
Secure Your Prize:
Sonic Alarm Grenade: Once you have located your prize, you will need to secure it from the grubby hands of the holiday horde. Wearing a set of earplugs and pulling the pin on this sonic grenade should buy you a little breathing room. It packs an ear-splitting high decibel blast that can cut through a crowd like a knife. [Firebox via Link]
R/C Skunk: Speaking of cutting a path through a crowd, sending this realistic looking radio-controlled skunk down the store aisles should help clear the way. It even has a flickable tail to strike fear in the heart of your enemies. [TYNKE]
Security Briefs: These dummy skid-marked briefs are intended to be a secure place to hide your valuables, but placing them on top of the HDTV you want while you shop elsewhere works well too. [Baron Bob]
Cyber Clean: Like the security briefs, Cyber Clean goo can be repurposed for holiday horde fighting. Under normal use, the substance helps clean your keyboard. But sneezing and throwing it discreetly on the product you desire should help you secure it. Licking it and / or putting it down your pants is also effective. [Expert Verdict]
Misdirection:
Excuse Me, I’m a Reporter with a Camera: People will do anything for someone with a camera. Picking up an old shoulder-mount VHS camcorder and a cheap mic from eBay will give you free reign of the store. Posing as a local reporter covering the last minute holiday shopping crowds will help you cut through lines and grab the items you need with no resistance. You can even add a microphone flag for added authenticity. Sure, a VHS camcorder is a poor substitute for a modern, professional video camera—but amidst all of the chaos and the thrill of being on television, people are unlikely to notice. [eBay]
Protect Yourself:
Defender Hoodie: As we have learned from the horrific incident at Toys R Us this year, it is important to protect yourself from insane, gun-wielding shoppers. The Defender Hoodie is made from 2mm of Type IIA bulletproofing—enough to stop a 9mm full-metal-jacket round at a velocity of 1,090 feet-per-second. [Bladerunner via Link]
Umbuster Umbrella: Finally, as a last line of defense, the Umbuster knuckle-dusting umbrella will help you beat down mother nature and crazed holiday shoppers that would trample over their own grandmother to score a deal. [Sruli Recht via Link]
[Image via Zorpia]
The gadget: The ZVOX 550, the only speaker system we’ve ever seen designed to hold a 50″ flat panel TV while packing a 60W amp, 5.25″ sub, and five 2″ speakers in one frame.
Also, while I appreciate the minimal design, the tiny remote coupled with a single LED light on the system to signal power/remote commands, it’s tough to know where your levels are (Is treble maxed? How much louder can I crank this?).
Anticipating a 
Roku owners were greeted with a brand new home screen this morning as the service was updated to handle HD video and a expansion that could see new channels and web content on your TV.
NYU’s ITP program is technology meets art, and good things (like this DIY Surface table) tend to happen at that intersection. Why didn’t I go to school here?
After playing with a prototype of Intel’s 
Christmas and Hanukkah will soon be here. Many of you will soon have iTunes gift certificates to blow—why not support a good cause? This week’s apps give some/all of their proceeds to charity.
Damn it’s cold out there. If only I had an obnoxious and impractical super suit of armor that protected me from the freezing temperatures. Fortunately, there are gadget garments that can make that happen.
WarmX Electric Underwear: WarmX’s line of undergarments feature special conducting thread woven directly into the cloth that keeps you warm using power supplied by lithium-ion batteries. A charge will keep you toasty in even the coldest conditions for 2-5 hours. [
Ardica Jackets: As a final layer of core protection, these Aridica Jackets generate enough energy with a lithium-ion battery to keep you warm for 3-9 hours (depending on the settings) and even charge your portable gadgets. [
USB Warming Kneepads: Okay, USB gadgets mean that you will need to carry around a laptop as part of your winter armor—just think of it like your version of an 
USB Slippers: Like the kneepads, these slippers will keep your feet nice and warm when plugged into a USB port. Yeah, this is not so great for mobility, but your not chasing after criminals in this suit. In this case, your mortal enemy is old man winter—and he is a crotchety old coot. [
Aevex Gloves: Like the Ardica Jacket and the WarmX Underwear, these gloves keep your hands warm using battery power. A charge gets you about 4-6 hours of warmth, and the gloves are smart enough to allocate heat where you need it the most by taking temperature readings on various spots of your hand. [
iLogic Sound Hat: Not only is the iLogic warm, it can also plug into your mp3 player to pump tunes into your brain via speakers located in the ears. [
USB Eye Warmer: If you really want to get crazy with this suit, these USB-powered eye warmers will keep your eyeballs warm at the expense of your vision. Sounds stupid, but there is nothing worse than a pair of chilly eyeballs. [
USB Shawl: What good is a flamboyant super suit without a cape? It’s worthless, that’s what. Plugging in this USB heated shawl should do the trick. Embroidering it with your own personal superhero logo is optional. [
Netflix, Vudu, Unbox and Apple TV may be around, but if there’s one name in rentals that can take streaming mainstream, it’s Blockbuster. Unfortunately, their first attempt at a streaming media box falls short.
The search menu is a good example of the often strange navigation strategies. Much like a TiVo, you type in your title that you’d like to find, and a list propagates on the right. Then, you can either highlight a title and press “OK” on the remote, OR you can highlight the item and press right on the D-pad. But nothing else in the system is left to right menu based.
I realize this sounds petty, but take a few minutes navigating the system and you realize that the UI’s rule set lacks basic coherence.
Oh, and then there are little but very annoying issues I should quickly mention. Hitting the “back” button will take you back, but there’s no way to retrace your steps to whatever you were browsing. You start over. And at least two of the icon buttons on the bundled remote do nothing, ever.
Here’s the catch, though. You can watch the movie nearly immediately (SD in seconds, HD in minutes). But you can’t rewind or fast forward until the entire film downloads to your system. Also, if you stop watching a movie before it downloads, there’s no option to resume. You start over. Frustrating. Once the download is complete, FF and RW works very fluidly, as does resuming. Vudu, which costs a lot more, gives you fluid navigation even when downloading.
Most video is promised to be DVD quality. It falls quite a bit short to my eye, though the framerates are generally smooth. Overall, the SD viewing quality reminds me a lot of Amazon Unbox. I feel like I’ve seen better non-HD quality on Netflix—though I’ve had somewhat mixed results on each platform, honestly. Vudu may still reign in the SD-quality department.
