Author: Stuart Dredge
Skateboards? Schmateboards. The Magic Wheel is where it's at
If Tony Hawk had been born in Victorian times, he’d have shunned the Penny Farthing in favour of a Magic Wheel. If, er, the Magic Wheel had also been invented in Victorian times (which it wasn’t). It’s basically a big wheel with a board attached: you put the wheel between your legs, put one foot on the board, and shove yourself along with the other foot.
Bbrrrrrring! It's the retro iPod alarm clock!
The new 160GB iPod Classic has a promised battery life of 40 hours, which means in theory, you could wake up with it two days in a row without ever turning it off. Alternatively, you could get the Retro iPod Alarm Clock for your old-skool iPod.
It’s a charging dock with speakers and alarm function, designed to look like, yes, a retro alarm clock. The speakers are actually housed within the fake bells. Don’t worry sleepyheads, it does have a nine-minute snooze function.
Say cheese! Smile measurement software won't let you look glum…
Omron has announced a new technology called ‘Smile Measurement Software’, which uses 3D face-mapping technology to analyse people’s grins and assign them a smile rating between 0% and 100%, even if they’re not looking directly into the camera at the time.
It’s all done within a 46Kb application, which Omron says is small enough to be embedded inside mobile devices. The most obvious application is digital cameras, to ensure a photo is taken when the subjects are smiling.
Skull made from 80s RAWK cassette tapes
Actually, forget the ROKR robot. My new most desirable gadget (for the next five minutes at least) is this skull that’s been made out of cassette albums by the likes of Motley Crue and Judas Priest. Now, if someone can work on an accompanying skeleton made from mid-90s Britpop albums…
Transformed: the robot that's a Motorola ROKR in disguise
Fancy a Motorola ROKR mobile? No? Okay, it’s not the most inspiring handset in the world. What if it could turn into a robot though, eh? Thought that’d get your GeekDrool going.
Check this out. I have no idea who made it, why they did it, or how much it cost. But I do know that I want one – more even than I want an iPod Touch, a crate of organic cider, or a hooky Russian oil billionnaire to fund Bishops Stortford FC. It’s genius.
WING: your own portable windmill
Windmills are great, but they could be a bit more portable, don’t you think? That’s the idea behind the development of WING, a concept design for a personal windmill. It’s the work of Croation designers Ines Vlahović & Mladen Orešić, and has just scooped an INDEX award for its innovative umbrella-like design.
Rumour: Amazon's Kindle wireless e-book reader set for October launch
E-books have been the Next Big Thing for years now, but there’s finally some substance behind the claim. The New York Times is claiming that Amazon’s much-rumoured Kindle e-book reader device will go on sale in October, costing $400-$500 in the US. What’s more, they reckon it’ll wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon.com.
NaturBus: the bus powered by horses on a treadmill. Really.
Ever heard that old statistic about how it was faster to get across London in the days of horse-drawn carts than it is nowadays? It’s enough to make you want to saddle up and gallop down Oxford Street with gay abandon.
However, it seems horses may still have a role to play in urban transport. Unfortunately for them, it involves running on a treadmill inside a bus, providing the power to make it move. It’s the work of Dubai-based company Fleethorse (or it’s an elaborate spoof, of course).
Richard Branson hopes Google Earth will help find Steve Fossett
The search is continuing for pilot Steve Fossett, who’s gone missing over the Nevada desert. Former flying companion Richard Branson is turning to Google Earth in the hope that it might help find Fossett.
“I’m talking with friends at Google about seeing whether we can look at satellite images over the last four days to see whether they can see which direction he might have been flying and whether they can see any disturbances anywhere that they can pin from space,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.
EA launches Sims-themed karaoke website
There’s always been a musical element to The Sims, with a succession of stars signing up to appear in different spin-offs (think Lily Allen performing ‘Smile’ in Simlish). Now publisher EA is launching a Sims-themed karaoke site called The Sims On Stage.
Basically, it’ll let you login and upload your caterwauling singing for the community to rate, as well as creating your own mash-up videos using Sims footage. The site will have thousands of licensed rock, pop and country songs to sing along to from launch.
