It can provide everything from weather forecasts to stock quotes, but can that smartphone in your pocket help you unscrew a nut and bolt? Certainly not as well as this $25 HandSpan keychain that manages to squeeze an adjustable wrench into your other pocket.
Small enough to hang off your keys without being cumbersome, the HandSpan also features Phillips and flat-head driver bits for dealing with screws, and it doubles as a small, but accurate, set of calipers. Given its size and lack of handle, you probably won't be able to generate enough torque to loosen rusty old bolts. But those with a MacGyver mindset probably still won't mind having this within reach.
A drop in the bucket of their quarterly profits at that.
The little palm-sized egg above looks like a kitchen timer, but it's really a powerful video camera that records 360 degree video. It's rugged like an action camera, loaded with connectivity options, and designed to work out of the box without any proprietary kinks.
Giroptic has been in the 360 video game for years, but this is its first consumer camera, finally available for preorder after months of teasing. It's a Kickstarter, so if you invest early you can get the camera for $250, half the eventual retail price. As always, Kickstarters come with risks.
The 360cam sports three 185 degree fisheye lenses, which the camera uses to capture and stitch together a sphere of HD video in real-time. The video is recorded to MicroSD. It's also got built-in Wi-Fi, so you can remotely monitor your video, as well as a GPS radio which you can use to record the spot where you shot your wonky spherical imagery.
The 360cam isn't just small enough to go anywhere; it's almost endlessly versatile and useful. It's IPX8 waterproof, and Giroptic even designed a clever mount attachment with light-bulb threads so you can hang the camera in the middle of a roomexactly where you'd want to. (The 360cam has standard tripod mount threads, in case you want to take a more traditional route.)
Giroptic claims this is the first 360 HD camera, but it's really just the first to offer such a polished self-contained package. Ricoh recently took gamble ton a 360-still camera, which was fun but also a pain to use. Giroptic's simple, feature-loaded design is much better, and we hope that Kickstarter gets some love so that we'll see it in the near future.
"Don't Be Evil" has long since been relegated to the trash bin. Now it's all about gathering data and selling your information for a buck.
Designed with the hopes that it would completely transform urban transportation, the Segway was a battery-powered self-balancing two-wheeled scooter that was unfortunately priced way too high to catch on. But the technology behind it was impressive, which is why the company's latest creation, a three-wheeled trike that doesn't balance at all, feels like a disappointing compromise.
It's almost as if Segway decided to make its own non-balancing Segway knock-off, but there are actually strategic reasons for adding that third wheel, the company claims.
Because the SE-3 Patroller isn't always self-balancing and making constant minute adjustments, it can maximize its range with its rechargeable and swappable Li-ion batteries. And, it's much easier for police officers or security guards to quick hop on and off when in pursuit of a suspect.
For $12,000, shipping sometime in June, the SE-3 also comes with additional lights, weatherproof body panels, and mounts for attaching surveillance cameras and other law enforcement-related accessories. The design seems to go against everything that made the original Segway neat and novel, but since they never quite took the world by storm, it's interesting to see the company seeking out new ways to adapt and make them more useful.
Jonathan Lowea product design student from Staffordshire University in the UKcame up with Xitus, a clever gadget that helps you escape from a building on fire when the only way out is trough the window. Place it on the edge of the window, climb over and a controlled descent device will take you to the ground gently.
Xitus is a brilliant idea and I hope it moves quickly from a concept design to a real product.
