Hey, all you people whining about how "not thin" the LG Chocolate is - take a look at the luscious models from Retrobrick, retailer of vintage mobile phones. For around $100, you can get a true classic: the Motorola DynaTAC, the first commercial cell phone sold in the US. With eight hours of standby time and half an hour of talk time, it measured 13" x 1.75" x 3.5".
Retrobrick sells a slew of other landmark phones, too, such as the Motorola MicroTAC (the first flip phone, inspiring 70% of the phones sold in the US today), the legendary StarTAC and the original analog Nokia cellular phone.
There's only one problem, though. While these phones could still theoretically work on analog networks in the US, according to Verizon, the FCC requires that all new phones activated today have the new E911 emergency calling functionality. Obviously, these phones don't, so carriers won't activate them. Spoilsports. Still, at prices as low as $10 each for old-school phones, they'd make a lovely ornamental gift for your favorite geek.
Are you the life of the party? An attention seeker? Trying to score big with the ladies? Then brace yourself for the next big thing to hit your belt buckle.
But this is the first digital belt buckle I've seen that will keep you staring at waist level. It's called the egokast: a media player that lets you display video on your belt. It features 320x240 pixels, a 3.5-inch color LCD display, stainless steel belt mount case, and supports 2GB SD memory cards. The player itself is removeable--letting you watch videos, look at photos, or listen to MP3s--and weighs about 5.4 ounces.
You can upload your own video to the egokast, but if you catch people watching while walking down the street, you only have your self to blame! You can also choose from the "fragment" samples if you don't want to showcase your home videos.
Battery life lasts for about 4 to 5 hours, and the recharge time takes about 3 hours with the included AC adapter. Also comes with a USB cable and a 512 MB memory card.
Imagine playing Halo, and feeling the sudden jolt of a bullet impact... or running downfield in Madden 07, and feeling your body rock as a linebacker plows into you... or playing Call of Duty, and experiencing the rumble of a nearby grenade explosion. HoMedics, maker of numerous massage products (cushions and mats, people!) claims the new iCush can make these experiences a reality.
The iCush is a portable massage cushion made to vibrate in sync with your video games, movies, or music. Just plug it into your gaming device and let it do its thing. The iCush features universal audio input and speakers on both sides of the headrest that play music or video game sounds, with or without the vibrating mechanism. Integrated hand-controls let you adjust intensity, speed, and location of the vibration as well as the heat of the pad.
The iCush will be available this fall for a suggested retail price of $119.95. Another version, the MP3 iCush, will have just the massage features and sell for $49.99.
Thanks to our intern, Errol Pierre-Louis, for this post!
In reality, when I talk of cell phone juice, I mean battery-powered, portable chargers. Of course, these type of devices aren't anything new. Back in February we talked about the Turbo Charge ($19.95) that charges your cell phone or PDA on the go. So, it doesn't surprise me that Energizer wants to play in the mobile-charging game, too.
Today, the company releases the Energizer Energi To Go: a portable device, powered by two Lithium AA batteries, that recharges many of today's cell phones using "a patented intelligent control chip that maximizes power transfer from the charger to the phone."
The company claims that after just 30 seconds of charging on the Energi To Go that a call can be made. Wow, that's pretty impressive! Sometimes I'll forget to charge my cell phone at night, and then have to save battery power for the important calls (you know, the ones from my bf). And then there are those times when I'll go away for the weekend and forget to bring a charger. So having a device such as this one would come in handy. Then again, it's not the end of the world for me if I do run out of cell juice. There are alternatives.
Phone tip connectors are available for about 100 phone models, including most from Nokia, Motorola, Sprint, and Samsung, even the BlackBerry.
The Energizer Energi To Go Cell Phone Charger will be available beginning September 1, 2006 for $19.99. The official Energi To Go Web site will launch on August 28.
Big Brother has been watching some of us drive for a decade. In another couple years, you'll know if you're under scrutiny. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ordered automakers to disclose which cars they sell have black boxes, more formally called event data recorders (EDRs) or electronic on-board recorders, starting with 2011 model-year vehicles.
The safety-related reasons are obvious: As younger Americans run out of other things to die from, automobile accidents (including car-bicycle and car-pedestrian) loom large and are in fact the number-one cause of death for people up to the mid-to late 20s. (AIDS and suicide aren't laughing matters, but for the population as a whole, they don't weigh as heavily.) An event data recorder can capture the seconds before, during, and after a crash and report speed, acceleration, whether brakes were on or off, whether seat belts were worn, and airbag deployment.
This information can help researchers understand more about accidents and design safer cars. For instance, researchers would know the actual speed of impact, not just the posted speed limit or eyewitnesses' recollections. Or in a high-speed, single-car accident where there's a question of whether the driver fell asleep at the wheel or perhaps was suicidal, knowing whether the brakes were engaged would be an indicator.
Your Car on the Witness Stand
Event data recorders are "good news, bad news" technology. The information could be used to buttress your case in court, or it could be used against you. If you're in a collision while doing 74 mph in a 65 mph zone, will that count against you? Will your insurance company decline to renew your insurance? The black box would faithfully record your speed, but wouldn't note that most of the other traffic was going even faster.
As recorders become more sophisticated, and technology, particularly non-volatile memory, gets cheaper, black boxes could log not just a couple seconds of data but all data from the previous hour, day, or month, and they could upload the information to you for analysis. Again, this is great if you're monitoring teenage drivers, but not so great if the police are looking to write more speeding tickets and plugging in to your EDR. Your spouse can't testify against you in court, but your car can, if police get a warrant to seize and download the contents of the EDR. (Right now, it's not a simple process, and other technologies such as radar keep traffic ticket money flowing into municipal coffers.)
General Motors is one of the black-box pioneers and has equipped at least half its vehicles since the start of the decade. GM already posts its policies online. Essentially, the company won't use the data unless the cops ask for it, you sue GM ("the data is also used to defend our products in litigation"), or you sue someone else (or they sue you).
Are EDRs infallible? Some people involved in lawsuits says the sensors may get data wrong, such as vehicle speed, but the presumption of police and juries is that the technology just plain works.
Common on Commercial Vehicles
EDRs have made headway into the commercial vehicle market. They help ensure that fleet drivers comply with company, state, and federal regulations. Coupled with two-way radios, black boxes let fleets know where valuable cargo is at all times, or which courier truck to dispatch to make a pickup.
Black boxes are great for keeping other people honest. Police cars in Altamonte Springs, Florida, were suffering a rash of unreported damage. When the chief ordered that cars be equipped with a rudimentary black box system to track sudden deceleration (minor accidents) and date-stamp the results so they could be tracked back to the officers using the car, unreported damage dropped to nearly zero.
What the NHTSA Requires for 2011
The NHTSA doesn't require black boxes on cars, although odds are virtually all cars will have them by 2011. But for cars that have them, the NHTSA will require durability minimums, set a uniform minimum of information that must be captured, and require notification in the owner's manual. The NHTSA apparently did not issue rules requiring EDRs to remain active if they're installed, meaning a privacy-conscious owner should be able to disable or remove it.
Another government agency, the National Transportation Safety Board (which investigates plane crashes, too), urged that all cars should have them. The NHTSA hasn't ordered that, because of the cost.
Can Black Boxes Cut Insurance Costs?
In addition to making future cars safer, keeping police car fenders intact, and potentially chipping away at individual privacy, EDRs offer another plus for individual motorists. If you let your insurance company have access to the black box or install a second one, you could get lower rates by driving more when it's safer. That is, the same 20-mile trip on Sunday at 11 AM (when you're surrounded by churchgoers) would be less costly than making the same trip on a Friday at 11 PM, when taverns are in full swing. (You'd pay even less if you didn't make the trip at all.) Insurance would also be priced according to location: For instance, you'd pay more to drive in busy downtown Chicago than in placid, upscale Lake Forest.
Kids don't like to hear that their toys are "educational". Sure, they're smart enough to know the difference between a Nintendo GameCube system versus an XBox 360. But if you tell them that after purchasing the V.Flash Home Edutainment System you'll have money left over to buy them clothes for back to school, I'm sure they won't make a fuss!
The VTech V.Flash Home Edutainment System, for ages 6 to 10, is an educational video game system that uses MP3-quality sound, streaming video, 3D graphics and real-life images to keep kids engaged while learning. Your kids will learn in many subjects, including mathematics, spelling and geography. Measuring 3.8-by-30.0-by-22.4, the console system includes a joystick and adaptor with the V.Disc "Krazy Race on Jumping Bean Island".
Just how popular are Vtech's edutainment products? According to the press release, in 2005 alone parents spent $1.7 billion. This year, parents are expected to invest an additional $2 billion on the new edutainment systems. "Many moms want to give their kids a video game system, but are worried about software that may include violence or inappropriate content for their kids...VTech is a brand they have come to trust for educational and non-violent game play."
You can beat the back-to-school rush by pre-ordering the VTech V.Flash Home Edutainment System at Walmart.com for $99.96.
Here at Gearlog, we like to consider ourselves experts on the Bananaphone marketplace. After finding the foam Bananaphone covers, we dug deeper and found the real deal: an actual bananaphone headset for your cell phone. Yes, you too can look like an idiot and talk into a plastic imitation banana, for only about $20! Why go foam when you can rely on quality plastic?
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