When a store is selling a product that you really want at a discounted price, you probably jump for joy and grab for your purse. Not so fast. Just because one store is selling that item at a "discounted" price doesn't mean it's the lowest price you can find. And let's face it: there's nothing worse than feeling cheated.
TechSaver's goal is to provide you with the most current lowest prices on products it finds advertised at merchants. First up: X-tremeGeek.com. This gadget store has been one of my go-to places for finding unique and unusual products to write about for PCMag.com. Today the store announced its Fourth of July sale, which consists of cool items for grilling, camping, listening to music, playing in the backyard, and plenty more.
Call it "Baby's First Laptop." Disney's branded netbooks are kid-proof and kid-friendly, and pack plenty of power to boot. Also known as the ASUS MK90 and MK90H, these "Netpals" are rugged and durable with a spill-proof keyboard and ShockShield protection that should save data in a fall. More importantly, parents can be confident that their children will be safe, with more than 40 robust parental control options.
The systems come in Princess Pink and Magic Blue and offer customizable themes that kids can set to their favorite Disney films and characters, including Club Penguin, WALL-E, Hannah Montana, and JONAS. The netbooks also come with a sizable software bundle, including Disney-branded media-management software (Disney Mix), photo software (Disney Pix), games, widgets, and more, that all launch from the Disney Magic Desktop.
For preschoolers who love books but haven't quite made the leap to reading on their own yet, the Tag Junior from LeapFrog (which we had a preview of earlier this year, along with other upcoming LeapFrog toys) is a terrific toy that allows them to explore and enjoy books on their own, discovering new words, numbers, characters and rhymes along the way. It turns story time into a fully interactive experience.
Using the Tag Junior book pal, which is perfectly shaped for the grip of 2- to 4-year-olds, a child can make Tag Junior board books come alive. The Tag Junior reads aloud the words of a page and identifies animals, colors, and shapes.
LeapFrog's lineup of board books is impressive, including perennial favorites such as "Dr. Seuss's Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?" as well as books featuring popular characters like Winnie the Pooh, Dora the Explorer, and Curious George. Each book focuses on a different learning skill, such as action words, numbers, colors, rhymes, and opposites and has more than 150 audio responses.
Tired of your co-workers barging in your office when you're on deadline or disturbing you while you're on the phone? Then I know what you need: the CubeGuard. It's a retractable banner that displays a message for when you don't want to be disturbed.
The CubeGuard comes in two varieties, with an assortment of background designs: CubeGuard Standard and Build Your Own. The CubeGuard Standard comes with a preprinted message, including "Please Do Not Disturb," "Out Of The Office," and "Working From Home." Build Your Own lets you create a custom message. Each CubeGuard fits entryways up to 50 inches and comes with Velcro and magnets for easy hanging.
CubeGuard was nice enough to send a few of us here at Gearlog personalized messages for hanging up in our offices and cubicles. Find out what we thought of these banners, after the jump.
Lovable dino-bot, Pleo, was on the endangered list when owner of the intellectual property, Ugobe, went bankrupt. The company and consumers were about to lose the baby Dinosaur to the lonely streets until Jetta Company Limited saw those baby blues and took him in. Jetta plans to re-launch the robotic baby dino, Pleo, with all accessories still intact. It seems like a match made in heaven.
It's a shame I didn't have these unusual sandals with me at the beach over the weekend. I might have found some spare change!
Hammacher Schlemmer today added to its catalog The Metal Detecting Sandals ($59.95), wearable metal detectors that let you find buried treasure with your feet. The Metal Detecting Sandals, according to a press release, have a "copper coil built into the right sandal--powered by a battery pack that straps to your calf by an elastic band." The sandals use what's called "beat frequency oscillation technology" in order to create a magnetic field. The 9V battery pack then alerts the wearer of metal up to 2 feet underfoot via flashing red LED lights and either a vibration or an audible buzz.
Providing up to 6 hours of use on a single charge, the sandals have PVC uppers, non-skid soles, and polyurethane foam footbeds; they are available in two unisex sizes.
Dads are supposed to be quirky; it's in the rulebook of life. Whether it's smearing zinc oxide on their noses and pairing tube socks with Tevas at the zoo, or pouncing on 2 A.M. Ginsu knife offers, fathers have been making their teenage children groan since the beginning of time. And if your dad's a geek, well... that just doubles the fun.
Father's Day is a day to embrace all those personality quirks, so here's a list of goofy tech toys for your goofy old man. Check them out after the jump.
Over the years, we've searched high and low for the craziest tech to sate your gear-craving jones. We call it "the Relentless Pursuit of Awesomeness." Today, I call your attention to Honeywell and the Prestige, a thermostat so technically advanced that it just slapped your thermostat in the face. For starters, it has a full color, high definition, touch-screen interface that just screams expensive. It's also programmable, and you can control it wirelessly (using Honeywell's RedLink technology).
But what the company's really stoked about is the interview-based set-up technology: Once installed in your wall and hooked into your home heating, cooling, and dehumidifying (is that a word?) systems, the Prestige's patented interface will program itself after walking you through a series of preference questions. "You like it hot? How's that? You want maybe some cool air in the bedroom?" It goes almost without saying that it can display outdoor temperature information, allows for different thermal zones, and can be scheduled to turn on and off. Did I mention that this thing speaks three different languages as well? It makes human beings look bad.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Honeywell thinks the Prestige will actually save you money too. According to the product brochure, "On average, heating and cooling costs make up 50% of your utility bill, and we all know that energy costs keep skyrocketing. Because the Prestige Comfort System automatically manages your home's temperature to maximize savings, you can cut your annual heating and cooling costs by up to 33% - or by $200 or more each year."
In a world of smartphones that do everything but part the Red Sea, it was only a matter of time before toy manufacturers came up with a toy based on these devices. Enter LeapFrog's Text & Learn (ages 3 to 5, currently on sale at $17.59 direct). LeapFrog bills the Text & Learn as a learning PDA for the kiddies with an emphasis on spelling and basic computer activities.
The Text & Learn isn't an actual PDA: It doesn't connect online and can't actually store any data. It's just meant to look like one. The toy measures approximately 6 by 3.75 inches (HW) and comes in LeapFrog's signature green and white. It runs on three AAA batteries. The sides have some wide grooves etched into them for better grip.
The Hubble Space Telescope has certainly been in the news this past week. Astronauts from Shuttle Atlantis stopped by for a billion dollars worth of refurbishing, hopefully succeeding in giving Hubble another decade of exquisite observation. Though in-orbit repairs were anticipated and designed into Hubble's physical structure this mission saw some work no one ever expected--and it looks like it worked!
It's an incredibly dangerous job which few Gearlog readers would turn down. Imagine a chance to do some fix-it work while traveling at 17,000+ mph at 350 miles above the Earth's surface. Wow!
Of course most of us will never get to Hubble, but you can build your own. There are instructions to roll-your-own at Hubblesite.org.
Make a scale model of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope using easy-to-find supplies and our printable materials.
These models aren't working telescopes - you can't peer at the sky with them. But they can give you an up-close look at the telescope's structure and a challenging project to engage your model-making skills.
Detailed instructions are available for models using PVC (low detail, average difficulty) and paper (two sets of plans including a highly detailed but very complex model). Though I am not personally licensed for powertools, a more coordinated builder should be able to take the detailed instructions and build a model of true beauty. It's the next best thing to being there.
My kids would love a dog, especially the 5-year-old. But between the two kids--one an infant--and a job that's an hour-and-a-half commute away, I don't have the energy to care for one more live being. A new possible compromise? LeapFrog's My Pal Scout ($19.99 list).
Scout and his "sister," My Pal Violet, should be familiar to those who have played with such LeapFrog products as ClickStart: He's the stuffed-toy version of the dog owned by Tad in the LeapFrog series of toys and DVDs. On the surface, he seems like many other toys out in the market that use basic technology to appeal to the 6-months-and-up set. He's adorable, he talks and sings when you press his paws, and he lights up. But look beneath the surface, and you'll find so much more.
The LG Versa VX9600 phone for Verizon Wireless lets you switch out its plain back for various keyboards and controllers. The phone comes with a QWERTY keyboard, and earlier this month a game pad became available. The game pad could make the Versa one of the top gaming phones in the world, if enough games supported it. Right now, I could only find three games which did.
The Versa game pad is a sliding back cover that, when closed, makes the Versa look like a thick candy-bar-style touch screen phone. Slide the pad down, though, and you get some old-school Nintendo-style controls: an eight-way rocker with start, select, A, B, X and Y buttons. The phone's UI rotates into landscape mode when you slide open the pad, and the phone gets a special home screen mode with large buttons to launch your games from. The gadget doesn't require batteries, and you can replace it with the plain back or QWERTY keyboard whenever you like.
I spent a morning with the Versa's gamepad, downloading games off of Verizon's deck and trying to play them. Of the 10 games I downloaded, only three worked well with the game pad: Need for Speed Undercover, Pac-Man and Monopoly Here & Now.
Playing Need for Speed with the game pad was the best driving-game experience I've ever had on a phone. There was none of the cramped confusion you get when you normally play action games on a phone - driving was easy and smooth. I was disappointed to find that the game didn't make any use of the A/B/X/Y buttons, though.
Talk about a geek in training. This lucky baby has her very own iPhone! It's made of wood, of course, but hey, it's an iPhone! Plus, it won't suffer any serious damage should she get the urge to chew on it. And that, my friend, is exactly the point.
Flickr-user cjonesgo, who carved the toy--which he has aptly named the iPhoney--by hand, explains:
Some good friends have a teething baby and there is nothing she wants
more than to get her hands on Dad's iPhone. This is an attempt to find
an acceptable substitute...
All in all it took about 4 hours to
make. I probably could have done it in less, but I had a very
discerning client. Everything had to be perfect!
It's all
natural, nearly indestructible, and just a neat thing to have around.
The best thing about this project is, of course, the smiling baby. The
worst thing is that I don't even have a an iPhone of my own and this
has given me a serious case of iPhone envy!
Now I have to make one for myself, because I am jealous of a baby.
Anyone who has migrated from an iPod Touch to an iPhone knows this hassle: You plug your iPhone into the expensive external speakers you bought for your iPod Touch and hear an unpleasant squeal along with your music. The problem is that the speakers aren't shielded, and the iPhone is causing interference.
Before you go out and buy new speakers, consider this inexpensive alternative. Quick Bridge Solutions sells a simple and affordable shield, and it really works. The QB-EM shield is about the size of a business card an you place it along the bottom rear of your iPhone. It blocks speaker interference without damaging call reception. Get one in your choice of three different patterns for $3.99 plus $1.35 for shipping.
The refreshed 2010 Ford Mustang is just hitting showrooms this spring. But if you can't wait for the real deal, RIDEMAKERZ has unveiled its 1/14th-scale 2010 Ford Mustang RIDE, a radio-controlled, battery-powered model that can supposedly do 0-60 (feet, not mph) in 5.3 seconds.
The company said that the Ford Mustang RIDE can be customized with rims, treads, side-pipes, hood scoops, spoilers and modified with several blown engine options. The RIDEMAKERZ 2010 Mustang is available at www.ridemakerz.com and the company's 12 retail outlets nationwide in either Tidal Power Blue or Raven Scream Black Mustang for $26, or Flamehawk Red for $29.
There's also a limited edition, free-wheel version for $32. Buyers also get a special access code that lets them race a virtual version online.
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It's a shame I didn't have these unusual sandals with me at the beach over the weekend. I might have found some spare change!
The refreshed 
