This is the O.R.B. It looks like a ring. It sits on your finger. It communicates with your handset via Bluetooth. When you get a call or have a meeting scheduled, it vibrates. With a twist, the thing turns into a sleek Bluetooth headset. All in all, the thing looks pretty snazzy.
Created by Hybra Tech, the device uses bone conduction to transmit calls through your skull. A FOLED (Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode) display is located on its side to let you know about meetings and incoming calls.
The O.R.B. will launch next January for a suggested price of $129.
I wish I knew how to quit you, Brando Workshop (to use a timely reference). I've been trying not to blog about every one of your unusual gadget releases. I didn't post about your amazing Solar Fan Cap last week, startling as it was. But now you've gone and given me a hat I can't ignore.
Brando Workshop has just released the WiFi Detection Cap, a baseball cap that lets you know if you're in range of an 802.11 b/g/n signal: One LED alerts you to a signal, while other LEDs show its strength. The hat comes in two styles, one that looks like the old XM Satellite Radio logo and one that looks like a laptop screen, and three colors (red, white, and black). It runs off two CR2032 batteries, which are included.
What makes the WiFi Detection Cap classic Brando is that it doesn't tell you if the WiFi signals are open or not. Most of the time it will detect protected networks. And, of course, if you're wearing the hat, you can't see when it detects a signal.
The cap goes for a low $14. Oh those Brando Workshop inventions: Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in (to use a timely reference).
Maybe I'll start a new feature on Gearlog, "Fish-in-a-barrel Fridays," where I'll take easy potshots and poorly thought-out new tech products. Many thanks to editor-in-chief Lance for passing along the press release for the Waist Band MP3 Player with Remote Control, brought to us by USBfever.com.
This attractive wearable is like a small boom box you can strap to your midsection. The product description says it's great for hikers who would like to listen to their favorite music. Finally, a way to listen to music outside the home.
The Waist Band MP3 Player apparently has no onboard storage, and users need to supply their own SD card or flash drive. The flash drive will stick up into your midsection if you're wearing the player. The product page cautions that you can't have both a card and flash drive inserted at the same time or the player won't work.
No portly people, please, because the included waist strap is 40-inches long. If you have trouble reaching the player strapped around your waist, it comes with a helpful remote.
Perhaps the greatest terrible thing about the Waist Band MP3 Player is that while it seems to have a radio, the radio doesn't actually work. "Radio is a dummy," the description cautions twice. It's not alone.
So how much would you pay for small, poor, wearable speakers, no storage, and a non-working radio? USBfever is hoping $32.99 sounds right.
Looking for a messenger-style bag, but hate the single shoulder strap? Timbuk2 has a new Swig Backpack in two sizes that'd be happy to help you out. It's basically got the messenger styling and utility that Timbuk2 is known for (as seen on the streets of San Francisco, New York, and Austin), plus it has backpack straps.
The durable Swig is available in two sizes, Small (holds up to 13-inch notebooks) for $80, and the Medium seen here (up to 17-inch notebooks) for $90. It's got a main compartment, like most messenger bags, that will swallow all your books and folders whole. The main compartment also has a built-in pouch for your notebook, with padding and a Velcro equipped strap to keep it in. It held the 15-inch MacBook Pro I used quite securely and safely. If you're the type that just dumps everything in one big pocket, then the Swig is your bag.
It might have a cathedral-like capacity, but that also means that the bag itself is huge. It's over 20 inches tall and 13 inches wide (7 inches deep), so it may look big on your back. The Small version is more proportioned for shorter folks. Though large, the Swig pack is comfortable to wear with both straps. The Swig's name does give it a hint to its ultimate purpose: the inside pocket can fit many bottles or cans of your favorite beverage and there's a "carbonated beverage opener" on one of the straps.
The exterior of the Overland Cambridge bag says it all: "I'm ready for anything." Despite appearances, the Cambridge bag is not exactly for the woman about town. It's a tote, a briefcase, and a backpack all in one, but can this everything bag pull it off? Or is it too much to bear?
The inside provides ample room for a 13-inch laptop, small pockets to store your change or snacks, and tons of space to tote a plethora of books. Ballistic nylon protects the outside of the bag, making certain you'll be ready to protect yourself from that Starbucks coffee spill to the unexpected downpour on your way to class. This bag is nothing if not durable. Where most school bags fail is in the bottom of the bag, but the Cambridge Overland bag does not. You see, over time the books and pencils start to poke through the bottom of your average bag, wearing it away and eventually making the bag unusable. The Cambridge bag, on the other hand, is well reinforced at the bottom.
Let's be honest for a moment. The Comic Con showroom floor doesn't smell all that wonderful by late Sunday afternoon. Anyone doing their part to tackle the stench deserves a metal--or at the very least, a Gearlog post. In a giant convention center full of strange Star Trek tie-ins, perhaps the strangest came from Genki Wear.
The company makes a line of Star Trek-themed colognes and perfumes, with names like Tiberius, Red Shirt, Pon Farr--and, exclusive to Comic Con 2009, KHAAANN!, which is limited to 500 (read: you've missed it).
The colognes are officially licensed and smelled by the folks at Paramount, because in space, everyone knows when you stink.
Get running! Nike gives you extra incentive to hit the road with an enhanced Nike+ SportBand. The device is worn like a watch and shows you your distance, pace, running time, and calories burned with just a glance. It does this by receiving information from a sensor inside Nike+ running shoes. I've always liked the SportBand since it doesn't rely on GPS data and can work on treadmills as well as the open road.
The enhanced Nike+ SportBand offers a new screen with a white background to enhance visibility. It also offers an improved watertight seal, so a little rain won't ruin your run. It now comes in a range of colors (gray with pink interior, dark gray with yellow interior, and black with red interior).
Runners with an iPod Nano, iPod Touch, or iPhone will be able to hear their running details as they go. The SportBand will be available in the U.S. for $59.
In related news, Nike has merged the nikeplus.com site with nikerunning.com, to create a one-stop destination. The company also announced it would launch a new Nike+ iPhone site optimized for mobile use.
Enjoy table-top gaming or snuggling up with the latest Captain America comic book? Well today, unlike any other day, would be the time to let your geek flag fly.
"Why," you may ask? Not only because you can, but also because July 13th is Embrace Your Geekness Day.
The origins of this holiday is from Wellcat Holidays, a Web site dedicated to celebrating life and its quirky moments. So put on those swanky Ghostbuster briefs and celebrate your inner and outer geek!
For geeks of a certain age, a Casio calculator watch brings back strong and fond memories of long afternoons spent in the school basement, playing Dungeons and Dragons. But I hadn't seen one in real life for years before tonight, when Popular Science writer Amanda Schupak popped up at a press event sporting this elegant model, which she said she picked up on the street for a cool $18.
It turns out that calculator watches never actually went away. Casio shows 15 "databank" watches on their Web site, including several that include infrared remote controls to control TVs and DVD players. If you lose your remotes a lot, that actually sounds like a good idea, provided you're willing to look like a person who wears a calculator watch.
In an era when many people are giving up their watches for cell phones - or are trying to hack together cell phone watches - it's interesting to see a brave few buck the trend and go for watches which compute, but don't call.
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.
As any iPod owner can attest, earbud-style headphones are compact, discreet, and notoriously tangle-prone. Which is why this clever concept makes perfect sense.
By attaching a run-of-the-mill zipper to a pair of equally run-of-the-mill earbuds, designer Ji Woong has created genius Zipper Headphones that can be zipped up when not in use, thereby preventing the dreaded headphone tangle.
Here's hoping this zippy little prototype makes it to production.
Twitter Tees by Threadless, launched earlier this week, is exactly what it sounds like: a new line of T-shirts based on Twitter. Threadless explains:
Twitter Tees will feature notable Tweets submitted and voted on by Twitter users, with art direction and design of each t-shirt by the
in-house creative team at Threadless. Anyone can submit a Tweet for inclusion. Twitter users will vote on submitted Tweets, with two new Twitter Tees selected and printed each
week. They are likely to be as diverse and varied as the conversations happening all day on Twitter.
But wait, that's not all! There are prizes to be had!
Twitter users whose Tweets are selected for printing will receive $500
($360 in cash and a $140 Threadless gift certificate). In addition, the
first nominator of a printed Tweet will receive $140 ($100 cash and a
$40 Threadless gift certificate).
To kick things off, Threadless has already selected and designed four, well, let's call them tweet-shirts, shall we? The following designs are available immediately for $18 each:
What better gift for the new grad in your life than a T-shirt that credits Wikipedia for helping with that "hard-won" degree? Fusilly's cheeky Thanks Wikipedia tee pays homage to "the world's leading source of unqualified information" by revealing the "brains" behind many a college student's (community-edited) term papers and essays.
The red-and-yellow ringspun cotton tee costs $20 at Fusilly and is sure to complement that cap and gown.
The vision- and hearing-impaired gain a new level of freedom with the release of the Silent Touch Watch, which works with the Silent Call line of alerting products. The watch can notify the wearer about a ringing doorbell or telephone, or even an activated smoke detector, fire alarm, or burglar alarm. It has a 300-foot range and uses both vibrational and visual alerts.
The Silent Touch works with Sidekick II Signature devices, which include a range of monitors and alarms. It offers a wake-up alarm, and can even be used with a mattress vibrator which shakes the mattress at the correct time.
Order the watch and you'll also get a travel case and a docking station that connects it to a mattress vibrator. The mattress vibrator, by the way, sends a different vibration for each alarm received.
The Silent Touch watch will be available on June 1 from silentcall.com. I couldn't find the watch on the Web site at this time, but here's a link to a Silent Call PDF catalog that lists it. According to the catalog, the watch sells for $150 and the charger for $117.65. A kit that includes the watch, charger, and bed vibrator costs $289.
It's a problem sports and outdoor enthusiasts (and maybe some of the rest of us) know all too well: You desperately want to shoot high-quality video of something, but you don't always have the free hands available to hold your hardware. (Bikes, oars, and skis don't keep themselves moving, you know.) The Seattle-based VholdR has come up with a way to change all that: ContourHD, the first wearable HD camcorder.
The water-resistant, 4-ounce ContourHD can attach to your goggles or helmet (or, if absolutely necessary, your bicycle or car) and can shoot videos in either 30-frames-per-second (fps) 720p HD or 60-fps High Action SD format. It can record up to 8 hours of HD video on its internal microSD card, and is powered by a removable, rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Two lasesrs and a 192-degree rotating lens help you line up your shots.
The $299.99 ContourHD will be available in May from Abt Electronics, Amazon.com, B&H Photo, and HelmetCameraCentral.com.
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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!
