What's the deal with pets getting gadgets that even I don't have? Now there's the doggy treadmill to keep your pet well-exercised. Remind me, because I don't have a dog: aren't you supposed to take them for walks? Isn't that how the whole deal works? But, oh no, a treadmill and a dog toilet and you think you can change the natural order of things, huh?
The doggy treadmill is, if you ask me, an abomination on the level of dressing up your pet in little sweaters and hats. Not to mention, how cruel does it seem to leash your dog to this thing? What if the dog gets tired and you're not around? More like a doggy torture device if you ask me.
The detail page is in Japan, but if I decipher this correctly, it costs about $258. Or, you know, you could take your dog outside and avoid all the torture.
[via Popgadget]
Digital cameras seem to be the norm nowadays, but there are still some holdouts; people who refuse to spend more than ten bucks on a camera. These folks suffer from a rare for of dementia known as "disposabilitis." We can't do much for them, but we can try to make their condition more comfortable.
For example, here's a little gizmo that brings some of the convenience of both digital and conventional cameras to their smaller disposable brethren. The ten dollar Picture Yourself tripod not only includes a compact stand for steadying your disposable camera, but also features a battery-free windup 12-second timer, so you can finally get yourself in the shot. Pretty slick.
[via Uber-Review]
The evils of convergence strike again. The latest culprit? The Radio Fan. Let me get this straight: I'm going to pay $85 for a combination fan and AM/FM radio. Instead of paying ten bucks for a fan and twenty bucks for a radio. Seriously, what do I get out of having a combination fan/radio, other than a radio that I can never hear when the fan's on? Okay, it's got a rechargeable battery. Nice, but hardly a raison d'être. Ooh, it oscillates. Sign me u—of course I'm kidding, numbskull. What do I look like?
Look, if the best you can do is waterproof plastic casing and built-in handle, I'm thinking that your radio fans are not about to fly off your shelves. For one thing, it'd better have a waterproof casing if you're saying it's for outdoor use: nobody likes electrocution. As for the handle thing, yeah: consider me underwhelmed.
[via Book of Joe]
On the off chance you've got more than one HDMI device sitting around and yet—horror of horrors!—you have but one HDMI input on your mega-monster HD display, relax. Evergreen's got an HDMI switch that should fix your problems all speedy like. It's a tiny little box that I'm going to have to describe in tremendous detail if I have any hope of making this post long enough. Simple enough: two HDMI signals enter, only one leaves. Well, at a time.
Anyway, jack in your PS3 and your HD DVD player and then hit the appropriate button to switch back and forth. Even a child can do it. Well, a child that knows how to press buttons. There's also an infrared remote that lets you do the switchy-switchy from the comfort of your couch, but the real high point is the device's low point: it's $82 pricetag. Nice.
[via GizmoWatch]
Can we please stop the whole gimmicky cellphone branding phenomenon? I'm talking about Motorola's new RAZRmaxx V6 Ferrari Challenge Mobile Phone Limited Edition, a name so long that I'm totally just copying and pasting it. Motorola teamed up with Ferrari to produce this model which is basically just the RAZRmaxx with a Ferrari logo slapped onto it.
Okay, so it also has a different red lighting scheme and its startup noise is a Ferrari F1 engine (which, I have to imagine, heard through an external cellphone speaker probably sounds more like a lawnmower). Also there's a bunch of photos of Ferraris to use as your wallpaper. This is me doing the big whoop-dee-doo.
Technologically, it's got support for HSDPA, a 2 megapixel rear camera and VGA front camera. It'll drop on January 29th for $635 before subsidies. Hey, Ferrari, stick to making cars, not silly deals, capiche?
[via New Launches]
When you're traveling, it can be hard to find a space for all your extra gadgets and doohickeys, so it's always nice to consolidate a bit. Take the PCPAL "3-in-1" as an example. It packs an RF remote control, laser pointer, and a wireless mouse into one convenient little package.
Sure, it might not be quite as nice as the dedicated alternatives, but it's a heck of a lot smaller. So small, in fact, that you can store it inside your computer PCMCIA slot. The only downside there is that no current Mac models have a PC slot, and I don't think it'll fit in the MacBook Pro's ExpressCard slot. But it's still plenty small. And it claims full compatibility with Windows, Linux, and OS X.
It's on sale right now for $40 (down from $80), which is quite a steal, even if you don't have a PC card slot on your laptop.
[via Engadget]
The only thing I seem to recall when it comes to detecting counterfeit money is that it burns red. Maybe that was just in Rush Hour 2, though. I wouldn't advise you to go around setting all your bills on fire, looking for forgeries.
Fortunately, this little device (Japanese link) will supposedly help you determine whether your cashola is the real McCoy, or a cleverly constructed fake. It uses a combination of ultraviolet light and a magnetic reader to check the safeguards built into many types of currency around the world. From what I can decipher from the Japanese, it'll even give you a little beep when your money's on the up-and-up. Thank god: that guy up there seems to seriously be in need of some help.
It'll run you about $13 of real money. I wouldn't advise trying to pawn off Monopoly bills to buy this thing, although you'd get points for irony.
[via Coolest Gadgets]
This is the level we've reached. I'm writing about a robotic pet: a guinea pig, to be precise. Now, I hear pets are very therapeutic, and by dint of not having to clean up, feed, or otherwise look after a robotic pet, I imagine them to be even more therapeutic.
That said, I feel like I'm some sort of crotchety old man here: "In my day we had real flesh and blood pets, and when they died, you can't just go change the battery." Frightening. Not unlike this robotic pet's face, which features sensor eyes and a creepy little nose.
Anyway, this robotic Guinea pig does have a name: the Gupi. He'll run his little robotic self around, and react to you buy either hiding if he's lonely or scared, or hang out with you if he's feeling a little more mellow. He can navigate most environments with the grace of an electronic robot vacuum, and when he's feeling low on juice, he'll come chew up his fake carrot recharger. And should one Gupi not be enough, you can buy a bunch of them, and they'll interact with each other (Hamster Dance, anyone?). The only question is how many times you want to shell out Gupi's $63 pricetag.
[via Gearlog]
I always wanted a LazerTag set when I was a kid, but that was pretty much never going to happen. Instead, I ended up secretly coveting my best friend's. In the past twenty years or so, though, it appears that LazerTag's gotten both more technologically advanced and, well, let's be frank: lamer looking.
The latest set is the Team Ops Deluxe, which comes with a pair of guns—sorry, taggers—and two heads-up displays in the form of wacktastic looking sunglasses. The set comes preprogrammed with 11 games, with the option of creating your own (would it be too much to hope for "pistol whipping"?).
The gu—taggers come with built in displays that update you on the game's stats, while the HUD shows you when you've been hit or when you've hit your opponent. How much this trip down memory lane? $50 for the set of two.
[via Shiny Shiny]
