Gizmos for Geeks

Rechargeable AA Battery Pack Never Lets You Down

gmo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:23:30 +0000

At the time of this article, Buy.com has a set of AA battery chargers which re-powers via USB at a 72% savings. List price went from $24 down to $7 bucks!

Great stocking stuffer for the geeky Dad, brother or in-law.

Save the environment by throwing fewer batteries away! This Ni-MH battery recharges with any USB port and has a built in safety circuit to prevents overcharging. LED indicator light lets you know when your battery is fully charged.

Grab the Deal now!

Geeky 80s Wedding Invitation

Chief Gadgeteer — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:04:27 +0000

This is simply really creative and sooo appropriate if you’re a child of the 80s and a computer/gaming geek.

Illustrator Carla Berrocal created this wedding invitation that is pays homage to the blocky graphics of the Atari era of video games. Nicely done Carla.

via Switched and BuzzFeed

Microsoft’s Bing team giving away free WiFi service in exchange for searching

Chief Gadgeteer — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:24:48 +0000

I’ve spent my own share of time criticizing Microsoft for their buggy software and unethical business practices, but I’ve got to give them kudos for this move. They are exchanging free (1-time use) WiFi service for just a single search on Bing, their new search engine. Pretty smart.

The goal is to get more people familiar with Bing and hopefully get them using it. The Bing team is working with JiWire which works with 60-70% of the WiFi market for airlines and hotels.

This is probably going to cost MS some dough, but they have it and it can potentially reap significant rewards. However, they’ll need to keep running creative ad programs like this if they want to really dent Google’s market share in search.

iTouchless Touch-free Paper Towel Dispenser

Chief Gadgeteer — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:55:43 +0000

Ever have dirty hands while say cooking and need a quick paper towel to clean something up, and you end up doing all sorts of acrobatics with your arms and head and arms to either get a paper towel or need to wash your hands first?

Well those days are over. The Towel-Matic Sensor Paper Towel Dispenser senses when your hand is near and auto-rotates a paper towel your way. Once the paper towel is rotated into position, it locks it in place so you don’t get the runaway effect you normally do with your traditional holder.

Prevent wasted paper towels, save time, and stop spreading germs with this sanitary gadget. Operates on 4 D batteries.

Buy now!
Price: $50
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Radio Shack to sell iPhone

Chief Gadgeteer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:04:26 +0000

It seems like an incongruous pairing, but Radio Shack (aka The Shack) is set to carry the iPhone 3G and 3GS in Dallas and New York City by Thanksgiving, and then nationwide in 2010.

Of course, if you can’t wait, you can still get an iPhone at Wal-Mart or Best Buy OR you could get yourself an Android handset instead.

Lacie’s Lacinema Black – Home Entertainment System

will — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:20:14 +0000

LaCie have released their new sleek multimedia entertainment system – LaCinema Black – a system that allows you to play movies, photos and music on your HDTV, play media from networked computers and generally just have a bit of fun with your multimedia. This comes in 2 versions – PLAY or RECORD. PLAY can simply play your movies whereas RECORD enables you to record, pause, rewind live TV. They both feature 1080i upscaling. The 500GB model comes in at $400 for the Play and $450 for the Record, and the 1TB comes in at $450 and $500 respectively (probably worth just buying the RECORD for the extra $50). If 1TB just isn’t going to be enough, both devices can be expanded via an external USB hard drive to give almost unlimited storage.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer

Price: $499.99 (1TB RECORD), $400 for 500GB RECORD
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Sony teams up with indie self-publishers to offer their eBooks on Sony’s eBook Store

Chief Gadgeteer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:31:00 +0000

Sony is getting smart about this e-book publishing and how to tie it into their eReaders and online eBook stores. They have teamed up with independent self-publishing outfits to allow authors to get their books published on the Sony eBook Store.

In particular, they’ve teamed up with Smashwords and Author Solutions, 2 online companies that let independent authors (and small publishers) self-publish books without the need for a larger vetting publisher.

Expect Amazon to follow up quickly with a similar offering.

Why is Google Dashboard being dubbed a privacy tool?

Chief Gadgeteer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:30:43 +0000

Google Dashboard is being labeled a ‘privacy tool’ by the media. I don’t understand why.Sure, it’s a nice tool that shows you on one page all of your Google accounts/products and their latest statuses.

Ok, so there are links on many of them so you can see the privacy policies, but not really much you can do about the policies! And this isn’t unique to Google. Pretty much every company out there has similar one-way privacy policies.

Folks (as herded by the media) are up in arms because they are being led to believe that Google is (becoming?) a big bad company that will take your private information and use it for nefarious schemes that will directly impact you. Well then, don’t give out your private information or opt out of using these products. Your government has more information on you and probably takes worse care of it than a Google does.

Remember, if you signed up for a Google account, no one twisted your arm, (except perhaps your geek friends!). Own up to your responsibilities and stop blaming the company(s) that are giving you useful, and in many cases free, products.

Windows 7 outsells Vista by 234% during initial days

Chief Gadgeteer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:09:01 +0000

According to 1 market research outfit, Windows 7 has outsold Windows Vista by 234% in their first few days of sales. Not surprising is it? The question is whether or not this is sustained and makes significant inroads into the business market where Microsoft makes a great deal of its income from operating system and productivity software.

Bluetooth headset is super tiny for the wanna-be spy

will — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:36:32 +0000

Following on from the ’spy theme’ is this invisible bluetooth earpiece. This is exactly what it says on the tin – a 2-way earpiece that transmits and receives via bluetooth, yet is almost completely invisible! Simply connect the earpiece up to your phone’s bluetooth and get chatting to your colleague in a top secret mission.

Yeah right. Only the professionals would need this device (especially at $200), but if you like pretending then go for it. The picture makes a nice illustration of the need for the new earpiece.

Buy now!

Price: $199.95
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)