apparel

Not every Apple TV show gets merchandise like T-shirts and hats, but Vince Gilligan’s oddly original sci-fi head-scratcher Pluribus — the most-watched Apple TV show ever — just did. Too bad the merch is on the lame side.

One of the most weirdly refreshing sci-fi dramas in recent history deserves better than what Sony Pictures is peddling.

I wore a tubular scarf to the grocery store the other day, and spent most of the time breathing shallowly so my glasses wouldn’t steam up. On the bike it was fine, because the wind kept everything clear. But as soon as I stopped, the mask funneled my hot, moist breath onto my specs, and I couldn’t see.

Luckily, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department knows a thing or two about keeping your spectacles clear while you wear a mask. Here’s how to do it.

Best List: Double Layered Knit Touchscreen Gloves by Mujjo

It’s almost winter, and if you reside in an area with a climate like mine, you know you’ll be carrying gloves with you no matter where you go. When you live someplace like Anchorage, Alaska, even a quick trip outside to the trash bin requires that you cover up.

And yet, we live in a touchscreen world. I have my iPhone with me all the time, and I use it to stay connected to my kids and family members as I move around the winter wonderland. Pulling off a glove every time I want to play a song or answer a text is time-consuming and sometimes dangerous.

If that’s something you worry about, Mujjo’s got you covered, quite literally, with these new double-layered touchscreen gloves.

Best List: Men’s Rudy Jersey by Kitsbow

“You look cute,” said my wife.

I have been pulling on bicycle kit in front of her for more years than I care to count, and she has rarely muttered these words. But Kitsbow’s Rudy Jersey is not like most other mountain bike kit — it is both functional and stylish.

Fresh photographic equipment stole the show this week, but we also got wind of some great new outdoor gear (and some stuff for desk jockeys).

First the camera news: Sony is coming on strong with the amazing R100 III camera, while Nikon’s most exciting new gadget is an underwater flash. On the outdoorsy front, San Francisco is gearing up for summer with new bags from my favorite bag makers Rickshaw and Waterfield, and if you’re out in the warm/cold spring on your bike, you might like to do it wearing the beautiful Vulpine merino wool cycling jersey. If you’re not the outdoors type, we have you covered too — you can stay home and organize your desk with a handsome wooden pen and phone holder.

Have fun!

I have a confession to make: I wear socks with sandals.

That’s not so bad in itself — I live in Germany, where otherwise-rational men wear socks, sandals and fanny packs all at the same time, and women still talk to them.

The kicker is that I started this habit when I lived in Spain. The reason? Keen’s amazing outdoor Clearwater CNX sandals.

You know what time of year it is? Spring. And you know what kind of product is perfect to launch in your store during spring? According to the folks at Reign23 who sent me the PR email, the perfect spring accessory is gloves. Warm, hand-toasting gloves.

Or rather, a dab-on liquid which turns any gloves into touchscreen-friendly gloves.

You know what’s cool? Armbands that hold you iPhone while you’re jogging. And you know what’s cooler than cool? Fanny packs. So it seems obvious that a gadget that combines these two into one would be pretty much the best thing ever. Better, even, than a choc’n’bacon flavored lightsaber.

And here it is, the Tunewear JOGPOCKET for Smartphones.

This must be just about the worst gadget ever, which of course makes it the most fun to write about gadget ever. It’s a love-detecting bra, which will only open its front clasp if “true love” is detected. Where “true love” means “iPhone” and “detected” means Bluetooth.

Ever find yourself stuck without a cable when you need to charge your iPhone? No, me either. I’m a nerd and a professional gadget tester, so at pretty much all times I have some kind of Lightning cable, dock or adapter either on my person or close to hand.

But if I got out more, and was more stylish in general, then I’d be sporting a Kyte & Key Cabelet, or cable bracelet.

Leather gloves are useful for many things: driving, punching, jewel thieving, murdering and doing sex. But one thing they weren’t good at until now was iPhone-ing. Mujjo has totally fixed that.

Admit it: When your iPhone/iPad/camera lens/spectacles get greasy fingerprints all over it, you don't reach for a microfiber cloth,right? Nope. You do exactly what everyone else does, and polish off the dirt with a corner of your shirt.

But what if you could continue with your filthy (if rather popular) habit, but with the magical results of microfiber? Thanks to the Voy Voy Summer Oxford, you can.

This is the Bison Tote, and it’s just about the hottest laptop/camera bag ever. Unless, of course, you’re a bison. Why? Because the bag is made from bison skin.

Anyglove is a gel which turns any glove into a touch-screen-friendly glove. Buy a bottle, drip-drip-drip some drops onto the fingers and thumbs of your favorite gloves and voila! (or “viola!” or “walla!” as they say in internet forums) you can now operate a capacitive screen.

I shall apologize now for bringing you yet another crowd-funded gadget today, but this is something special. I won’t dilly-dally here: It’s a frikkin’ Star Trek button for talking to Siri.

It’s no longer a surprise to walk into a store that sells gloves and mittens and finding a pair with capacitive spots on the thumb and forefinger. These gloves let you tap on the screen of your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or other touchscreen device without having to take off your gloves, thereby saving you from potential cold hands or frostbite.

Living in a cold city like Anchorage, AK, I’ve come to appreciate the ability to use my iPhone when I’m outside, but really haven’t found a pair of gloves that let me use my iPhone naturally and easily, until now, with these knit gloves from Glove.ly. These soft, warm knit gloves now let me use my forefinger, a pinky, a thumb–indeed, a whole hand or two–to tap, swipe, and multi-touch gesture my way around an iPhone or iPad screen.

I’m fairly in (g)love.

I have a complicated relationship with gloves. On the one hand, I love that they keep my fingers from falling off in frigid weather. But then there’s the frustration at their complete lack of cooperation when I’m trying to use the touchscreen on my phone. As a result, I end up either constantly removing and re-donning my gloves in an endless cycle that freezes my delicate fingers anyway — or abandoning my phone altogether in disgust.

The problem is that most touchscreens rely on our fingers to act as conductors, and conventional gloves block that conductivity. But glove-makers have rolled with the times, and there are solutions — gloves that allow conductivity to pass through the glove’s fabric and onto the screen. One of the most buzzed about is Outdoor Research’s Sensor Gloves ($69), which use real leather that doesn’t appear or feel any different than leather used in non-conductive gloves.

If you’d shown me the Hi-Call a few years ago I would have ridiculed it and moved on, probably forgetting that this stupid Bluetooth glove even existed. Now, though, in a world infected with “sanitation engineers” so in-demand that they have Bluetooth headsets wedged permanently into their ears, and idiots wander the streets holding their in-line mics up to their mouths as they speak, the Hi-Call from Hi-Fun doesn’t seem so dumb after all.

Alphyn Industries’ DELTA415 Wearcom jeans may as well have been called the Dork-O-Tron 3000, for they are nerdy in the extreme. They are also flat-out awesome, and if I was the kind of person who spent $160 on a pair of jeans, then I’d be al over them. Or all in them, I guess.

The Wearcoms are simple: the front right pocket has been replaced by a see-through phone pouch, complete with a protective flap to cover it.

Can there be any clearer way to say “Don’t breed with me” to a lady than to wear these dorky keyboard jeans? Named Beauty and the Geek, the QWERTY-toting pants come from Dutch design duo Erik de Nijs and Tim Smit, who look like pretty normal guys. The pants, however, seem designed less for wearing and more for tech bloggers to write jokes about.