Beep is a weird little device that could be either just the thing you’re looking for, or the stupidest accessory ever. It’s a Wi-Fi volume knob that hooks up to your speakers, and streams music either direct from Pandora, or from your iDevice via its own companion app. No AirPlay, no Rdio or Spotify. I told you it was weird.
Meet the Miggo, a camera strap that wraps around your camera to make a protective case. If that gets you as excited as it makes me, then keep reading.
If you got a kid to draw a picture of a camera, that picture would look just like the new Nikon P340, a device that can be accurately described as “boxy, with knobs.” And it’s gorgeous, kind of like then Lenovo Thinkpad of cameras, and despite its diminutive form it has everything an enthusiast would need – except a viewfinder.
I’ll admit it. The main reason I’m posting about the beautiful Project Bloom iPhone case is the hedgehog. Specifically Woody, the African Pygmy hedgehog that you see in the photo above.
But that’s not to say that the case isn’t worth a look. It is. So Let’s.
At an RRP of $200, the Solarpad isn’t the cheapest solar charger for your iPhone, but it does aim to be the best. Every detail has been tweaked to squeeze the last drop of juice from the Sun’s photons, from the battery itself (the same kind as Tesla uses in its cars apparently), through the efficient charge controller (form Maxim) to the cables themselves (fatter, to let the current flow more easily, says the blurb).
What’s more, you can pitch in early on Kickstarter and get a full setup for just $158 (right now anyway – the campaign only just launched).
Question: Why do we go to restaurants?
If you answered: To eat a delicious meal and not have to wash the dishes afterwards then you get zero points. Go to the back of the class etc. The real reason we go to a restaurant these days is to “play games, view the company story, and so much more.” Luckily, the Padholdr Tablet Stand is on hand to make this modern-day dream a simple reality, by putting an iPad on every table.
Have you switched over to an iPhone full-time for your photography, and yet you desperately miss your Lensbaby or other tilt-shift lens setup? Then take a look at this great DIY project from Maciej Pietuszynski that turns an old CCTV lens into a grungifying lens for any smartphone.
To be honest, you could probably leave your new Mac Pro on the floor next to your desk and any office burglars would just mistake it for a rather small trash can. But if you want a little more security, you might consider adding something Apple didn’t provide for: a Kensington-style lock. A new security bracket from MacLocks features a design as clever as that of the computer it protects.
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.
Quick! If you want to bake iPhone-shaped cookies, you should grab this i-Cookie Cutter from ThinkGeek before Samsung buys them all up to help it make more iPhone clones.
Chil’s Notchbook iPad Air case has one great feature that sets it apart form other cases. There’s a notch, or rather a slice, cut into the bottom of the front cover just next to the spine, and this notch lets you shove your palm up in there making the whole caboodle sit on your hand with no effort needed to grip it.
Neat, especially for when you’re reading books.
When I lived in an my crumbling old apartment in Barcelona, I had more USB-charing devices that I had power points in my office. And even in the relatively modernity of an East German apartment block, I don’t want to plug in a separate box my iPhone, iPad, bike lights, Kindle… Etc. What I need is the Tunewear TUNEMAX 5USB Charger, a five-way USB charger with a name a rapper could be proud of.
Another camera bag? Yes. The Roamographer is pretty much the complete opposite to the Booq Python Mirrorless also featured this morning. It’s big, it’s made of lovely bison leather, and it’s huge. It’s also frikkin’ gorgeous, and equally frikkin’ expensive.
If somebody were designing a camera bag just for me, it would probably look a lot like the Python Mirrorless from Booq. It’s small, but holds just what you need, and is designed to carry a mirrorless-sized camera, an iPad mini and a few accessories, form a paper notebook to a spare lens to your house keys.
It’s also $80, which in the realm of camera bags is roughly equal to free.
Felix’s FlipStand is like a better version of Apple’s Smart Cover. It covers the screen and leaves the rear case mostly naked, but instead of using a flimsy folding action to give limited viewing angles when used as a stand, the FlipStand is almost infinitely adjustable between zero and ninety degrees, and holds the iPad steady like a kickstand.
If you want an SLR-style mirrorless camera, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 is the camera to beat. But if you don’t want to spend $1,000 on the Micro Four Thirds body, then you can now opt for the OM-D E-M10, a $700 body which uses lots of it’s big brother’s parts.
The much-leaked Fujifilm X-T1 is now officially official, and will surely be a sell-out success when it goes on sale next month for $1,300 (body only). It’s an SLR-style camera with an electronic viewfinder, Fujifilm’s trademark (16.3MP) X-Trans sensor, a metal body and a whole mess of mechanical knobs and dials.
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.
In Germany, bank cards come with NFC chips that let you make small payments just by tapping your wallet onto the POS machine. You pre-load the chip with money from your bank account (only small amounts are allowed, because if you lose the card you lose the money) and spend it as cash.
So I finally see the point of NFC in a phone. And now I can have NFC in my iPhone, thanks to Incipio’s Cashwrap case.
Macminicolo has been around for nine years, plugging Mac Minis into its data center and letting you use them as your own. Thy can work as servers, or just as 24/7 automation machines. Now, the folks at Macminicolo have launched Macprocolo (Mac Pro Co-location). You can probably guess what it is.
The KLOQE is billed as “the iPhone case for those who don’t like iPhone cases.” As a vocal member of that group, I feel qualified to judge this case. But that;s not it. The KLOQE also promises to be the only aluminum iPhone case without reception issues. So let’s get that part out of the way first.
Got a car? Got an iPhone? Like to tap away at the iPhone screen and distract yourself instead of watching the road ahead and earning the trust that pedestrians and cyclists put in your every time they venture out onto the road? Then I have good news! Now you can careen down the highway, secure in the knowledge that your precious iPhone will never slip off the dash, nor even deviate from it’s perfectly-chosen angle.
Keyboard shortcuts and trackpad gestures are fine, but they’re not as good as dedicated knobs and dials for just getting out of the way and letting your concentrate on the job instead of the interface. But knobs and dials are annoyingly fixed, whereas an on-screen control panel can be changed to fit the function.
Can you see where we’re going here? The Palette does both. It’s a modular, Lego-like set of buttons, knobs, dials and sliders which can be configured in hardware and software to do whatever you want them to.
K’lip is a USB thumb drive that’s actually useful. Yes, you can use it to take PDFs of your boarding passes to the local print shop, but you can also just use it as a keyring, until one day you need to copy a movie or rare bootleg album off your friend’s computer.
Or you could wear it.
The Bpen is a clever gadget indeed. It takes something almost useless — an iPhone stylus — and turns it into something useful: an iPhone stand. It even works as a car mount, and yet can still be used as a stylus. And as a regular pen. How is this unholy magic achieved? Let’s see…
