Category Archives: Gadgets

Want to lock your luggage but know it will be busted open by the TSA and its purpose rendered useless? Travel Sentry certified TSA locks can open be opened by the TSA without breaking open your lock. You lock and unlock your suitcase own suitcase, but there’s a special TSA key that allows airport security to unlock your bags as well. (via Crypto-Gram)…

“AT&T Wireless announced the availability of a new music recognition service today that allows customers to identify songs simply by placing their phones near a music speaker.” Customers dial “#ID” from any AT&T wireless phone and provide a 15 second sample. They then receive a text message on their phone with the artist and song….

Seth Schiesel writes in today’s New York Times about the new market for expensive gadgets. The article focuses on Sony’s premium brand: Qualia. “People want their name monogrammed in diamonds on the cellphone or they want the pagers entirely encrusted in diamonds. We had the wife of one rapper who had a pink phone and she wanted it encrusted in pink diamonds.”…

Danny Hakim of The New York Times writes about the new safety technologies making their way into today’s cars. Americans in general still want to control their cars, and are wary of even a train that drives itself. Japan gets to tryout this technology first while the marketers figure out how to sell the idea to Americans. The Prius in Japan can park itself. An Infiniti can keep itself in the center of the lane. I would like to see car manufacturers abandon what they think we want and instead give us great products. Who would have thought the Prius…

Josh Levin of Slate writes about the Multiparker MP 710, an automatic parking system. The car engine is off, so there is no need for ventilation. Cars can be parked in tight space without need for illumination. Sounds cool! Does it save any money or is it just a cool gadget?…

The Segway Robotic Mobility Platform is a modified Segway Human Transporter designed as a base for your robot. The Segway receives commands through a dual CANbus interface. 100 pound payload, 8 mph top speed, 8-10 mile range. Available in April….

I was not able to find any documentation for resetting my MSN Direct watch to its factory settings, so I will post my findings here just in case another user would like to reset his or her watch in the future. I have a Fossil FX3001. Two buttons on the left and three on the right. Press down all three buttons on the right side. Wait for the watch manufacturer’s logo to appear. Keep doing this until the time resets to 12:00. The watch is configured to reset to factory settings if you reboot the watch ten times within five…

Ice-Link hooks up to your car stereo’s CD changer port and connects to your iPod’s audio out and FireWire ports. Charge on the go and have access to all of your songs!…

At Wednesday’s dinner we discussed controlling a rover or submarine over the Internet. It does exist. “RemoteDriver is a home made robot made out of a tablet-pc a webcam and an old rc car chassis. When online it can be driven by anyone from anywhere in the world. All you need is a good ammount bandwith and a flash player to interact with it. Login at the indicated time above for some hot rod realtime action.”…