The Gadgets Page

If you have a iPhone, then you understand how difficult it can be to take close-up photos. Fortunately, Griffin has a solution for you. The Griffin Clarifi is an iPhone case that has a macro lens that slides over your normal iPhone lens.

Nicole Lee has been trying out her Griffin Clarifi. She said:

The Clarifi claims to improve macro close-up shots of the iPhone’s camera, and as you can see in the Before and After shot, it definitely makes close-up pics appear clearer and more in focus.

She provided a photo to show how well it works:

The Griffin website has another example:

There are so many times when I really need my iPhone to be able to snap a good photo, so this would come in handy for me.

This comic from xkcd is SO true!

It says:

The most powerful gaming systems in the world still can’t match the addictiveness of tiny in-browser flash games.

Honestly, I would far rather spend hours playing Bejeweled than stealing realistic cars in a realistic environment like Grand Theft Auto. Here are a few sites that offer free online games that are fun and addictive:

• PopCap Games – Free Online Games: Peggle and Bejeweled are the most popular.

• Free Online Games – Fun Online Games, Play Online Games from Shockwave: Collapse and Cubis are the best puzzle games on this site. They have Cake Mania as well.

• Free Online Games | Big Fish Games: Try The Hidden Object Show or Cooking Dash for some fun.

• SpinTop Games – Download Free Games: These folks have some classic board games like Monopoly, Scrabble and others.

If you have a computer, you have a wealth of free games to play. You don’t need a Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3 to enjoy the simple joy of online puzzle games.

I’ve been enjoying myself playing Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir. Remember when you were a kid and had to wait for the pediatrician to see you? Your mom handed you a copy of Highlights magazine and you spent the twenty minutes in the crying waiting room finding hockey sticks and horseshoes hidden in the photo. Maybe you liked the two pictures that looked almost identical, but there are five things that are different. Could you find all five?

Yeah, that’s what this game is all about.

There is a tenuous and poorly written storyline about a lost millionaire. You’re supposedly finding “clues” to this mystery by finding the hidden objects in a picture. For example, here I need to find a baseball, feather, bread and key. On the lower screen, I have my flashlight showing the key. All I have to do is touch it and it will be checked off the list. I have no idea what a baseball, feather, bread and key could possibly do to help solve the disappearance of the rich dude, but I don’t really care about all that.

There are a few other puzzles that are mixed in with the finding objects games, but mostly it’s looking at pictures and noticing the details.

If this description sounds unappealing to you, then know that it sounded unappealing to me as well. It wasn’t until I played with my sister’s game that I realized the relaxing enjoyment that can be had from a few minutes just looking for hidden things.

By the way, if you’re looking for this game in a video game store, it will be filed under “Mystery Case Files” NOT “Millionheir.” I went looking for it a couple of times and was unable to find it, even though it was filed under M. Of course, it’s always easy to find it at Amazon.com: Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir.

If you need a calming and enjoyable time to relax, Millionheir is a great way to get a small sense of achievement in a short amount of time.

You are looking at the Windation wind powered energy generation unit.

It sits on 70 square feet of your roof and generates 6,912 kilowatts a year. It’s quiet. It won’t massacre birds. It has an integrated turbine, a design that has been in use since 1904. If the wind is blowing, it provides electricity for approximately 1000 square feet of office space.

Why doesn’t every house have one of these on the roof?

Their website is sadly missing all the important information like cost, availability and installation. They seem to be marketing these to business and urban buildings, but homes could profit from this just as well. Does that mean the cost exceeds the grasp of the ordinary homeowner?

I’ve contacted them for information, but until then, I eagerly await. As soon as I find out specifics, I will update this entry.

Via: Twitter / anntorrence: This could be a gamer-chan …

Update 3:55 pm: I just got off the phone with Mark Sheikhrezai, the founder and CEO of Windation. He was nice enough to answer my questions.

The WES-2KW is the unit that will probably work best in a residential setting. It is an 8 foot by 8 foot unit, so unless you have a flat roof, it would be rather difficult to mount it on your home. At the cost of $30,000 for this unit, you would have to show some serious dedication to wind power to add it to your house.

That’s why their focus is commercial buildings. Their larger unit, the WES-5KW is $40,000 and fits easily on the roof of a commercial building. They are working on getting approval from the California Energy Commission and CE (which is a European certification).

Their products are made in Nebraska, so they are U.S. made.

Mark Sheikhrezai was so personable and willing to answer questions, so if you have a deciding vote on the planning of a commercial building, remember Windation.

When I talk about video games from the 1980’s, I usually wax nostalgic about Adventure or Centipede. Sometimes I even rave about Arkanoid, but I never thought to look at the Educational Games. Educational Games Research, however has listed their picks for the top ten educational games of the 80’s:

• The Top 10 Most Influential Educational Video Games from the 1980s « Educational Games Research

My favorite of the group was Sim City. I learned a lot about city planning from that game and clogged traffic makes me a little more calm when I imagine a city planner trying desperately to fix the problem without having to bulldoze buildings to do it.

Kudos to them for choosing Microsoft Solitaire for the list. That game single-handedly taught the world how to use a mouse. I remember Mike telling me how as the IT officer, he assigned people to play that game so they would learn how to click, drag and double-click. It was a stroke of genius for Microsoft to include that game with their operating system.

Via: WWdN: In Exile: some generation x nostalgia for a monday morning

This is a pretty fun video showcasing the history of computers. It’s called Dot Matrix Revolution from SUPERBROTHERS and I found it delightful:

DOT MATRIX REVOLUTION* from superbrothers on Vimeo.

Even their description of it is fun:

Following an early morning status check of their vintage electronic equipment, two computer engineers “throw down” in an awkward dance-off that seems to echo the development of information technolgy and the internet from 1951 up to the present day (!?). The film features a catchy jingle by pop impresario Jim Guthrie. This is the second film by SUPERBROTHERS.

Next time you hear Steve Jobs talking about uploading things to “The Cloud” remember this little rendition of what it may look like.

Via: The History Of The World In 10 1/2 Pixels: Want To See The History Of The Computer In Under Four Minutes?

Check out this awesome video from Randy George. He did a cover of Daft Punk’s Something About Us.

He made the helmet in the video as well. Of course, the LED words were a visual effect. He explains here:

It was made of papier-mâché with a custom LED visor built in … post production! using Softimage XSI and Adobe After Effects! Yes, it was a visual effect! 3D modeling, manual rotoscoping, and motion tracking/motion stabilization tricks were employed to pull this off. A LED array with animated text was projected on to a manually rotoscoped 3D visor, that was subsequently composited with the original footage using motion trackers in After Effects. The helmet itself took three days to make. I used 7 layers of card stock/normal stock paper strips in a special heavy mix paste recipe. The shape was built around a custom mold of shipping foam and gaffers tape. It was finished off with gunmetal grey paint. The visor was made of plastic cut from a microwave oven splash cover I found at Target for 5 dollars, laminated on both sides with Limo dark auto window tinting. I could see out, but the translucent plastic from the microwave splash cover along with the heavy tinting made it a little bit difficult. On the inside, the helmet was padded with custom cut felt blocks to fit my head size perfectly. The total weight was around 0.5 Kg (about 1 pound).

Via: no es bueno.com » Blog Archive »

If you bought the Apple 3G iPhone, then you got one of these really cool tiny chargers for it. Unfortunately, they are being recalled.

• Apple Announces Ultracompact USB Adapter Exchange Program

Apple says that they have received reports of the adapter’s metal prongs breaking off in the power outlet. They will replace the adapters in mid-October and they will be marked with a green dot.

In the meantime, they should charge their iPhone 3G by connecting it to their computer with the USB cable that came with their iPhone or by using a standard-sized Apple USB Power Adapter (with fold up prongs) or with a third party adapter designed to work with the iPhone, such as a car charger.

Personally, I LOVE my new iPhone adapter. It is so small that I have no problem packing it up to go on a trip. Instead of forcing my computer to stay on all night while my phone charges, I can just plug it into the wall and close my laptop up.

I don’t want to surrender my adapter until I know I can have a new one soon. I guess I’ll sign up to get a new one and grit my teeth until October. Fortunately, I have no travel planned between now and then.

Via: Twitter / Michael D Jensen: Recall of Apple iPhone 3G …

This is being marketed as a stylus for those with long fingernails, but there have been many times when my fingers haven’t been able to quite make things work on the iPhone. The Pogo Stylus for the iPhone is a stylus, just like I had with the Treo, which I honestly miss. According to the Pogo Stylus website, here are the benefits of a stylus:

The sleek design of the Pogo Stylus features an ultra-light aluminum body with an anodized finish and laser graphics. The soft tip glides easily over the surface of the display, making it fun and easy to sketch, draw characters, or just slide to unlock. Sized for accuracy, it does away with the awkward typos and misfires common to fingertip-only use.

Eliminating fingers has the added benefit of keeping the screen free of smudges and grease. Designed to firmly hug the contours of the iPhone 3G, the Pogo Stylus travel clip will keep your stylus close at hand. A second clip is included for the original iPhone and iPod touch.

I’m digging on this red one:

The only problem I can see with this stylus is the multi-touch features. How do I pinch or stretch with the stylus? I can’t and I can imagine fumbling with the stylus in my hand while I have to go back to using my fingers. This is a cool idea, but the more that Apple adds multi-touch gestures, the less useful it will be. Considering I usually text with two thumbs, I think a stylus would slow me down.

Via: Long Nails? No Problem With the PoGo Stylus For the iPhone | iPhone, iPhone accessories, pogo stylus | geeksugar – Technology, Gadgets, & How Tos.

Tokyoflash is the creator of MANY useless watches that are more jewelry than timepieces, but Negative is a watch that is almost useful.

The display can be either horizontal or vertical. The LEDs can display in any one of seven colors, or even choose the colors randomly. Most importantly, the time is displayed in the LEDs that are NOT lit, thus the name, Negative. Tokyoflash somehow thinks this is a new thing and even suggests on their website that it might be difficult to read at first, going to the trouble of teaching you how to read it:

This is the most usable watch made by Tokyoflash, which isn’t saying much from the company that brought you Barcode, Pimpin, Diode and Retrofit:

I’m still waiting for the watch that worries more about displaying the date and time on the face than about the color of the LEDs. Nice try, Tokyoflash. It’s the closest you’ve come to creating a watch that will please me, but you still are FAR from the mark.

Via: Tokyoflash: Telling Time With The Negative – Geekologie