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I instantly fell in love with Trongs the minute I saw them. They are little utensils that protect your hands from messy foods.
I LOVE buffalo wings. I have taken to eating boneless wings because I can eat them with a fork and spare myself the mess, but with the advent of Trongs, I could go back to eating the original wings.
Here is a video showing you how to use them:
Here’s a video that gives you a closer glimpse of them:
Every bar and wings restaurant in the country should hand out a pair of Trongs with every basket of wings they serve.
Via: Trongs are the Finger Tong Utensil of the Future » CraziestGadgets.com
I love this ad for the Admiral Triple Thrill:
It reads:
Home Entertainment all in One Luxurious Console $499.95
From Admiral comes complete home entertainment to charm your family and guests. Magic Mirror Television brings you bright, steady, mirror-like pictures on a big 10″ direct view screen… the clearest pictures of them all! Super-powered by 29 tubes to assure dependable performance even in outlying areas. Receives all channels. New two-speed automatic phonograph plays standard as well as new LP (long play) 45 minute microgroove records. Here, too, is a powerful radio with the finest features in FM-AM as developed by Admiral. Truly a triple thrill… all combined in a breathtakingly beautiful cabinet that measures only 48 inches wide! See it! Hear it! Today!
It’s such a strange juxtaposition to compare this Admiral TV/Record Player/Radio with the E-matic Video/MP3 Player/Camera that I just reviewed last week. We now have the power to carry hundreds of songs, TV shows and photos in our pockets for a mere fifty bucks! When you account for inflation, our $50 now would have been worth $5.68 back in 1948 when that ad was made.
To all the gadget haters out there, we live in a WONDEROUS time!
Ad via: Found in Mom’s Basement: Two vintage ads for home electronics
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This postcard from PostSecret made me cringe with guilt.
It reads:
I rear-ended an unregistered, unlicensed, illegal immigrant.
He went to jail because I was texting and driving.
I’ve texted while driving twice and each time I thought what I was doing was so important that I needed to do it. I was wrong.
There is NO text or phone call as important as staying ALIVE. The writer of the postcard could have just as easily killed the person he hit or someone in his own car. There is a gadget available that can stop you from calling or texting while driving. It’s called Key 2 Safe Driving.
Here’s a video showing how is works:
Trying to use this to monitor your teenagers is ludicrous. Within five minutes, your teen would figure out a way to disable the Bluetooth receiver on his phone so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the problem. The only answer in this case is self-control. Not answering your phone while you’re driving is the only way to ensure that you won’t kill someone or yourself by talking on the phone while driving.
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
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A friend of mine referred me to this Steampunk version of a Segway. He’s calling it the Legway:
A self balancing, human powered, steampunk styled, Segway. All you need is a brave self balancing human. This is the ultimate green vehicle for all you eco conscious steampunkers. Is that an oxymoron? I made this out of mostly found materials. This was my first steampunk styled build. Any good suggestions on making it look better will be incorporated as long as the materials are cheap and easy to find. I have been calling it the Legway in reference to the propulsion method. Yes, I know about those Lego self balancers of the same name.
Here is a video of it in action:
I know that using this gadget is MORE difficult than walking or running the same speed, but it looks so very AWESOME! I begged Mike to make me one for our Halloween party, but he said that I wasn’t allowed to ride it around the house.
I guess I’ll just have to admire it from afar.
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The Gadgets Page has added a Twitter account to our arsenal of weapons. Every post will have a link on Twitter and any random gadget thoughts I have throughout the day will show up there as well.
You can follow us here:
You should especially follow us when we are at CES or the other big gadgety events throughout the year because a lot of the cool stuff that we see there will show up on the Twitter account before we get a chance to write a full entry about them.
The folks from Shaghal Ltd. sent me one of their 4GB E-matic Video MP3 players. I’ve had fun playing with it for the last few days.
In a spark of genius that not even Apple has achieved yet, the E-matic comes preloaded with a video showing how to use it. You can see the video here:
It’s a multi-function device that tries to be everything. I’ll review each function on its own.
When compared to an iPod, the E-matic will never be able to compete. Apple has made adding music to an iPod so incredibly easy that everything else is clunky and difficult in comparison. When compared to other MP3 players, however, the E-matic is a perfectly functional device.
When plugged into a computer (I tried it on my Mac and my PC), it shows up like a USB thumb drive or an SD card. When you drop MP3s into the AUDIO folder, they are playable with the built-in MP3 player. Using Windows Media Player to try to add music onto the E-matic is definitely a mistake. It’s a much better idea to just add folders of music using Explorer (on the PC) or Finder (on the Mac).
Be warned that any music you have purchased with iTunes won’t work on the E-matic, even if it’s DRM-free. Apple wants you to use their MP3 players, you know.
I was able to get the video player to work with .3GP, .AVI and .MP4, but not .WMV files. I was able to download an episode of Dexter from Bit Torrent, put it on the E-matic and watch it within minutes, which is MUCH easier than trying to get .AVI files to work on my iPhone. Transferring files from the computer to the E-matic takes longer than it would to transfer the same sized file onto an SD card, but the playback (especially with the .AVI files) was clean and watchable. Here is a glimpse of what the episode of Dexter looked like on the E-matic:
With big files like that episode of Dexter, there is some choppiness and pauses. I found it quite distracting to watch, but if you have fifteen episodes of Sponge Bob on the E-matic for your kid to watch while you’re waiting in the grocery line, I doubt that will be an issue.
The screen is bigger than the iPod Nano and about as clear as long as you have a good file to begin with. That is one thing that Apple does a little better; they make sure that the videos you do put on your Nano or iPhone look as good as possible.
There is a feature that lets you record audio, such as notes to yourself or a quick interview of a friend, etc. This feature is limited by the small microphone. The audio clips are recorded in .AMR files, and show up in the AUDIO folder on the E-matic. Transferring them to your computer is as easy as drag and drop.
Here is an example of an audio recording using the E-matic:
The camera is 640 X 480 and the pictures are choppy at best. Here are some examples of photos I took with the E-matic.
These photos where taken under the BEST lighting possible and they are still a little pixelated. The camera is good enough to prove that you saw somebody who looked like Elvis, but not good enough to prove that Elvis is alive.
See the rest of the photos taken with the E-matic here:
The video camera records in 320 X 240. Not since my old Treo 650 have I had a video camera with this resolution. Here is a video that I took with the camera:
As you can see, this is good enough for kids or simple family shots outside in bright light, but if you try to film indoors, it will be too dark to see anything. The audio quality is also limited by the tiny microphone at the bottom of the unit.
See the other video taken with the E-matic here:
This isn’t an eBook reader so much as a way for you to read .TXT files. That’s great if you want to cheat in school using the E-matic. I’ve written in detail about that sort of thing here:
The directions for the E-matic are EXACTLY the same as what I wrote for the iPod, except you don’t need to enable the E-matic for disk use. That’s all ready for you to go.
This feature also might be good to store phone numbers, information, etc. that you might want to refer to. As far as reading a book using the E-matic, you could do it, but it would be an incredible pain in the butt because it doesn’t remember where you were last reading and you can’t resize the font for readability.
There is a tiny slot at the bottom of the E-matic labeled “TF Card.” I tried putting in a Micro SD card and it fit. It popped out at an incredible force, but aside from that it sleekly fit in the E-matic.
To use the Micro SD card, you need to go into the TOOL section and choose MEMORY. When you choose it as a WORKSPACE, then you can record audio, video and photos onto the Micro SD card. You can also watch videos or listen to MP3s that you have saved on it.
In this respect, the E-matic also works as a great card reader for Micro SD cards. When you plug it into the computer the Micro SD card shows up as a different drive and you can use the E-matic to transfer files to the SD card as easily as to the hard drive.
You can get Micro SD cards with as much memory as 16GB, so just the purchase of one Micro SD card can change your 4GB E-matic into a 20GB device. I love the expandability of the Micro SD card slot!
The E-matic is available at Wal-Mart for $49 and available on Amazon for anywhere from $54 to $63. Is the E-matic worth it? Hell yeah.
If you need something to entertain the kids, but you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on an iPod, the E-matic is PERFECT. You’ll have to work a little harder to get the files on the device, but if your kid loses it, you’re out fifty bucks instead of hundreds.
It’s also a great device to teach kids how to shoot video and take photos. The limitations of the camera do make it a little more difficult to get a good shot, but that is a great way to teach them about proper lighting and setting up a shot.
If you’re expecting the E-matic to take the place of your normal camera, however, you will be sorely disappointed. The camera on your phone is probably as good as the camera in the E-matic, if not better.
On the whole, however, the E-matic is definitely worth the fifty bucks. It’s best for kids, but if you just want to snap a few photos to remember things and watch a couple of videos while you’re waiting at the DMV, it’s great for adults as well!
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