Want a cool gadget that can help you out in a pinch, especially when the lights go dark? There are countless different designs and intensities for little flashlights. Yet none are as simple and easy to use as the “9V Light” created by Richard Lawson. Nothing more than a 9v battery and a simple plastic-ish box that contains the LED light connects straight to the battery. How much easier can it get? One other pretty cool feature is the tilting functionality. That is, when the light is tilted on it’s side, it automatically switches the light off. I can see how this would be both bad and good.
Sadly, Richardson didn’t win the “Mathmos” competition he entered his little gadget into for a chance to get his gadget manufactured and shipped around the globe. But judging by how cool this little light is, that loss wasn’t really too much of a problem as you can now find the 9v Light over at gnr8 for $25. How bright is it? Think of candle. Perfect for those dark bathroom trips at night or a simple light to read with. What would you use one for?
Walyou
Whether you want to get overly technical and explain how LTE isn’t technically 4G or simply don’t care, begging on hands and knees for something faster to come along, one thing is for certain: we all want LTE. Article after article has been written, telling of how LTE will save the planet and maybe even aid in solving world peace. But how does it actually fare in real world scenarios? I mean, the on paper maximums show speeds as high as 100Mbps/50Mbps up/down respectively.
The debbie downer in the group will quickly point out that the real world speeds Verizon is seeing are far from their maximums (12Mbps down/5Mbps up constant | 40-50Mbps down/20-25Mbps up peak). Such views while valid, are rather short sighted. I mean, if you find yourself complaining about data speeds that are several times faster than what we poke along with right now, nothing will ever make you happy.
As for myself, I can’t wait to pick myself up a nice LTE data card late this year early next. Even at only12Mbps, mobile web browsing will be much, much faster.
Electronista
How about some self horn tooting to round out the night, eh? Tonight’s grand display of self love is brought to you by Verizon Wireless. Mind you, their back patting session is could actually be warranted. With AT&T’s less than stellar year, Verizon has been boasting of not only being better coverage wise for 3G, but also being lightyears ahead of the competition when it comes to 4G. Specifically, Verizon claimed that by the end of 2010, 25-30 markets would be fully blanketed with 4G. By 2013: look for the entire 3G footprint to be converted to 4G. Will they deliver?
According to VZW’s CTO, Tony Melone, the 2010 4G goals are “looking better and better each day, not worse”. Well, someone sure is confident aren’t they? Cutting through the PR fluff, VZW does have a robust and massive 3G footprint, so the talk we’re hearing from them now concerning their next gen network is pretty plausible.
If something in the form of a “con” must be taken away from all of this, it’s the simple fact that these early 25-30 4G markets won’t see any form of 4G voice — it’s all data baby. Verizon is up front about it, saying that they’re unsure at the moment if the 4G network will be able to handle both data and voice. Kudos to VZW for not sugarcoating/lying about network capacity. Personally, I never actually “talk” on the phone. Text/email/IM is really the best/only way to get a hold of me. Many people are not like me however and live by the spoken word. Fair enough. Yak it up all you want. Just know that for the foreseeable future, voice traffic on VZW is strictly 3G.
That’s ok though, more 4G goodness for what really matters — data. 
Engadget
When I seek out a new pair of headphones, the one and only feature I care about is audio quality. Fit is a close second. Appearance however doesn’t even come close. But headphones have become so much more in recent years as mp3 players and smartphones have driven us to block out the outside world.
The headphones you see above were designed by William Gerwin and feature not only that Steampunk design that is captivating everyone, but a video camera mounted to the side to capture all of your life’s travels. Affordable? Probably not. Cool looking? Very much so. Would you strap these to your head?
Technabob
YenkoDesign
*Time to get the salt shakers out ladies and gents.
Have a certain “thing” for Ovi Maps but absolutely despise the overpriced (or rather average) nature of their higher end smartphone lineup? There may just be hope for you yet if Greig Williams, Nokia’s General Manager for South East Europe has his way. In response to a question lobbed by german site “Die Presse” as to whether Ovi Maps would expand to other platforms or not, Mr. Williams simply replied: “That will be the next step”. Score!
Well, score if you love Ovi Maps. Truthfully, Ovi Maps does have something going for it. The maps are stored locally which means as long as your phone has real GPS, even the lack of a cell signal shouldn’t hamper your miniaturized navigation device. Other than that, besides UI differences there really isn’t too much of a difference between Ovi Maps, Google Maps/Navigation or any other mobile navigation software out there. (You can only instruct someone how to get from point A to point B in so many ways and styles)
The only question that remains now is will Nokia charge other platforms for Ovi Maps or will they keep it free? Free would be nice and actually warranted given the fact that Google Navigation is already free (and awesome) and going global as the months progress. A fee-based scheme will pretty spell failure from the start if mass adoption is what they’re gunnin’ for.
But it’s all rumor and heresy for now. My how I love a good rumor. Think it’ll pan out?
Engadget
For flash storage buffs, the still several year out 2TB SDXC cards seem like it’s as good as it’ll get, or at the very least, the most exciting thing in flash storage. I too thought that — until five minutes ago. You see, it was then that I stumbled onto an article highlighting CompactFlash 5.0 and it’s new capacity ceiling. So, just how high will it go?
How’s 144 petabytes sound? Yes, that’s a P as in a ton. I don’t even have 1TB worth of data (yet) to store on a hard drive, let alone 144,,000 TB’s to store on a card no larger than a saltine cracker.
Data densities are obviously not quite advanced enough to tap the new capacity limits of CompactFlash 5.0. But rest assured that when it does, you and your fifty bajillion pictures will have a safe and happy home.
Ubergizmo > Electronista
I’m not trying to knock the true geek’s basement living, rarely venture up for air lifestyle (I’ve done it plenty myself), but sometimes you just stink. Plain and simple. Not to mention, for someone who is constantly multi-tasking and taking in information from all over the place, standing in place, staring at a blank wall, and scrubbing just doesn’t seem very exciting. So, why bathe?
If you’re a geek who doesn’t see the need to bathe, take note. The Star Wars Logo Soap is your soap. Everywhere in society we see geeks being tied to some sort of Star Wars/Star Trek background as the science/space stuff gets our gears grinding. Well, now you can take that geeky, space loving obsession and turn it into a squeaky clean dermis.
The Star Wars Logo soaps retail for $6.50 each. To some, that’s a bit pricey for a single bar of soap. But these are a labor of love, created one at a time. Surely you can appreciate that.
[Product Page: Etsy -- SoapLane]
Geeky-Gadgets > Nowhere Else
Smartphones have the ability of usually being fairly customizable on the users’ end, allowing various configuration changes and other software tweaks. The biggest reason that such tinkering catches on however is generally dependent on the OS and hardware inside. Because of that, the ability to customize a device varies from handheld to handheld. But what if the typical notion of a smartphone were removed from the traditional plastic shell and shrunken down into a card no bigger than your standard SIM card?
Such is the task and goal behind the “Android SIM’. Shown off by SK Telecom at MWC, the Android SIM may not replace the high-end smartphones (yet), but it will make everything else below it obsolete. The real beauty is that the Android SIM features an integrated CPU, 1GB of memory, and of course, the Android OS — again, all on a SIM card! Impressed isn’t quite the right word…Geeked is more like it.
The big winners of such a card would be lower end phones since you could make them even cheaper by leaving out the processor, memory and OS and instead rely on these little cards to do all the heavy lifting. Such cards are not only cool because of what they can do, but what they’ll lead to. Just think, evolving this Android SIM even further can lead to other cool stuff such a stick on CPU’s, batteries, electrical plugs, etc. Now if I could only get a hold of a few of these…
Engadget
When it comes to wind power, bigger is always better. A few design tweaks here and there can be made to the individual blades to increase the efficiency of said blade, however, at the end of the day, the blade with the most square footage wins. It looks as if Norway is taking that thinking and multiplying it — exponentially — with their new, currently in construction, wind turbine gigantor.
When this modern behemoth is finished, the rotors will span over 473ft, it’s will tower over 533 ft into the air (that’s taller than 50-stories of man made building by the way), and 10MW of electricity will flow forth from this engineering marvel. For those ultra curious tree huggers and nerds of the bunch, that’s enough power to keep 4,000 homes running at any given moment.
Such a massive piece of metal, steel, and ingenuity has to be anchored securely right? Wrong. “Giganturbine” (oh yeah, the creative juices are flowing now) will live life as an *almost* freely wondering spirit, floating on top of the sweet blue sea and connected to mother earth with nothing more than a suction anchor. I’d hate to see this child run away from home and have to drag it back — tens of miles back.
Norwegians can expect to start seeing electrons harnessed by Giganturbine sometime next year.
Dvice
