Satellite Tracking Watch

Well, no, not really. That's just how Tokyo Flash describe this amazing looking Geomesh watch.

The green LEDs tell you the hour, the yellow ones each represent five minutes and the red ones are single minutes.

I doubt you'd ever get to the point where you could glance at your wrist and know what time it is, so it's not very functional, but it looks so damned cute!

Ring Vibrators

Come on now, get your mind out of the gutter!

The vibrators I'm talking about are these clever alarm clock rings.

Rather than announcing it's time to get out of the sack via a radio or, worse, some horrible buzzer, this alarm clock comes with two rings, which vibrate at the appropriate time.

Each ring can be set for its own wakeup time. Very clever, indeed.

At present, they're just a design concept, but one day ...

Now, We Can All Get Some Sleep!

I loathe summer. In particular, I hate the hot nights when it's impossible to get to sleep.

Well, these guys have the solution ... an air-conditioned bed.

For those who can't remember where they've heard those immortal words in the title, take a look here.

Nixie Tube Clock

The first programming I ever did was on a Canola 167P, when I was at high school ... sometime during the middle ages :-).

It displayed numbers via a set of 16 nixie tubes. So, this clock makes me feel just a little nostalgic!

Better Butt Bathing

Forget the iPhone ... I want a Washlet!

It's a high-tech toilet seat that hooks into your plumbing ... basically, a bidet that can be fitted to any toilet.

The seat is heated, includes a warm-air drier and is wirelessly remote controlled!

Take a look at their website, it's pretty cool.

Tivoli WiFi Radio

I have two Tivoli radios and I love them. The sound quality is just amazing.

So, I was very excited to read, via Gizmodo, that they are going to release a WiFi model.

I'm not so interested in the net radio stations it can pull in. What I'm after is the ability to play tracks from my PC.

I love the idea of being able to listen to a podcast or music of my own choice while having a shower, rather than whatever happens to be on AM/FM at the time.

To Be Or Not To Be?

The iPhone is set to appear in less than a week.

If Apple's current plans are accurate, I won't be able to get my hands on one for at least another six months, but that may be a good thing.

There's a new 25 minute demo video that goes through most of the features. It's very compelling. However ...

I just read an article on Engadget that says the keyboard isn't really usable with more than one finger, registering multiple hits, and the predictive correction is too simplistic.

So, having to wait may actually be a good thing. By the time it arrives in Australia, hopefully most of the bugs will have been eradicated.

Rubik's Globe?

We've seen Rubik's Cubes where all the sides were the same colour, ones with lights in them and, recently, a greyscale version.

But, I think this is the most interesting one I've seen yet.

It's a Rubik's Cube with a map of the world spread over the various faces.

So now, you can learn group theory and geography at the same time!

Light Sugar

Via Coroflot comes an article on Lima, a bloodless glucose meter.

Instead of the user having to prick their finger to provide a drop of blood for analysis, they simply hold the monitor in their hand and press a button.

Lima sends infrared light through the fingers and determines the glucose level, based on detecting the quantities of particular wavelengths that are transmitted.

Foot Pan

If I had one of these my floor sweeping schedule might increase to bi-annual :-).

It's one of those obvious ideas that make you wonder why nobody thought of it before.

Clever LCD

According to this article over at New Launches, Samsung have just released a 70" LCD with LED backlighting.

The interesting bit is that the screen can detect when areas are displaying dark colours and automatically turn the backlighting off in that portion.

This sharpens the dark colours and also decreases the power usage. Very clever, indeed.

The Wine ... Ahem ... Rack

These guys came out with the Beer Belly some time back, which allowed guys to carry a supply of booze around in a fake beer gut.

Well, now, they have the Wine Rack, which is ... you guessed it ... a way for the ladies to secrete booze in their bras as fake cleavage.

You have to give them points for excellent product naming, if nothing else!

Apple TV Gets YouTube & 160GB Drive

Steve Jobs was also at D5.

He didn't give much away, other than to say that they're trying to come up with a way that third party developers can write apps for the iPhone, without compromising security.

Whether I buy one, once I can get my grubby little hands on it, will depend entirely on the ability to add useful apps, so that was good news.

One thing he did announce (and demo) was Apple TV access to YouTube. Hopefully, this is just the first in a long line of improvements to the device. I'll still probably never buy one, because I'm happy sitting here in front of my 24" Dell monitor, plugged directly into my PC.

He also announced that there will be a build-to-order option for a 160GB drive, which is definitely better than that tiny 40GB it currently has.

Palm Foleo

Well, as expected, Jeff Hawkins announced a new Palm product at the All Things Digital meeting. It's called the Foleo.

I'm not sure how useful it will be. That will depend on how open it is to new applications. If it can run Vim, I'll definitely be coughing up to buy one :-).

Basically, it's a mobile phone "companion" ... a device with a larger, 10" display that can sync with your phone via Bluetooth, so you can read/write e-mail on a decent sized screen, with a much better keyboard.

It has a custom version of the Opera web browser, which can access the internet via WiFi, if you're near a hotspot, or via Bluetooth, through your phone. It can also work with Office documents.

Lenovo "Reserve Edition" Thinkpad?

For a little while now, Lenovo has had a teaser site that hints at a "reserve edition" Thinkpad being released sometime in the future (it's very light on details).

Well, via Gizmologia, a gadget blog that I can't actually read, comes a possible image of this new product.

Suffice it to say, I want one !!

New Palm Product Tomorrow?

I've been a big Palm fan ever since the original Palm Pilot was released many, many years ago ... I had my dear friend Jeannine, who lives in the US, purchase one and ship it to me, based solely on a magazine ad!

Well, rumour has it that Jeff Hawkins, the designer of those original devices, is set to announce something new from Palm tomorrow.

Read the speculation here

I live in hope. My gadget thirst has been unslaked for some time now.

Corona Lights

I found these via Gizmodo.

As their name suggests, the Corona lamps look like the sun's corona during a solar eclipse.

Very sexy ... and so are the lights :-).

Ick !!

I'm certain this is an incredibly useful device, and they say there's no chance of anything undesirable making it past the filter, but I still can't help visualising a mouthful of snot!

Those Swedes are darned clever. I'm surprised this is the first I've heard about it. Thanks to Random Good Stuff for that delectable mental picture :-).

HP eBook

It seems Hewlett-Packard has an e-Ink book reader in the works.

From these photos, it looks like it could be quite nice, too!

Beautiful LED Table

This table has LEDs embedded in its edges. When transparent objects are placed on it, they pick up the light and become beautifully illuminated.