I Spy…

I like this idea a lot. I lived in Hawaii for a long time. In fact I have lived in Hawaii for over 18 years of my life and in a place with so much water and so much sun you could really get a lot of use from such a great little gadget. Basically it’s a snorkel and mask with a digital camera built in.

Digital underwater camera built into a swimming mask makes underwater photography “Hands Free” for safer swimming. Photograph or video friends, family or fish. Connect camera to your computer with the USB cable provided. Download the images and video to your computer to email or print. 3.1 MP, 16 MB SD Ram. SD Card Slot for external memory up to 2 GB (SD card not included). Photo & video editing software included.

I would really love to try one of these out for myself and see how well they work. I can’t find a price anywhere as of yet but considering I spent an average of $50 for a decent snorkel and mask plus another $200 for a camera with a water casing it could not be much worse. I could be wrong though.

Find out more at their site:

http://www.liquidimageco.com

via: crunchgear.com

Well it’s about time. We were promised flying cars and jet packs back in the 80’s but I have yet to take my jet pack or flying car out for a spin nor do I see them for sale anywhere near me. But soon we may have a car that can go underwater which is almost as cool as a flying car or jet pack and this time it looks like they may be serious. I for one, will not be holding my breath (pun not intended but still kinda funny).

I present to you the SQuba car/submarine. A car that can also dive to 30 feet of depth underwater. sQuba is one of the concept cars that will go public at the Geneva Motor Show that runs from March 6th to 16th, 2008. The world’s first real diving car with zero emission power is powered by an electric motor when it’s on land and once in water, the propulsion is provided by by two propellers and a pair of jet drives at the push of a button. I just like the sound of having “jet drives”. Of course at first this sort of thing will only be for the uber rich but who knows in a few years perhaps nearly all cars might have an underwater model available. I can dream right?

To find out more about the SQuba you can visit the website below.

http://www.windingroad.com

We never did Christmas Crackers as a kid. Most Americans would not know what they are. I first pulled a cracker in Ireland at the age of 21 when I was invited home with my girlfriend at the time (she is my wife now). I was blown away and really surprised that more Americans didn’t use Christmas Crackers.

To put a new twist on the whole cracker experience, a company based here in Ireland called Angry has created some crackers of their own. These look very fun and instead of paper hats they come with felt hats that will last longer and can be customised to both fit your head and look different by customizing your crown.

They also come with some clever buttons that will help you communicate while eating with phrases like “more turkey” and “one more sprout please”. If that was not enough they also come with a joke written by the clever folks at Angry.

http://www.angryretail.com/shop/home.php

It’s no secret I love gadgets. So when I stumbled across this article which highlights the “10 weirdest gadgets that you didn’t know existed” I just had to check it out. I will admit I did know about a few of them. The transparent toaster, the modern ladder and the one click butter. The rest I did not know existed and in particular the one that will remember most has to be the lockable coffee mug. I really like that and might by one just to freak my in-laws out.

I have just copied this post so you don’t have to leave here to get the news but if you’d like to visit the original here is the link:

http://www.coolgadgets.org/top-15-weird-gadgets-you-never-thought-existed/

I recently read a post at one of my daily visits and was inspired to write my own version. The article was about crummy things about living in the countryside. I too live in the sticks but only in Ireland and not America. As an American I have a unique view of how things are here that most Irish may not see. I decided to go ahead and do my own list of things crummy about living in the Irish Countryside (at least for me).

Don’t worry I will also do a positive post about the good things as well.

1. Farmers rule the road and they know it. Whether it be with a very slow tractor or heard of sheep and cattle, they do what they like, when they like and don’t care if you need to get to work.

Continue reading »

I have recently been diagnosed with a severe case of carpel tunnel syndrome and it’s painful to use my right hand for any computer work or similar.

It means I have had to stop using the computer until it heals. You may have noticed a lag in the news here for a few days so I thought i’d tell you why and let you know not to worry.

I am healing now and I have recruited a few guest writers in the meantime so the site stays updated. The first person to help me with this is my wife Helena who has agreed to be my hands and help me type and use a mouse.

For more information about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, like how to avoid it so you don’t go through what I am going through, visit the links below:

Wikipedia for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Symptons

Mice you can use to prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Easy Exercises you can do at work or computer to prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I just found this site that has created a new sport that is for designers on the web. It’s very new and really quite interesting. It’s called layer tennis and basically allows two designers to have a show down in real time. They both need to be online for the duration of the match and have access to the file server where they both send their edited files back and forth. They only 15 minutes per round and they have a total of 10 rounds. Here is how the site explains it:

We’ll be playing matches using lots of different applications, from Adobe® Photoshop® to Adobe® Flash®, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two artists (or two small teams of artists) will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post that to the site. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. The matches last for ten volleys and when it’s complete, everyone visiting the site votes for a winner.

Visit them online and see for yourself. Who knows, if it were with Fireworks I would give it a go myself. Looks fun.

www.LayerTennis.com

We have covered this technology before but only with a preview of what is to come. Now this company is letting us try it out online for free. So in addition to being able to edit, crop or modify our images online for free we can also resize them without cropping or distortion. If you’d like to see a demo you can refer to another link with a video overview of the technology (Content Aware Image Resizing).

I have tried it out on both small and large images and it works pretty well. If you push the limits too much by using very busy images or even resize to extreme dimensions you get mixed results but that’s to be expected.

Rsizr - Edit an image

About Rsizr

This is such a great idea. I love both the look of this gadget and the fact that’s it can be used in a power outage as well. It’s functional and great looking.

So it’s a table lamp that you power by turning the over-sized key. It works and looks a lot like a real table lamp but you don’t need to plug it in. Plus when it’s time to go to bed or leave the room you just let the timer run out and it goes out. Brilliant if you ask me. I wish more things were like this.

I don’t have a lot of information about the lamp at the moment such as price or how much time you get each time you twist it but I will report back here as I find more.

http://www.hulgerisation.com/?page_id=60

Thanks to OhGizmo.com for the heads-up.

Oops, I am only finding out about this now but there are still two days left to win so it’s not all in vain.

Your chance to enter and win, Wednesday’s prize is a full conference pass to MAX Europe and your choice of either Flex Builder or Flash CS3.

For more information visit the link below and if you live in Ireland or the UK enter to win now.

http://www.ashorten.com/2007/09/26/max-europe-prize-draw-wednesdays-question/

For results and more news you can visit http://www.ashorten.com.