Gadgetry Report

When I read stories like this one, two thoughts cross my mind. The first is, “Awesome! This is exactly what we need.” The second? “It’s about bloody time. Why haven’t we done this already?” Though sea turtle protection is long overdue—especially considering that all species of sea turtles are endangered—we can definitely welcome any protection now with open arms. Better late than never, right?

Since many sea turtles meet their untimely deaths in fisherman’s nets, a new device is being developed to target these nets in order to protect turtles. Fishery managers are using a Cape Cod company to develop a device that will allow them to continue using fishing nets while still protecting sea turtles.

Hopefully it’s not too good to be true. Read more

Ok, this is awesome. Synthetic trees that capture carbon emissions.

CNN reported out of London today that U.S. scientist are in the middle of creating a “synthetic tree” to collect carbon dioxide from the air.

Seriously.

"Each unit would take out a ton of CO2 a day -- which would be the amount of CO2 produced by 20 average automobiles in the U.S.A. And the cost of each unit would be about the cost of a Toyota. So that would mean if you added a five percent surcharge on automobile purchases that money could go to building units to remove the CO2 those vehicles are going to create."said Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wally Broecker of Columbia University.

They say it will be capable of collecting carbon approximately 1,000x faster than a real tree. So, how does it work, right? Read more

This is so very very weird, that I'm going to quote from the official marketing blurb: Read more

If you don’t have the time or the money to own a guard dog, there are some other alternatives that you can take to secure your home when you are out of town. Consider this barking dog alarm system for your home, where you don’t have to worry about anybody ever breaking in again. It barks like an angry guard dog, and senses motion from up to 25 feet away, through doors, walls and glass. As the intruder gets closer, the device barks louder and more frequently. Read more

The world of movie rentals is getting better every day. If you have a Netflix account you can now rent movies in the mail, but wait, there is more. This Roku Digital Video Player that we found will connect to your wireless network and automatically stream Netflix movies on-demand (there are more than 12,000 of them) right to your TV. You do need a Netflix account however, and there is no monthly fee associated with your Roku Digital Video Player. Here is the scoop. Read more

Remember the AT-AT Walkers from Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back? If you're not sure, here's a clip:

For those of us who aren't Lego geeks, or Star Wars obsessed, or who weren't even literate when the film was released, AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armored Transport. At the time, they blew people away, not just in terms of the effects (which really were mind-blowingly stunning way back when) but because of the concept of a reticulated, all terrain robot.

So you can maybe understand why this video from Boston Dynamics of Big Dog, their cargo-carrying all terrain robot sorta blew my mind. Read more

Finally, a full motorized scooter that has a fully insulated cooler attached…and you can ride on it. Seriously, this awesome and hot summer gadget allows you to carry up to 24 12-oz. beverage cans and 8 lbs. of ice in its onboard cooler. Easy throttle and brake controls are located on the handlebars, and the gadget handles just like a golf cart. Nifty pneumatic tires make traveling over different grades easy as pie. Gadget can drive up to 15 miles on one single battery charge. The perfect and mobile summer cooler for you! Read more

USB Cell BatteryI think inventions are getting increasingly clever, and perhaps with Obama's "Green Initiative" more environmentally-friendly as well. This latest invention can serve as an example of both: a re-chargeable battery with a catch.....this one re-charges with your computer's USB, which means a few things.

First of all, you save money over the course of the battery's life-it lasts for roughly 500 charges and the AA battery pack costs about $18 per pack. (Although AA batteries are currently the only ones available in from Moxia Energy, the company has plans to expand into other popular battery sizes as well.)

Secondly, these batteries are definitely a "life-saver" for the environement as approximately three billion "single-use batteries" are discarded every year.

The many advancements that have been made in cellular phones and PDA devices have enabled companies to create their most intuitive and useful PDAs ever. At the forefront of this trend are nifty phone gadgets like the Samsung Blackjack 2. This Windows equipped PDA device is basically a small laptop in a cellular phone. It provides a plethora of useful features that easily dwarf the competition. Read more

Remember tape cassettes? Those bulky plastic things that offered shoddy audio quality and that quite often would get eaten and ruined by the tape players that allowed you to enjoy the music contained within them? While these magnetic and obsolete cassette tapes may be a thing of music’s sordid past, many people still have hundreds of them lying around their homes. What if there was a way to convert these older tapes into modernized MP3 and other digital formats? Wouldn’t that just be wonderful?

Now you can do exactly this with the Cassette to MP3 Converter. This dual cassette device allows you to easily convert your old cassette tapes to the modern digital MP3 file format for audio media. You simply place a tape in the cassette drawer, plug the gadget into your PC and let it run. It will even allow you break the songs into single tracks, just like a modern CD. Then simply burn your songs to a CD from your computer or download them to your portable MP3 player. It’s that easy! Read more