Halo 3 messenger bag

Here's a cool bag for all Halo fanatics. It's available in khaki or gray, has the UNSC logo on it and is big enough to carry a laptop, some accessories and a few textbooks. Apparently, it can store a lot more than you'd first think. Perhaps it's actually a "bag of holding". If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask someone who ever played Dungeons and Dragons.

Source article

gadgetsgameshalo

Optimus Tactus keyboard

Seems like the Optimus Keyboard from Art Lebedev still wasn't enough for them. The overpriced, endlessly delayed shiny piece of hardware will perhaps get an even more futuristic successor: the Tactus Keyboard!
The Optimus Keyboard was a traditional keyboard with an OLED display underneath each key, but the Tactus Keyboard will be one big OLED touch screen, making any key layout you can imagine possible.

Impressive as this may look, I think this thing is bound for failure. It will look good in a movie, in the command center of an intergalactic spaceship, but in real life, people don't want to type on a touch screen. They want to feel actual keys. Another reason why I don't see this succeed is the price. The Optimus Keyboard is already expensive as hell, and I can't even begin to imagine how much this thing would cost!

Source article

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Bloody piggy bank

Whoever designed this piggybank must have a sick imagination. The idea behind it is preventing you from smashing it open without a very good reason, because when you do, something else besides cash falls out: an avalanche of bloody guts! The only things that are still missing are the smell of death and maggots.

Source article

gadgetstoys

Get Me Calling Cards

GetMeCallingCards.com is a retailer of pre-paid international phone cards. They carry about 459 different calling cards from several vendors, making it one of the largest retailers around.
One of their newest features are pinless calling cards. These are rechargeable cards that don't require a PIN-code but uses an ANI (automatic number identification) system.
Of course, the traditional pre-paid cards are also available.
An excellent card, for example, is the Fastworld Calling Card. This is a rechargeable, pinless card, and it can be accessed through local numbers in the supported countries. Many cards can only be used from within the United States or one specific country, but the Fastworld Calling Card from many countries in America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, making it perfect for world travelers. The card is available in values from $5 to $100. Available payment options are Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express.

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Antworks

Antworks was originally designed by Nasa to see what ants do in microgravity. Most of us will never experience that, but that doesn't mean we can't use this wonderfull toy.
The set consists of a transparent tank and a blue gel, wich acts as a tunneling medium and food for the ants. Watch as they digg tunnels through it and build their underground lair!

Buy from Hawkin Bazar

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Biometric Fingerprint safe

With this safe, you don't have to remember any combinations or keep keys with you (and risk losing them). Instead, it uses fingerprint recognition to operate the lock. It stores up to fifty fingerprint profiles in its non-volatily memory. It's officially licensed as secure enough to store firearms, so it should be pretty tough.

Source

gadgetsstoragesecurity

Bitter Brewzer

If you want to brew your own beer, this is a great set to get started. It includes a mixture of barley, hops and yeast wich you dissolve in water, put in the keg and let it ferment for three weeks. The result is ten pints of delicious beer!
Refills for 30 pints are also available, but of course nothing stops you from experimenting yourself and using the brewery for your own recipes! Or you can add your own ingredients to the refill mixture and see what results your get.

Buy from Hawkin Bazar
Buy a 30 pint refill

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Liquor Lock

This lock is great for keeping your booze out of the hands of your kids or your roommates. The Liquor Lock is a stopper with a 3-dial combination lock. No more slowly disappearing liquor! Of course, someone who desperately wants your booze can take his time to break the code, or just smash the neck off the bottle.

Source article on Oh Gizmo

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Techno Balls

Remember those marble tracks you probably had as a kid? Now picture one of those sets on steroids, with shiny steel marbles and driven by an electric motor. That's Technoballs!
The set contains 173 components, instructions, a motor (requires 2 AA batteries). A larger set with 269 pieces is also available.

Buy from Hawkin Bazar
Buy the big set (269 pieces)

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Decal Girl

If you're looking for colorful skins for your cellphone, MP3 player or game console, Decal Girl is a site you should really check out. They sell high quality stick-on vinyl skins for the following devices:

• Zune
• Wii
• XBox
• XBox 360
• PSP
• Samsung Juke
• Playstation 2
• Playstation 3
• LG Chocolate
• Motorola Razr
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo DS Lite
• Laptop (any type)
• iPod
• Gamecube
• Gameboy
• Blackberry
• Mac Mini
• Apple TV
• iPhone

In addition to vinyl skins, they also have silicone cases for the iPod and PSP, PSP faceplates and XBox 360 faceplates and controller shells.
Applying the skins is very easy. The glue is applied in such a way that no air bubbles form, and mistakes are easy to correct. Once applied, the decals stick really well. I have a set on my Wii controller, and no matter what I do with it, they stay on. Highly recommended!

Visit Decal Girl

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Remote controlled spy plane

Behold, a model plane that comes straight out of Area 51! Okay, not really, but it's actually a remote controlled spy plane, just like the Air Force's Predator and Global Hawk. The pictures it takes may be a little less detailed and it doesn't carry Hellfire missiles, but at least you can say you own a real spy drone!
The plane requires a bit of assembly, after wich it's ready to fly. Its construction makes it almost indestructible, so it should survive hard landings and anti-aircraft fire. Besides taking pictures with its built-in digital camera, it can also drop little plastic bombs, capsules with secret messages or tiny paratroopers.
The set includes, besides the plane itself, a battery, a UK mains charger, a spare propeller, a manual and an instructional video cd.

Buy from Gadget Hub

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Remote control laser pointer

This laser pointer has a little added feature that comes in quite handy during presentations: page up and page down buttons. You plug the receiver into a usb port and you can scroll through your slideshows with the laser pointer intself! No more fiddling around with the mouse during a presentation. The pointer requires three LR44 batteries (included).

Buy from The Gadgeter

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Lego Guitar Hero controller

If it wasn't for the way too small guitar, I would have bought Guitar Hero for the Wii already. The controller is only half the size of an actual guitar, however, wich simply ruins the illusion that you're a rockstar, wich is why you got the game in the first place.
Lego artist David McNeely has solved this problem in a very original way: a Lego guitar! What he did was placing the components of a Guitar Hero controller in a full-size Lego guitar replica. The result, as you can see, is stunning!

And what's even cooler about this thing, you can smash it to pieces and with a little luck, the electronic components survive the mayhem so you can rebuild the guitar.

Source article on Technabob (with more pictures)

gadgetslegoguitar

BuyTelescopes.com optical supplies

BuyTelescops sells an impressive range of optical equipment. They focus mainly on telescopes and accessories, for both astronomy and bird watching, and other equipment such as binoculars, CCD digital cameras, video cameras and books.
They sell all popular brands of telescopes: Celestron, Meade, Vixen and many others; check out the full list of brands they carry. An excellent and cheap telescope for a beginning astronomer would for example be the Celestron Powerseeker 127 EQ, a Newtonian reflector with a 127 mm aperture and mounted on an equatorial mount.
And finally, astronomy software is also available. This includes sky maps, software for computer controlled telescope mounts and collections of pictures and slideshows.

gadgetsopticsastronomy

DIY Duct Tape Wallet

If you have ever tried to make a duct tape wallet yourself, you may have realized it's not as easy as it sounds at first. Getting the size of all pieces of tape correct isn't easy, or even just working with the sticky stuff without making a huge mess! For everyone who desperately wants to make one, here's the DIY Duct Tape Wallet kit.
This kit contains everything you need to make your very own wallet: pre-cut pieces of tape, special inserts, instructions and pieces of colored tape to add some decoration to the finished product. The kit is available in black, silver and camouflage patterns.

Buy from Firebox

gadgetsstorageduct tape

Desktop Designer Chairs

Here's another set of useless but cool stuff to put on your desk. These desktop-sized chairs are 1/12 scale replicas of some of the most creative, original or disgusting pieces of 20th century furniture.
The chairs come blind-boxed, so it's always a surprise wich one you get. You can't order a specific one, you can only select the set from wich you want to order. If you want them all, you'll have to trade them! Have a full collection on your desk and you'll feel like the King of Dwarfland!

Buy from Firebox

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Space Invaders Rings

Now this is what I call geek jewelry! A fine set of rings featuring the enemies from one of the most iconic and legendary games of all time. And what's more, from the look of it they can also be used for creating wax seals!

Source article on Technabob

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Life-sized Cylon Centurion

Fred Barton, a robot builder who is responsible for several famous robot designs in movies and tv shows, is building an army of life-sized cylons. Both the original ones and the ones from the new series will be featured. Thirty years ago, the cylons were actors in silly looking costumes, while the current ones are CG robots. You can buy one, but don't expect them to come cheap!

Source article on Retro Thing

gadgetsrobotscylon

Books On Board

Lately, some pretty good ebook readers based on electronic paper have been developed, wich makes the entire concept very interesting. If you're looking for ebooks or Audio Books, a great website to shop is Books On Board. They currently have almost 200,000 books from various publishers, available in PDF, Mobipocket, Microsoft Reader and Palm/EReader formats. And what's most interesting is that it's not a book club or something else where you have to pay a membership fee or buy at least one book every month. They just sell books, and that's it.

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Bender brewery

If you love Futurama, this will look familiar. And if you don't love Futurama, then what the hell is wrong with you? Bender, the smoking, drinking, swearing and stealing robot, as a brewery. Inside his torso is a micro brewery, and the cigar in his mouth actually lights up! It took six months to build and looks just amazing.

Source article on Gizmodo
Project page

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Genius MaxFire Pandora gamepad

While this probably isn't the most ergonomical gamepad around, it's perfect for on the road use. Despite the small size, it has eight buttons and a vibrate function. It can be folded (a bit like a shell) so it becomes even smaller, and the cable is retractable. Ideal for playing a few games on your laptop. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

Buy from Micro Direct

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EZ Unsecured startup loans

EZ Unsecured offers loans for starting businesses. They promise approval in one to three days, and transfer of funds in one to three weeks. On top of that, they don't require a collateral; instead, your credit history is consulted to see if you are credit-worthy.
Available services to get a Start Up Loan are: credit line with check writing access, lump sum loans and credit cards. Up to $100000 for credit cards or $350000 for loans, no other documentation than proof of identity (such as a drivers license or a phone bill) are required.

Cube World series 4!

Here it is: the new Cubeworld series! Four new pixelated characters to waste your time with. The new citizens of Cubeworld are:

• Slugger, a basketball player
• Slam, also a basketball player
• Kicks, a football player
• Grinder, a skater

As usual, these cubes can be connected so the inhabitants visit their neighbours and do all sorts of fun stuff. And, of course, they can also be combined with the Cubeworld Places units for an even bigger world!

Buy from Firebox

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Lego egg timer

Here's yet another version of the classic egg timer. Timers have been made that look like eggs, chickens, Mork's spaceship (wich, in fact, also looks like an egg, and if you're too young to know who Mork is, this should explain everything), and now there's an egg timer shaped like a Lego minifig head!
The timer works like any other egg timer: twist the top to set the time and it starts automatically. Three different sets of eyes and mouths are on the sides of the timer, wich will result in all sorts of different faces as the timer runs.

Source article on Uber Review

gadgetslego

Concentric small business hosting

Concentric, a shared hosting provider, offers web hosting services for all sorts of small businesses. Hosting plans start at $13.5 per month for the basic package. This includes 2000 megabytes of disk space, 40 gigabytes of traffic and 80 email addresses. Plans up to 10,000 megabytes of space, 100 gigabytes of traffic and 500 email addresses are available.
Besides the standard Unix and Windows hosting, Concentric also offer domain registration, search, transfer and parking. To protect yourself from spam and identity theft, private registration is available. When signing up for a hosting plan, you can register a domain name for free. Another service they offer are email accounts, wich come with extensive anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-phishing security measures.
What makes this host especially interesting for businesses is the wide selection of applications they offer: e-commerce storefronts, blogging, podcasting and wiki's. All popular scripting languages and database protocols are supported on all plans.



hosting

Video of dueling RC mini helicopters

Here's a cool video of two remote controlled helicopters engaged in combat!

The helicopters themselves can be bought at Think Geek.

gadgetsvideo

USB Hub & Light

Since you can never have enough USB ports for all those gadgets and peripherals, and a light on your desk always comes in handy, here's a USB powered light and 4 port hub in one. The hub is fully compatible with both low and high speed USB devices. The light is green, so it looks a bit spooky.

Buy from Micro Direct

gadgetsusb

Book camera

If you want a hidden camera somewhere in a room, this might be usefull for you. It's a camera, microphone and recorder built into a book, so you can just place it on a bookshelf. Perfect for the paranoid, perverted or plain and simply geeky. It comes with a heavy price tag, however. It costs over six hundred UK pounds, wich equals around one thousand euro or well over a thousand dollars. If you need something like this (or you don't need it but desperately want it), I'm sure there are more than enough plans available online to build one yourself.

Source article on Ubergizmo

gadgetssurveillancespy

Air Hockey Table

One of the most addictive and fun (especially when you're drunk) games of all time (with perhaps the exception of pinball), now available for £69! This is not a small table-top version but the real thing, like you find in bars and arcades. The legs can be folded under the table for storage. Two pucks and pushers are included.

Buy from The Gadget Hub

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More Star Wars USB drives

A while ago, I wrote a post about a set of Star Wars USB drives. Well, guess what, here's a new set!

The new set features Han Solo, princess Leia, Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker in his pilot outfit. The drives are available in 1 to 4 gb capacities and are pre-loaded with wallpapers, screensavers, avatars and sound effects.
Chip Chick is giving away two of these drives. All you have to do is send an email (address is on the website) and explain why you think these drives are cool. Two winners will be picked at random.

Source article on Chip Chick

gadgetsstoragestar wars

Super Mario coin pusher

In most of the Super Mario games (and many similar platform games as well), you could collect coins to get extra lives. Here's a Mario-themed arcade machine from Japan wich spits out real coins:

The author of the article doesn't know how the game works, but since I played a similar game like this a few times when I was a kid, here's an explanation. This game is a so-called coin pusher. You insert coins (not real ones but arcade tokens) in the machine through a slot in the top. The fall on a platform that slides back and forth, and get pushed against the other coins. The movement of the platform pushes the coins over the edge, out of the machine. I don't see any in this machine, but usually there are some prizes (watches, lighters, small toys, ...) on top of the coins wich can be pushed out of the machine along with them. This one appears to contain several rolls of coins or, more likely, special tokens than can be exchanged for prizes.
If you ever play a game like this, here are a few tips. In the version I used to play, there are three slots through wich you can insert coins. Always insert three coins at once. Why? Apparently, according to the BBC science show Brainiac, three coins together have a bigger effect than three coins in sequence. Second, don't try to bump the machine to make coins fall because this will trigger an alarm. You can, however, stand as close to the machine as possible and jump up and down. The sensor doesn't register vertical motion. It helps if you or one of your friends is a bit on the heavy side.

Source article on Technabob

gadgetsgamesnintendo

NES Controller Backpack

While you're reading this, I have alreade ordered one of these. If there's one backpack for geeks who are old enough to remember the original Nintendo Entertainment System, it's this one. It has a NES controller image on the back, a large main compartment and three external compartments. Few things ooze Geek Pride like this thing!

Source article on Oh Gizmo

gadgetsnintendo

Cassette Tape Dispenser

Audio tapes are practically dead and buried by now. For many years the perfect medium for copying music, car stereos and walkmans, now a rarity. To remind you what they looked like, here's the audio cassette tape dispenser. Looks like an audio cassette from the old days, but dispenses sticky tape instead of audio tape.

Buy from Firebox

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Mario Slot Car Racing

One of the coolest Nintendo franchises is the Mario Kart series. People have bought the Nintendo 64 just to play this game, and somewhere next year it will finally hit the Wii, complete with online play at last. And for all slot car enthousiasts, here's the Mario Kart slot car racing track!

This set includes Mario and Wario in their 1:43 scale cars, a 6 meter track and it's officially licensed by Nintendo themselves. Great for kids age 3 to 30!

Source article on Gizmodo

gadgetsnintendo

Micro SD USB key

Greenhouse has Micro SD card readers available that are so tiny you could use them as USB drives. Just put a Micro SD card in it (available up to 4 gigabyte), plug it into a USB port and you're ready to go.

Source article on Akihibara News

gadgetsstorageusb

The R2D2 Gift Guide

With the holidays on the way, it's time to buy gifts again, and a gift guide is always welcome to help you find ideas. If any of your friends is a Star Wars fan, here's a cool list of gift ideas: the R2D2 Gift Guide!
Gadget designers have made all sorts of toys that look like R2D2. Some are quite normal, others are plain and simply weird. Here's a selection of gadgets that resemble our beloved bleeping Astromech friend:

• LCD projector;
• Webcam/Skype phone
• Speaker set;
• USB Stick
• Soy sauce bottle (no, kidding I am not)
• Waste basket
• Voice activated robot (as close to the real thing as possible)

Now if only someone made a robotic butler that looks like C3PO, or a life-sized princess Leia, preferably in the slavegirl outfit...

Source article on Gadgetell

gadgetsStar Wars

Millennium Falcon joystick

As a Star Wars geek, this toy makes me both smile and drool at the same time. The base of the joystick is the well-known modified YT-1300 light freighter (wich can do the Kessel run in twelve parsecs), the stick is the hilt of a light sabre.
This isn't a joystick for the Playstation, XBox or PC, however. It contains a selection of Star Wars themed games and plugs directly into your tv. Don't expect next-gen high definition graphics, but retro arcade style pixel graphics. Still, this shouldn't be a problem for real Star Wars fans!

Source article on Ubergizmo

gadgetsstar warsgames

Stirling Engine Kit

The Stirling engine is a fascinating device. This engine can be powered by any heat source: combustion, nuclear, solar, or even the heat of your hand! This kit does exactly that. Place it on your hand and it will start rotating. It provides very little power, of course, but this kit is excellent for explaining and demonstrating how a Stirling engine works.

Buy from Think Geek

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Halo 3 Plasma Rifle

Who needs a game console when you can have a real-life deathmatch? This bad boy comes straight out of Halo 3. It shoots, recoils and overheats just like the real thing. Okay, it doesn't fire real plasma balls, but that's the only difference. Instead, it fires and infrared beam that registers on the wearable target.
The gun flashes and recoils when fired, and the heat exchanger pops open when it overheats. Also featured is an ammo counter and reload button. Weighing 2.5 kilograms and over half a meter long, this is not your average toy gun! For a deathmatch, at least two sets are needed, but of course you can use the target for firing practice (not as fun, though).

Buy from Firebox

gadgetsgames

iCue USB Mixing Kit

Another mixing console to turn your computer into a dj system. The controls allow you to change pitch, scratch, mix and crossfade. Also included is beat detection, tone adjustment and waveform displays. It connects to the USB port and Windows software is included. Mac and Linux aren't supported out-of-the-box, but there are probably programs available for making it work.

Buy from Firebox

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