Brookstone’s Talking Photo Ball is the perfect gadget for those of us who’ve always dreamt of putting our family and friends into a ball and recording personal voice memos about them. The gadget is simple to use; place 4 pictures in the various slots around the ball, record any message you’d like — as long as its 15 seconds long — and voila, your emotional attachment to each individual is placed in a succinct voice memo.
Once recorded, the ball will play your message every time you press one of the pictures or turn the whole gadget. It retails for $15 dollars at Brookestone and acts as an especially good reminder of how your family and friends have wronged you. [ChipChick via Brookstone]
Roomba is among the most successful consumer robot sever made, having sold well over 2 million units. And iRobot’s newly released 500 series is the first major revamp of the floorvac line since 2004. Nearly everything about the bot has been changed or improved, it’s stronger, quieter, smarter and will last five times longer than its predecessor. A full report on the Roomba 560′s anti-tangling technology, voice module, and RF “Virtual Wall Lighthouses” is just after the jump. galleryPost('roomba560', 4, 'iRobot Roomba 560');
Nothing screams “cool” like the Nooka rubber and plastic Zub-20 Zot watches. Coming in six different colors (because who doesn’t want an orange rubber watch?) the Nooka watches display hours as a progression of 12 dots while the minutes flow along the horizontal line below. The date and seconds — because the company ran out of unique ways to show numbers — are shown in a generic digital window.
The watch features a 20mm-wide band and is waterproof for up to 90 feet in salt water. It’s available now in Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow and Blue and will set you back $125 dollars while simultaneously destroying your sex life. [Nooka via Plastic Bamboo]
We’ve all dreamed of having a mini-greenhouse that we could plug into our computer, but until today it was just that — dreams. But dream no longer. Geeks.com is selling a USB-powered Mini Greenhouse that includes a computer interface which helps you monitor growth rate and that includes a calendar, wallpaper and bookmark settings to aid you in monitoring the growth of your greenhouse.
The techno-garden includes Marigold seeds, artificial soil, an adjustable growth light and of course, a 4-foot USB cable, like nature intended. Available now for a mere $19.99, the best thing about the miniature greenhouse is that no one will ever use it to grow obscene amounts of marijuana. [Technabob via Gadgetastic]
This was a story back in February, but in case you missed it, this is the Lotus Exige that is part of the NSW patrol fleet. I’d like to take it seriously, but that yellow paint job is hideous. Seriously, guys, this is meant to give off a “don’t fuck with me” vibe. Gotta be black, or midnight blue with some white stylised check like that concept Holden. But yellow?
Actually, how awesome would it have been to get the call that this was to be your new patrol car. If that was me, I’d be breaking out the shades and either going Speed Racer style police wardrobe or maybe ultra-casual civilian attire, ready to get called into the chief’s office to ge chewed out for not operating by the book in my quest to take down the gang lords of Kings Cross. Or something like that.
But yellow? Ungh. -Seamus Byrne
[Pick found here at Car Advice]
The V.I.O. helmet cam is remarkable in several ways. First off, it’s a self contained unit that has a lens, and recorder/converter, both water and shockresistant to 1m. It captures to DivX/MPEG4 to the tune of 720×480 pixels at 1GB/40 minutes. The camera is functional to -40 to 185 degrees F, and has a preview screen on the base unit for deleting boring clips. And it has a remote control. It can use SD cards up to 2GB, meaning you can get about 80 minutes of recording time. That’s a whole lotta jackass-styled stunts. [V.I.O via helmetcamcentral] galleryPost('viohelmetcam', 3, 'V.I.O. POV Helmet Cam');
Heads up, time-poor, tech-savvy, efficiency-desiring peoples. Today Allure Media (that’s the company that pays the bills ’round here) has launched the local edition of Lifehacker. Go visit your lovely host, Sarah, if you’re keen to learn nifty tricks for getting through the day clevererer than everer before. Tell her Giz sent you! -SB
Who needs new and slick when you can have old and wooden? The Shadow hard drive from Suissa is a beautifully-made wooden 750GB external hard drive that faintly resembles something your grandmother would store jewelery in. Compatible with any computer, the inappropriately-named Shadow has four USB 2.0 ports that are prominently visible on the front of the drive and is made out of sustainable, harvested maple.
The drive will be available this holiday season in standard and luxury models and will cost you $730 and $875 respectively — you’ll also get a free old woman with every purchase. [Suissa Computers via Treehugger]
We’ve heard a few stories about this concept police car, and now we had a chance to get up close and personal with the beast. And it isn’t just the slick designer paint job they’ve given it that makes it a winner. The downside is how easily this puppy will spot you if its trying to find you. The upside is it uses less power than ever before (except for that V8 under the hood of the VE Commodore).
Jump to see our detailed exploration inside and out, plus some insight into what the guys behind the SAFE Project (Standardised Approach for Emergency Vehicles) think of blocking civilian cell use during major incidents. We’ll even tell you the ringtone of the police rep who was looking after the stand. Seriously, take a guess…
The TOM-019 from Hong Kong’s Topway is so thin it can practically double as a shiv. At 6 mm (or 0.24 inches) and weighing a tiny 26g, the gadget offers support for MP3, WAV and WMA audio files — it also plays MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG2.5 and MPEG4 videos on its 1.8-inch TFT display. The media player also allows digital audio recording in an Mp3 format, has an address book and an FM radio (something that the iPod still doesn’t include).
The gadget can also handle BMP, JPG and GIF images and comes in capacities of 120 MB to 2 GB — it can also, if you’ve got the aim for it, double as a deadly ninja star.
No release info is available at this time.
