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Today is inventor extraordinaire Nikola Tesla’s 154th birthday. To celebrate, someone made this brief video overview of Tesla’s life, including a lengthy digression on how Thomas Edison was a “jerk”. Is this, I wonder, our very first Tesla fanboy? More »
Imagine Slate columnist Daniel Gross’s surprise when he arrived at the Nekkei offices in Japan and was greeted by businessmen, sans ties. To appear so casual in the workplace is almost sacrilege in Japan, and yet here it was, happening. More »
This AC adaptor from Brando is pretty nifty. Not only can it power five USB devices, the adaptor can also be used worldwide.
AC manufacturer Greencore has come up with a long-awaited solution to the inherent problem in solar-powered air conditioning units–solar panels are still not efficient enough to power the energy-gobbling machines on their own. The company’s 10200 model uses a single 170-watt solar panel during the day and electricity from the power grid during the night to charge its batteries, leading to massive energy savings even if the solution isn’t 100% solar.
This AC wall adaptor is no ordinary AC wall adaptor. It’s loaded with an A/V recorder that can save 66 hours of footage to its 2GB microSD card. And even if the wall socket is turned off, a built-in lithium ion battery will keep shooting for 3 hours of glorious, socket-height footage. Yes, that’s the extreme low angle stuff. We’re talking shoes. We’re talking you didn’t vacuum under that couch. It’s just more evidence piling up to an unavoidable fact. In the future, everyone will know what everyone else looks like naked. Or we’ll at least have some hot shots of one another’s bare feet. [product via ohgizmo]
Having an air conditioner running during the summer while we’re sitting naked on our leather chairs is luxurious enough, but an air conditioner that also kills germs? That’s just plain opulent. Samsung’s Vivace Shadow and Neo-Forte (black and white) air conditioners do just that, using their Micro Plasma Ion technology to kill 78 percent of fungus and 58 percent of bacteria within 30 minutes in a closed environment. It may look like a printer, but when’s the last time you hung a printer on the wall? [Crave Asia via Unpluggd via DVice]
The age old conundrum of AC adapter bricks not fitting correctly on power strips has had many solutions lately, but this Socket Sense seems to be quite a clever one to add to the pile. It looks like a standard strip with the plugs offset at a 45 degree angle, but each socket can actually slide up and down the strip to accommodate larger or smaller plugs.
Although this Powramid looks quite similar to the flying saucer surge protector we saw last month, this looks a bit more refined in terms of not looking like some guy made it in his garage. The Powramid has the same six outlets that the flying saucer had, but has their outlets facing right side up, meaning your adapters will hang naturally instead of dangling backwards. And best of all the thing will be only less than $30, meaning that it’s not that much more than a standard power strip. [Blast Magazine]
