SentrySafe has made safes for 70 years, but now they’ve teamed with Seagate/Maxtor to make hard-drive housings that withstand up to 1550degrees Fahrenheit for a half hour, and “full” 24-hour water submersion. Some like the Fire-Safe/Waterproof 80GB and 160GB ($320) drives are freestanding units that house 2.5″ bus-powered drives in impervious containers. The other alternative is a full-blown $520 safe that has a USB pass-through for your bus-powered drive. A third option is a smaller filing box, the Data Storage Safe, which lets you keep DVDs and other small documents along with a small USB drive. [SentrySafe]
newVideoPlayer("phonefingers_gawker.flv", 475, 376); We don’t know whether these phone fingers are real or not, but until the USB trouser press goes into production, these miniature, teatless, not-for-procreating-unless-you-lost-your-willy-in-a-freak-accident -and-had-a-rodent-penis-transplant condoms are my favourite useless thing evah. What else do you think they should be used for, though?
If you are anything like me, your cell phone takes a beating. If you’re not sitting on it, it’s getting scratched in your pocket, and if it’s not getting scratched you’re dropping it in the toilet. The SaY concept phone may not be able to withstand a good toilet dunking, but it’s rubberized exterior should be able to handle just about anything else you can throw at it. If the SaY was an actual product, it would also feature an angled keypad for better ergonomics, a 4-megapixel camera, and a pair of stereo speakers that are intentionally designed to resemble a dead cartoon character. A nice touch…I think.[Blue Map Design via Yanko]
If you’ve ever accidentally killed anyone while playing Wii Tennis, then you’ll definitely appreciate the Wii Strap. The not-at-all sexy wrist strap was unveiled by Atlantic’s GameKeeper at DigitalLife 2007 and is designed to prevent you from throwing your beloved Wii controller into your beloved LCD screen. The strap fastens through the controller loop and then is strapped unto your wrist with velcro for maximum security.
The Wii Strap comes in sets of either blue and black or pink and green and will be available in November. They’ll also sell for $9.99 and are guaranteed to make you look like a douche. [Crave]
AT&T’s mobile division is going to follow Disney Mobile and others by introducing its “Smart Limits” parental controls: parents use a web interface to set call blocking, calling hours, text message and download limits. But unlike many similar child-protection systems, this one will cost users $4.99 per month—per kid.
Like Disney’s built-in parental controls, AT&T lets parents’ own numbers remain immune from the limitations, and 911 calling is always permitted of course.
Websites can also be blocked on many phones, but not on the iPhone, because of the way its Safari browser uses the AT&T network connection. (Basically, the only phone that doesn’t have browser limitations is the only phone that has a decent enough browser for actually surfing the good, I mean illicit, sites.) [AP/Yahoo]
A few of us here at the Giz spent quite a bit of time on the football field in our youth, and after one too many ditzy posts are wishing we would’ve worn a football helmet like this one when we were out there busting some asses on the gridiron. This high-tech helmet has sensors inside that can tell just how hard you’ve gotten your bell rung, then transmits that info to doctors on the sidelines who might promptly bench you once you’ve reached the limits of consciousness, or at least the point of physical injury.
A cell phone that lets lay-deez know if they’re running a higher-than-normal chance of getting pregnant is the latest idea from Samsung. The Korean electronics giant has filed a patent with the US Patent & Trademark Office for a “portable device for user’s basal body temperature (BBT) and method for operating the device.”
With a range of 40 feet – that 25 feet more than a Taser – the Avurt IM-5 personal protection launcher will keep away anyone you don’t want too close. It’s simple to work: fire at the chest of a large, blonde man in a stadium, pull the trigger and the man will be too overcome by coughing to do anything to you.
Worried British parents are outfitting their schoolkids with Kevlar uniforms in an effort to prevent stabbings that may or may not happen. The blazers, jumpers, and gloves cost $311 for a uniform set, which is a pretty high price to pay when only seven kids under 16 have died in knife attacks in a two-month period. Then again, $311 is a low price to pay for your kid not getting stabbed to death. [News.Au - Thanks Mark!]
These bullet-proof backpacks are claimed to offer as much protection from a shooting as police armor, but at one tenth of the weight. They’re aimed at kids, to protect them from all the dangers that 21st-century schooling entails. One immediate problem I see is that it will only protect you if you’re shot in the back, at just the right height. Check out a video after the jump.
