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I Wear My Suncontacts At Night

11:10AM Mark Wilson | Photochromic lenses that allow you to walk from inside to outside without putting on UV-filtering lenses have been around for decades. But the technology is just making its way to contacts. More »

Cole Cleaner Disinfects Your Disgusting Pop-Top Cans

8:40AM Sean Fallon | I’ve never given it much thought, but looking at this Cole Cleaner UV pop-top disinfectant while I drink my un-sanitized Diet Dr. Pepper is giving me something of a hypochondriac panic attack. More »

UV Razor Sanitiser Fights Off Nasty Bacteria You Picked Up Below the Equator

6:40AM Sean Fallon | So, you use your razor to shave EVERYTHING on your body and now it’s as sharp as the edge of a manila folder. Dull blades lead to cuts and cuts lead to mutant face fungus. More »

Bust Up Bali Belly With Your Own Magic Wand

12:36PM Nick Broughall | Sure, you could just buy bottled water whenever you travel overseas to avoid the pleasure of spending your holidays bent over the porcelain because you brushed your teeth in the hotel’s bacteria-laden water supply. Or you can go the high-tech route. The SteriPen JourneyLCD (which doesn’t at all sound like a permanent male contraception device) uses high-frequency ultra-violet light to kill off all those nasty bugs in your water. It can take a little bit of time to clean all the water, but thankfully the device features an LCD screen which comes up with a smiley face when your water is safe to drink. Costing just US$130, and weighing about 140 grams, the SteriPen isn’t meant to replace filtration – if your water isn’t clear to begin with, the UV light won’t help much. But it does make it easy to ensure that your overseas holiday doesn’t involve a heap of snapshots of you with your pants down, crying like a baby. [SteriPen via NYTimes] More »

Maxablaster Flashlight Burns Skin, Clouds, Vampires

4:00AM Mark Wilson | The Maxablaster is a 38-million-candlepower flashlight that was made at home by (mad?) optics engineer Ralf Ottow. Replacing a commercial flashlight’s bulb with a plasma-powered mercury arc bulb, the Maxablaster creates a highly focused beam of light with a high UV content not so different from a star. More »

Germ Guardian Air Sanitiser Scares You Well

1:40AM Mark Wilson | We’re not germophobes here at Gizmodo—not necessarily because we aren’t afraid of tiny sickness-inducing attack—but because we’re too lazy to dust let alone sterilise. But the Germ Guardian Air Sanitizer offers a lifestyle of sloth paranoia we could live with. Using UV-C rays (like similar models on the market), the device kills 99.9% of airborne germs with light alone. Why do we like it? The Germ Guardian’s design induces feelings of an inescapable bleak future—like it’s waiting for us to curse, at which point it will blind us with a flash of light and we’ll boil in our skin. Now that’s a conversation piece. $US200 [product via appliancist] More »

VIOlight Travel Toothbrush Sanitizer, for Germophobes on the Run

2:11AM Charlie White | Out here on the toothbrush beat, you run into all sorts of fear-mongering products such as the VIOlight Toothbrush Sanitizer. Now you can take that germophobia out on the road with the VIOlight Travel Toothbrush Sanitizer, a smaller version of that near-miraculous home version that probably does no good but might make you feel better anyway. Just like the home version, this travel version works with ultraviolet rays, and its makers claim that 99% of the germs are killed in seven minutes. Never mind that the 1% of bacteria that are left are probably superstrong, and might just put the hurt on you 10 times as much. But then, the way you feel about this product is probably a whole lot more important than the way it actually works. But hey, it’s your $27.99. [productdose] More »