Best Gadgets World

Kodak, a household name when it comes to photography, has just announced a brand new wireless digital photo frame line that will come in both 8″ and 10″ versions, capable of hooking up to photo-sharing sites such as KODAK Gallery and Flickr without the hassle of wires or the need for a computer to act as the middleman. Among the Kodak Easyshare wireless digital frame partners include Flickr, FrameChannel and Kodak Gallery as mentioned earlier. I find FrameChannel to be rather interesting as it provides users with access to the latest news, weather, traffic, sports scores and more with a single touch. In addition, FrameChannel doubles up as a portal enabling access to images from popular photo-sharing and social networking web sites.

The two new models are the KODAK EASYSHARE W820 and W1020 Wireless Digital Frames, functioning as a window to the virtual world. You will be able to stay in close contact with family and friends thanks to its wireless connectivity which boasts seamless access to digital memories stored on a computer or online. With the intuitive Quick Touch Border, essential information is available at your fingertips. Some of the features found on both models include :-

• Display pictures in brilliant color and crisp detail. Kodak’s Digital Frames display images in HD format (16:9 aspect ratio). The screens are color- tuned to Kodak’s standards and use proprietary KODAK Color Science for vibrant colors and pleasing skin tones
• Wirelessly stream all of your pictures and video from your home PC to your frame with built-in Wi-Fi capability
• Control the frame easily with the Quick Touch Border, allowing for simple operation with a touch or slide of the finger, while leaving the screen fingerprint- and smudge-free
• Store up to 4,000 of your favorite pictures directly on your frame’s 512 MB of internal memory, and even more pictures when using the two convenient memory card slots
• Customize the frame to match a home’s decor. Two decorative mattes are included in Cranberry Red and Silver colors. In addition, optional KODAK Digital Frame Faceplates are available in Mahogany with a gold matte, Silver with a blue matte, Black Shadowbox with a champagne matte and Espresso Shadowbox with a black matte. Easy to change, the faceplates snap onto the frame and update the look to suit your own personal style
• Play your digital camera videos and listen to your favorite MP3 songs through built-in speakers, bringing a special dimension to any picture slideshow

Both these models will be available for purchase from next month onwards.

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Ever wonder how your pet sees the world? I can imagine that it is pretty low of the ground, and food is always so high up.

Now, you don’t have to imagine anymore with the Pets Eye View digital camera! The Pets Eye View clips to a pet’s collar like an ID tag, and is completely water resistant.

The camera can be programmed to snap a photo every one, five, or fifteen minutes, and store them in its internal memory. These pictures can be downloaded onto your computer with the included USB cable. This cable can be used to charge the lithium ion battery inside the camera.

I am all for putting a camera on cat or a dog. It definitely gives a new meaning to the word watchdog. Hee hee hee. Seriously now, I’m not certain how I feel about the ad campaign used to sell the Pets Eye View.

The Pets Eye View camera advertises that it is a “scientific fact” that “pets can’t be trusted”. Not only that, but “they look like little angels, but they’re just buttering you up so you’ll feed them”.

Man, I know that my dog sleeps on the couch when I’m not looking, but every pet misbehaves. Don’t make them into the villain. Personally, I want to use the Pets Eye View just to see my dog’s POV, not to indict him!

The Pets Eye View will be available in October 2008 for about $44.99. You can purchase it at the Entertainment Earth site.

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It’s that time again to vote for your “Coolest Gadget of the week“, be sure to leave a comment with your reasoning for a chance to win a $50 Amazon voucher. Have fun and good luck, winners, as usual, will be announced Monday. Now onto the entries.

“>Solar Eco Charger Cellphone Strap

Do you know that we consume lots of electricity to charge up our cellphone? That’s why we really need the Compact size Solar Charger that can brought anywhere. This gadget can be brought anywhere and attached in your phone, because this is actually a phone strap. While walking under the sun, you can charge up the solar charger and when your phone running out of battery outside your house, you can just simply charge it up.

The full post can be found at “>Cutie Gadget.

A Chic Dwelling for the Birds

Birds deserve contemporary styling and stylish homes to. Enter the Eva Solo Bird Box, a functional yet nicely formed dwelling for our feathered friends. Constructed of white-glazed terracotta to reflect
the heat and a black plastic roof, the Bird Box has adjustable openings that let you decide what type of species is lucky enough to call it home.

The full post can be found at Good Good Things.

Shouting Vase

Turn your loudest, most urgent frustrations into mere whispers with the Shouting Vase. The plastic jug is designed to fit over the contours of your mouth and absorb your screams and shouts, “storing” them in the vase and emitting a softer version of your angry cries through the tiny hole at the base.

The full post can be found at Random Good Stuff.

Truck Rear Sonar

Description: Truck Rear Sonar is a gadget you can attach to the back of your vehicle to avoid those dead vision angles. It’s a “must have” regarding safety of people, animals and many other objects.

The full post can be found at 4×4 Trucks and Trailers.

Minox Suntimer UV Radiation Monitoring Watch

The Minox Suntimer can help you from damaging your skin from overexposure. The watch measures UV radiation and calculates your maximum safe exposure time based on the current sunlight conditions and information you enter into your profile such as skin type and SPF level of the sunblock you are using. The watch sounds an alarm when it’s time for you to get out of the sun.

The full post can be found at Craziest gadgets.

PAL-V: The Super Cool Flying Car

If you add a car and plane together - cut, glue and mix vigorously, what do you get? The PAL-V, flying car. Alright, so it didn’t quite happen like that but you get my drift. This super cool gadget is a car and a plane rolled into one! On the road this is a delightful 3-wheeled car, taking you up to speeds of 125 mph but open it up to reveal a foldable rotor, propeller and tail section, letting you take to skies at speeds of up to 120 mph. This is an absolutely genius idea for people who can’t be bothered to wait in traffic jams.

The full post can be found at Gaj-It.

http://www.uberreview.com/2008/07/adidas-darth-vader-shoe.htm”>Adidas Darth Vader Shoes

The Adidas Superstar X Star Wars shoes come in black or white; but lets face it when it comes to the Force, you have to be on the dark side (they have all the coolest toys). The black shoes use patent leather to get the shine of Vader’s armor and have enough little pieces of flair to have you feel like the James Earl Jones version of the man.

The full post can be found at http://www.uberreview.com/2008/07/adidas-darth-vader-shoe.htm”>Uber Review.

Bendy tripods

This tripod can bend around things like trees, rocks and lamp posts so you can get angles that would never be possible with a traditional tripod.

The full post can be found at Decide What To Buy.

Thanks to all the sites for their submissions now over to you guys for voting (don’t forget to leave a comment with your reason for a chance to win $50):

What is this weeks coolest gadget?

• Solar Eco Charger Cellphone Strap
• A Chic Dwelling for the Birds
• Shouting Vase
• Truck Rear Sonar
• Minox Suntimer UV Radiation Monitoring Watch
• PAL-V: The Super Cool Flying Car
• Adidas Darth Vader Shoes
• Bendy tripods

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If you write for a gadget themed blog and wish to be included in next weeks contest check out the CGOTW instructions page.

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Kodak, a household name when it comes to photography, has just announced a brand new wireless digital photo frame line that will come in both 8″ and 10″ versions, capable of hooking up to photo-sharing sites such as KODAK Gallery and Flickr without the hassle of wires or the need for a computer to act as the middleman. Among the Kodak Easyshare wireless digital frame partners include Flickr, FrameChannel and Kodak Gallery as mentioned earlier. I find FrameChannel to be rather interesting as it provides users with access to the latest news, weather, traffic, sports scores and more with a single touch. In addition, FrameChannel doubles up as a portal enabling access to images from popular photo-sharing and social networking web sites.

The two new models are the KODAK EASYSHARE W820 and W1020 Wireless Digital Frames, functioning as a window to the virtual world. You will be able to stay in close contact with family and friends thanks to its wireless connectivity which boasts seamless access to digital memories stored on a computer or online. With the intuitive Quick Touch Border, essential information is available at your fingertips. Some of the features found on both models include :-

• Display pictures in brilliant color and crisp detail. Kodak’s Digital Frames display images in HD format (16:9 aspect ratio). The screens are color- tuned to Kodak’s standards and use proprietary KODAK Color Science for vibrant colors and pleasing skin tones
• Wirelessly stream all of your pictures and video from your home PC to your frame with built-in Wi-Fi capability
• Control the frame easily with the Quick Touch Border, allowing for simple operation with a touch or slide of the finger, while leaving the screen fingerprint- and smudge-free
• Store up to 4,000 of your favorite pictures directly on your frame’s 512 MB of internal memory, and even more pictures when using the two convenient memory card slots
• Customize the frame to match a home’s decor. Two decorative mattes are included in Cranberry Red and Silver colors. In addition, optional KODAK Digital Frame Faceplates are available in Mahogany with a gold matte, Silver with a blue matte, Black Shadowbox with a champagne matte and Espresso Shadowbox with a black matte. Easy to change, the faceplates snap onto the frame and update the look to suit your own personal style
• Play your digital camera videos and listen to your favorite MP3 songs through built-in speakers, bringing a special dimension to any picture slideshow

Both these models will be available for purchase from next month onwards.

Press Release

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One thing that we are never short of as far as gadgets go are novelty alarm clocks.  Having just a normal alarm clock is clearly not an option with some.  This Bomb Alarm Clock even comes complete with a fake fuse to give it a more realistic look.  Then just in case it was unclear it’s a time bomb, it says on the front in bold letters TIME BOMB.  As if we were going to somehow miss that part.

The alarm sits as you see in the picture, then when it’s time to wake up it flashes red.  If you want a few more minutes of rest in that warm bed, just pull on the fuse to activate the snooze button.  Being an LED clock it projects the time brightly all night long.  So when tossing and turning in the night you can quickly glance over to see how precious few hours you have left.  The clock uses three AAA batteries and will cost you about $40 or £19.99 from DrinkStuff.

Source: geekygadgets

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I must say, while kids are like a sponge with an endless appetite for learning, they do need to toe the line at times, learning that the right time and the right questions is the optimal mix. With the Teach Me Time! Clock, you will be able to let your little ones know just what a clock means.

It has a 5-stage, talking “game” to help your little ones learn what the clock means (with analog and digital displays to make sure they really know). But also, there is a secret control panel where you can set the revolutionary “Ok to Wake” alarm. This will cause the clock to glow yellow during the night (this nightlight feature can be disabled) and turn green when the kids are allowed to get out of bed - making make sure you have enough alone time (or couple time) in your own bed. And when the kids get older, the clock is fully functional as a “grown up” alarm clock, complete with snooze. Technology that adapts through time - amazing!

The Teach Me Time! Clock would make for a great present to parents at $39.99 a pop.

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Some of our readers might be avid cyclists, but live in the big city. If you live in a high rise, you might have a terrible problem when you have to bring the bike into the elevator. Then there is that awkward moment as the elevator car stops mid-way gets way too crowded. Bikes take up a lot of space in apartments as well as elevators, and it would be nice if bikes could somehow shrink when not needed.

The Backpack Bicycle solves this problem by folding up the bike into a compact transport for your back. The designer, Chang Ting Jen, also reduced the weight of the bike by using plastics instead of metal.

This easily transportable Backpack Bike weighs in at about 5.5 kg, and can also be switched around to become a hand-cart. I don’t know about you, but that reminds me of these Transformers toys called triple-changers: robots that could turn into not one, but two vehicles.

So far the design is a concept now. However, I believe the designer had the public transportation system in mind when he designed this vehicle. The Backpack Bike could easily be taken with you on a subway or bus, and would be worth mass-producing for.

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News coverage on great iphone apps is sure to ramp up in your readers from here on, and I’m particularly excited to learn more about some stunning apps and report back along the way. Before I dive into the new Apple App store, I’d like to encourage you to take a closer look at a newly released jail-broken app, Instinctiv Shuffle™.

I’m addicted to my music and music gadgetry, but the single feature that I’ve never been fond of and almost never use is the “random shuffle.” True to its name “random” there’s no rhyme or reason to how my ipod chooses the lineup, and mostly it leaves me flipping around or onto the next song, rendering the feature an epic fail. Instinctiv Shuffle is the first app that truly seems to understand how I listen.

The application smartly shuffles my music in a few seemingly simple steps (note there’s a bunch of crazy stuff behind the scenes bringing together the brilliant outcome):

Step 1. Instinctiv Shuffle gathers the names of your songs and their associated playback.

Step 2. Via a secure and anonymous connection, this data is uploaded to Instinctiv Shuffle servers.

Step 3. That data is analyzed and new information is returned to your iPhone, enabling your formerly random shuffle feature to now determine the perfect songs and mix for you.

TeleNav has confirmed they will be on the iphone 3G using the GPS radio for turn by turn navigation in 3D.  This comes as interesting news for a couple of reasons.  One is Job’s statement that the GPS radio was not strong enough for turn by turn directions and two that Tom-Tom was the front runner in navigation partners.

“According to Apple, the iPhone’s G.P.S. antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a G.P.S. unit for a vehicle, for example.” -David Pogue

Um, OK, so it is strong enough for TeleNav?  Anyone else confused?  More as it develops.

Also, I have a suspicion Gizmodo got the new slightly wrong: I believe the app will be available through the App store but you’ll still be charged a monthly access fee from TeleNav.  This has been their business model and I don’t see them going for a one time application fee.  You?

Company site [TeleNav]

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FROM APPLETELL - Although the new iphone 3G doesn’t bring much hardware updates on the inside, the outside brings a relatively new look.
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