Phidgets USB sensors are used for monitoring environmental factors such as temperature, light, motion, magnetic field and vibration to name a few. When buying the product you need to choose the phidgets you want to use. According to the Phidgets website you do not need any technical knowledge, no programming skills and you do not need to know anything about communication protocols. In fact, they only recommend that you have an imagination. This opens up Phidgets to be used in any number of ways you could possibly think of. One project someone made is Tetris Weightlifting. This game is a highly modified version of the game in which lifting weights actually controls the pieces. You can imagine the pain on even the strongest mans face when he gets to level 9.
Phidgets USB Sensor Kit
The USB Money Clip
You can get hold of a lot of USB devices these days. The next in line is the USB Money Clip. It is basically a clip that you hold money together but in this case the clip is a USB flash drive. I guess the idea behind this is that you either carry money everywhere you go and therefore always have your USB flash drive, or the other alternative way is that you always loose your USB flash drive, but when you have a couple of G attached to it you will never forget that.
iPhone Approved by the FCC
The iPhone has been approved by the FCC meaning it should hit the shelves late next month. The documents which were signed have confirmed a few things too which is cool. The phone will have Bluetooth, Wifi and work on 1900MHz and 850Mhz GSM bands as well as 2 more bands making it in to a quad band phone. Unfortunately it is not 3G though which is a shame. The phone will only ship in the US at first although it would work elsewhere but be an expensive option.
Pay by Wristwatch
Mastercard has introduced a new way of paying for items. This time the service uses a device in your watch which stores your card details. One swipe of your watch would allow you to make payments of no more then 15 Euros without having to sign or get out your card. No details are provided as to using a pin number to still authorise the payment which would make it a lot more secure. Hopefully that bright orange watch is not the onlt design and shape it comes in or that could hinder progress of this idea. Having your own watch customised with these features could be a better way forwards though.
Meizu MiniOne
The phone pictured above is the MiniOne created by Meizu. It has some nice featured crammed in too. The device can connect to mobile networks via GSM, EDGE and WCDMA allowing for various connection speeds. The device is powered by an ARM11 533MHZ processor with 128MB of DDR SDRAM. The OS is Windows CE 6. On to the screen, it has a TFT touch screen which can display 16M colours running at 720 x 480 pixels. With the phone being 3G is has 2 cameras so that video calls can be made. The front facing camera is 0.3 mega pixels with the one at the back being 3 mega pixels.
Waterproof iPod – H2O Audio Series
If you are looking at going swiming with your iPod then you will need one of these cases from H20. The case features rubber seals which keeps it completly waterproof down to 3 meters which is just fine for regular swimming type activities. The case still allows you to control the iPod by its unique CommanderTM scroll wheel control. Just remember that you will need the correct type of headphones to go under water. H20 also have sorted that already with their nice designed headphones which are also fully waterproof. A picture of the headphones can be found after the jump.
LG MFFM37 Touch Screen Player
LG have launched their first video MP3 player named the Touch Me MFFM37. It has a 2.4 inch LCD touch screen which runs at 320 x 240 pixels. It will be coming out in June. Two options will be available for this MP3 video player which are a 2GB model and 4GB model. No word yet if this can be expended through SD or some other format. The player us capable of playing MP3, WMA, Ogg, JPEG for images and WMV and MPEG4 for video. The battery will power the device for 3 hours while watching video and up to 6 hours for audio playback.
Samsung 8GB microSD Card
microSD cards are becoming more popular in mobile phones. The latest phone I got has room for one of these cards. Some suppliers are handing out 128Mb to 512Mb cards for their phones. Back in February a 4GB model was introduced. Three months later we now hear reports that Samsung have created an 8GB microSD card. Thats incredible to put it plainly. A microSD card measures just 15 mm — 11 mm — 0.7 mm which is about the size of a fingernail. Unfortunately it is not going to be available for another year. The speed is quite impressive too as it can transfer 16MBps for reading and 6MBps for writing.
Clocky Robotic Alarm
I came across this cool alarm clock today from ThinkGeek which adds a different level on to the average alarm clock that you use. The Clocky Robotic alarm is a small alarm clock with 2 wheels on it. It started as an engineering student project and has now been produced. The wheels on the alarm clock propel it off your table and on to the floor. To switch it off you need to catch up with it. The one problem is that it turns and twists out of your way. This is surely going to get you out of bed unless you can fall back asleep and still ignore it. The chances are that most people will want it to shut up, and the only way to do that is to catch it and hit snooze.
EleeNo WebTime Watch
The WebTime Elite is the latest from the guys over at TokyoFlash. The watch is hand made (100%) using solid stainless steel and has resin inlays. It comes in 2 colours which are Aqua Blue and Satsuma which in its self is a very different set of colours to your average watch. The watch will fit a wrist size up to 205mm and the case has dimensions of 34mm x 35mm x 8mm. It weighs 130g.
GPS Rear View Mirror
Checking your rear view mirror when driving is what most of us do quite regularly. A company has come up with an idea which includes GPS information in the mirror for feeding back information to you such as speed traps, speed limits and accident black spots. This is idea as it takes advantage of your quick glance in the mirror to check behind. As well as showing details of those 3 items, it can also display speed and what direction you are heading. I am not sure if the GPS unit is used to just track the things mentioned here, or if it is programmable. Either way it looks like a cool optional extra for your car.
Concept SLIQ-phone
The concept SLIQ phone is very SLIQ. It has no keyboard, keypad and works with an improved sensory interface. The phone is just 10mm thick, has a nice LCD display and has a 2 megapixel camera built in. My personal opinion on this is that it does look cool. I am not fully convinced on the use of touch screens as interfaces though. They work ok on a Pocket PC as you use a stylus for them, but for a mobile phone I am not 100% convinced yet. I do hope the iPhone and SLIQ (If it becomes real) do change my mind.
