Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

Very real-looking Android, the Actroid-F
Daiwa House Moogle can inspect crawlspaces by remote control
British student invents a solar-powered refrigerator
Tron Zero G Light Cycle
Follow Me Puppy has no poop to clean up after
NOOK kids announced by Barnes & Noble
Gadget Thumbnails for 26-Oct-2010
Barnes & Noble “surprises” people with NOOKcolor
Western Digital introduces WD TV Live Hub media center
Razer Anansi MMO gaming keyboard is world’s first
Video Boroscope unleashes your creative video recording juices
Twist Alarm Clock

Very real-looking Android, the Actroid-F

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 02:20 PM PDT

So who is this woman in this picture? A better question is: what is this woman in the photo?

This is the Actroid-F. I realize that sounds like title for the theme of Beverly Hills Cop by Harold Faltermeyer, but according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Actroid-F is “the first true android”.

You have to watch the video after the jump to see Actroid F in action. I find that even though she is sitting down, she shifts her head around in a bobbing motion like a real person.

You might be wondering why she is wearing a nurse’s uniform. Apparently, the robot maker, Kokoro, says that she is supposed to give patients “a heightened sense of security”. So does this mean that they want Actroid-F androids to be nursemaids? That is some pretty crazy stuff if that was true. Man, if you think that medicine is expensive now…

Still, it is one more step in creating robots that look like people. I’m going to ignore all the science fiction films that say this is a bad thing. I’m guessing that in the future, Actroid-F (or some later letter in the alphabet like Actroid-G) will be walking and talking while she brings you your meds with perfect bedside manner.

You know who she reminds me of? Aki, the main character from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (a film that you can watch for free on Crackle.com). That film just wasn’t really that good, but I will admit that the characters looked about as real as CG characters could look back in 2001. In other words, Actroid-F looks human and can imitate human behaviors, but still comes short in looking or acting like a real human.

Source

Check out the Coolest Gadgets 2008 Gift Guides, Christmas shopping made easy.
[ Very real-looking Android, the Actroid-F copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Daiwa House Moogle can inspect crawlspaces by remote control

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 01:45 PM PDT

I remember watching an episode of Modern Family, where Phil, the dumb yet likable father, wants to check out the space underneath this house. He decides to tape a webcam to his kid’s remote control truck, which sadly rolls over. Eventually, he has to physically crawl under and get it himself.

It would appear that Phil should have used a Moogle, a remote-control robot by Daiwa House that can do the same thing, but not tip over. The Moogle has tank treads for getting through bumpy territory, a laser rangefinder, and WiFi connectivity. The Moogle (by the way, it is pronounced like it rhymes with “google” and not “Google”) has two cameras. One is for the actual driving, and the other one is for the actual inspection.

I have a video of it after the jump in case you want to see it in action. In the video, it looks like that it has detected a crack, which would be good for the homeowner to know, don’t you think?

The Daiwa House Moogle is only available in Japan. It can be leased monthly for a low price of $500. Some of you might not think that is a low price, but it costs $2,500 to purchase.

Source

Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Daiwa House Moogle can inspect crawlspaces by remote control copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

British student invents a solar-powered refrigerator

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 01:15 PM PDT

In Namibia, Miss Emily Cummins is known as “The Fridge Lady”. This is because she invented a solar-powered refrigerator that is can help many poverty-stricken Africans.

The solar-powered refrigerator works with two cylinders, one inside the other. The inner cylinder is metal while the outer one is wood or plastic. In between these two cylinders is either sand or soil, which can be soaked with water. The sun’s rays heat the wet material, and as the water evaporates, the heat is removed from the inner cylinder. This keeps the fridge at a cool six degrees Celsius.

This solar-powered fridge could easily change the world as we know it. Now perishable goods such as meat and milk can be stored for days in areas where there is no grid electricity. Miss Cummings spent a lot of time in Africa showing the people her invention.

This is pretty cool (excuse the obvious refrigerator pun) considering that Emily Cummins is still in her early twenties. She has won awards for some of her other inventions including a toothpaste squeezer for arthritis sufferers and a water carrying device, also for use in the Third World.

She is a graduate of Leeds University, and was once refused a place on an engineering course because “she didn’t have the correct qualifications”. She qualified now?

Source

Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool

[ British student invents a solar-powered refrigerator copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Tron Zero G Light Cycle

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 07:00 AM PDT

It seems that expectations of the upcoming Tron Legacy movie is pretty high, especially when you consider what kind of hype it must live up to when compared to the original classic. Needless to say, the chances of making a huge splash in terms of merchandise are pretty high, which is why there is the Tron Zero G Light Cycle which will tie in with the movie. Retailing for £34.99 a pop, this bike will work like the one in the movie, as the Zero G Light Cycles emit trails of light (or 'jetwalls' as you call it) which will cause your opponent's vehicle to fall off the wall or ceiling if crossed. All action can be controlled via a stylish twin toggle infra-red transmitter which doubles up as a charging unit for your Light Cycle's rechargeable battery.

Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool

[ Tron Zero G Light Cycle copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Follow Me Puppy has no poop to clean up after

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 06:00 AM PDT

I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like puppies yet, which is a good thing. After all, who could resist such adorable looking eyes, not to mention their unconditional love for you, especially during heart warming moments when they follow you home? One thing you have to bear in mind though – puppies can be a handful to look after, as you teach them the correct place to poop and pee while letting them know which places are off limits in your home. To avoid all that hassle, go ahead with the Follow Me Puppy from Hammacher. This $49.95 purchase will come with a friendly smile and floppy ears, following its child owner faithfully without having to bribe it with treats (just batteries will do). Attracted by an infrared “bone”, this puppy can also call out the child’s name via a previous recording using the puppy’s built-in microphone. Capable of rolling over smooth surfaces using a couple of wheels and a caster, where infrared sensors can detect the bone’s transmitter up to 12 feet away. Best to get some rechargeable batteries to go along with this if you want to be eco-friendly in the long run.

Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Follow Me Puppy has no poop to clean up after copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

NOOK kids announced by Barnes & Noble

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 05:30 AM PDT

Barnes & Noble has just announced something for the little ones while the adults can have fun with their NOOKcolor – we’re talking about NOOK kids. This is a state-of-the-art digital reading experience that will target little ones, making NOOK kids the first-ever platform which can deliver the largest and growing collection of nearly 12,000 popular children's picture and chapter books in an enhanced and engaging digital format. It will range from beloved children's classics to new releases, where NOOK kids will launch with over 130 digital picture books, doubling before 2010 comes to a close. We will look at NOOK kids in greater detail in the extended post.

Barnes & Noble children’s chapter books will come with a wide range of favorites which will be part of the company's vast array of over two million digital titles, making it one of the world's largest digital content catalogs. NOOK kids will also premiere on the newly announced NOOKcolor by Barnes & Noble, which we covered earlier this morning with it being the first full-color touch Reader's Tablet.

Reading is a good habit to have, and starting young is always recommended. NOOK kids will offer parents and children a new method of experiencing and enjoying reading together. Storytime moments come to life using Barnes & Noble's exclusive, patent-pending AliveTouch technology, where kids are invited to interact with words and pictures on the page, letting them find their favorite story in a jiffy, and others can also have some read aloud to them. In due time, NOOK kids eBooks will also feature light motion graphics and interactivity which fits into the story and plotlines. NOOK kids on NOOKcolor allows parents to take their children's entire digital library wherever they go, regardless of whether the trip is long or short.

We do wonder though, with a device like this, would adults want to share it with their kids? Why not manufacture a kid-friendly model instead that can stand up to the rigors of unruly kids?

Press Release

Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool

[ NOOK kids announced by Barnes & Noble copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Gadget Thumbnails for 26-Oct-2010

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 10:01 PM PDT

Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Gadget Thumbnails for 26-Oct-2010 copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Barnes & Noble “surprises” people with NOOKcolor

Posted: 27 Oct 2010 05:00 AM PDT

Barnes & Noble’s entrance into the ebook reader market with their NOOK device didn’t exactly burn up the sales charts since its debut, but that doesn’t mean the company is going to roll over and give up just like that. Well, Barnes & Noble has come up with a new version, bringing color to the fore this time around. We’re talking about the NOOKcolor, which is touted to offer the “ultimate reading experience”, where this will be the first full-color touch Reader's Tablet which delivers digital books, magazines, newspapers and children's books in immersive, gorgeous color, where everything is crammed into a beautiful, thin and highly portable device. Sounds perfect enough for the frequent traveler who prefers to spend their time reading instead of playing video games on a portable games console.

The NOOKcolor will be the first full-color touch device that is specially dedicated to reading everything and built on the Android platform, where the NOOKcolor will open up a whole new world of digital reading materials of all sorts. Not only that, it will also offer access to the largest bookstore with an unprecedented selection of more than two million digital titles which are just a single search away. The NOOKcolor will feature a stunning 7-inch VividView Color Touchscreen display to get you started, where shopping for virtual books can take just seconds if you download it via its built-in Wi-Fi connection. Not only that, the NOOKcolor gets more social since Barnes & Noble's new NOOKfriends technology allows you to share what’s going on with friends via Facebook, Twitter and email.

If you are interested, NOOKcolor can be purchased for $249 as a pre-order at www.NOOKcolor.com and at Barnes & Noble stores from tomorrow onwards. Shipping will commence on or around November 19th, where it will also make an appearance at Best Buy, Walmart and Books-A-Million from late November onwards. It might be half the price of an Apple iPad, but then again it isn’t able to perform that many functions either.

Press Release

Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool

[ Barnes & Noble “surprises” people with NOOKcolor copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Western Digital introduces WD TV Live Hub media center

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 06:55 PM PDT

Western Digital has just announced the WD TV Live Hub media center, which is in reality a Full HD 1080p media player equipped with a 1TB built-in network hard drive. This hard drive will give users the freedom to play all their personal media on any screen in the home. The WD TV Live Hub media center will deliver new experiences to the WD TV family, where among them include the ability to instantly rent or purchase the newest releases via the Blockbuster On Demand service, which would be the same day as a DVD/Blu-ray release – and you will probably find this to be worth looking into since there is no need to worry about checking your mailbox for a physical disc.

Best Buy will offer the WD TV Live Hub media center across more than a thousand of its stores throughout the US, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find one of these when it arrives. The WD TV Live Hub media center will be able to play a wide variety of media file types, where among them include popular Full HD 1080p video formats such as .mkv, .mp4 and .mov. The integrated, compact and quiet 1TB hard drive will easily allow you to centralize your digital media from multiple sources for smooth, glitch-free playback even if it is of the highest resolution videos. All digital media can be easily transferred to the internal drive from shared folders on PCs and Macs on the network, where you can also directly connect from external hard drives, thumb drives, camcorders or cameras thanks to a couple of USB ports. Apart from that, you can also stream videos from home network drives with a DLNA/UPnP server including the recently announced My Book Live home network drive.

The WD TV Live Hub media center also doubles up as a media server, where HD video, music and photos can be streamed from the onboard hard drive to any DLNA/UPnP-compatible TV or multimedia device, regardless of where those devices are as long as they remain within the home. Facebook fans will be pleased to know that it also comes with unique Facebook integration, allowing users to upload photos and videos, share their status, view their wall and get the latest newsfeed from their network of friends over your large screen display. Expect to bring this puppy home for $199.99 a pop.

Press Release

Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Western Digital introduces WD TV Live Hub media center copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Razer Anansi MMO gaming keyboard is world’s first

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 06:44 PM PDT

Razer, a company that is synonymous with gaming peripherals, has just introduced yet another gaming keyboard in the form of the Anansi. This is a MMO gaming keyboard which is also touted to be the first in the world, where it will also share a similar design philosophy as that of the world’s best-selling MMO gaming mouse, the Razer Naga. Will this keyboard enable your guild to perform more successful raids in World of Warcraft? We don’t think so, unless everyone in the guild is of extremely high skill level, and your strategy is impeccable. Still, it is nice to know that you can’t really blame anyone but yourself for future failures in implementing a raid strategy since there can’t be any problems with the hardware, right?

The Razer Anansi will offer gamers an unprecedented slew of MMO functions and features, where among them include dedicated thumb modifier keys and cutting-edge macro capabilities. The inclusion of revolutionary seven thumb modifier keys ensures that every key combination that you had before is now multiplied by seven times. This virtually insures you the ability to use every spell, ability or custom macro in your arsenal without any delay or discomfort. Specially designed and engineered for MMO gameplay, the Razer Anansi offers MMO gamers the power instantly use up to seven times more commands and abilities over the current 12 ability keys which are normally accessible on a standard keyboard.

You will get more than 100 fully programmable keys, on-the-fly macro recording, five additional gaming keys and the ability to customize the key backlighting from over 16 million colors. If you have the 12-button mouse Razer Naga or Razer Naga Epic MMO gaming mice, the Anansi will complement it perfectly, fitting your hand like a well-fitted glove. It will retail for $99.99 in the US, while those living in Europe will have to fork out 99.99 Euros for it. Expect to see the Razer Anansi hit the worldwide market this December.

Press Release

Coolest Gadgets UK – For all your UK centric tech and gadget news.
[ Razer Anansi MMO gaming keyboard is world’s first copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Video Boroscope unleashes your creative video recording juices

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 06:28 PM PDT

For those who want to increase their scope of video recording capabilities, you can look forward toward the Video Boroscope. After all, this interesting device will feature a flexible 36-inch long gooseneck camera which is capable of snapping photos as well as videos of objects in hard-to-reach places. Of course, there are times where these hard-to-reach places are extremely dark, which is why Hammacher is offering a couple of white LEDs at the Video Boroscope’s tip in order to illuminate its subjects, with the camera tip being able to even get submerged in water of up to 10 feet deep. The scope’s image sensor is capable of capturing pictures and video with a 70º viewing angle as close as 3/4-inch, where it will be displayed on a 2.5-inch color LCD at 320 x 240 pixel resolution. All images will be saved as JPEGs and videos as AVIs onto its 32MB of internal memory, which isn’t exactly much by today’s standards. Powered by a quartet of AA batteries, it will come with an USB port and video-out port alongside the necessary cables. Hammacher is offering the Video Boroscope for $249.95.

Coolest Gadgets UK – For all your UK centric tech and gadget news.
[ Video Boroscope unleashes your creative video recording juices copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Twist Alarm Clock

Posted: 26 Oct 2010 06:14 PM PDT

Getting up in the mornings can be a pretty hard thing to do, especially when you’ve had a particularly long day before and need at least 8 hours of rest to recuperate. Well, the Twist Alarm Clock could do its part in making sure you get up and out of bed so that you won’t be late for work for the umpteenth time, where this £14.99 timepiece requires you to use your brain first thing in the morning. Why do we say so? Well, it doesn’t involve finding out where the snooze button is, but will require you to perform mental arithmetic with an alarm blaring in the background. There is a different sum to solve each morning, where you will need to twist the two rotary digits in order to complete the equation and make it silent. As for the third dial, it is there to work as a function selector. Talk about a contemporary looking alarm clock! While the sums in question aren’t too difficult at all, at least it uses more brain power than a regular model.

Cool Gift Idea: Digital Picture Frames, check out our reviews.
[ Twist Alarm Clock copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Thursday, October 28, 2010