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Seven Gadgets... |
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Story and Images: Nick Davies |
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Last issue we celebrated seven years of supplying our readers with the latest information on luxury lifestyles and products, let’s take a look at some of the gadgets that we certainly wouldn’t have found seven years ago. 1. Paperless Paperbacks
There are a few e-Readers on the market already, Sony making the loudest noise about theirs but it is by far the least practical. The Sony Reader is only available in the US and they’ve done their usual trick of limiting its capabilities with digital rights management, which means you can’t share your e books and you can only download books by accessing Sony’s own e book interface. A much more practical version, which allows you to take notes on its 6-inch Electronic Paper Display (EDP), is the Hanlin eReader V2 with excellent readability from 800 x 600 pixels which supports 4 levels of greyscale. The V2 is a very low power mobile device specifically designed for reading applications so it can go a month without recharging if you’re reading an average of 300 pages a day. The big difference between Sony’s Reader and the V2 is that you can use the touch screen facility and stylus to input text on the V2; something Sony don’t want you to be able to do. The V2 also supports a wider range of documents, including PDF,DOC, WOLF, HTML, JPG, TXT, CHM, RAR and ZIP. www.jinke.com The best and most practical though, has got to be the iLiad by iRex Technologies, which does everything that the V2 does but this EPD allows you to scrawl all over the 8 inch screen with the stylus in your own hand writing to make notes, underline text and write comments in documents or even draw sketches. With its 8-inch diameter, the iRex EPD is the largest available in the market today and features 16 levels of grey as opposed to the industry standard of 4 levels. If you’re going away for a while, you can hold up to a dozen books with the iLiad’s normal memory, which can be extended up to an incredible 4GB or a whole library’s worth if you’re going farther a field to somewhere like the moon. www.irextechnologies.com 2. Golf-Ball Finding Glasses
The lenses are not just coloured pieces of plastic though, it took two nuclear engineers from Canada six years of research and development to create these polycarbonate scratch-resistant golfers glasses with formfitting wrap-around styling to eliminate peripheral light. The frame is flexible and fits comfortably without pressure points. The technology applied with the light-selective pigmented lenses works on the principles of visual physiology as well. When we scan a large area, such as a fairway, many objects that are in plain view don’t register to the viewer, simply because of the overwhelming amount of visual information. When the glasses are worn and the darker hues are filtered out of the field of vision, there are significantly fewer objects for the brain to process so a lost golf ball can be seen as easily as if it were waving its arms and jumping up and down. The glasses come with a durable nylon carrying case which clips to a belt or golf bag. Only available in black and one size fits most. www.golfballfinders.com 3. The Real Satellite Image GPS
The rugged waterproof 12-channel receiver can achieve a first fix in under a minute and uses Wide Area Augmentation navigation technology to provide increased accuracy for the Global Positioning System, allowing you to pinpoint your location to within 10 meters. The overlaid images move as you move and change direction in concert with the traditional GPS compass. The receiver can store up to 500 waypoints, 20 trails, 20 routes, and 15 satellite, aerial, and topographic images, more of which can be downloaded for a nominal fee. www.hammacher.com 4. The Perpetual Motion Rotating Satellite Image Globe.
The perpetual motion of the globe was developed in the U.S. over six years by a team of physicists and artists who have suspended the globe in a clear friction reducing liquid inside a clear acrylic shell, allowing it to continuously rotate at a steady, gentle and silent pace, consuming a tiny .1 microwatts (1/10th of 1 millionth of a watt). It gets the miniscule amount of power that it needs to spin in the liquid from a photoreceptor that gathers normal room light to power an internal drive that spins the globe by means of a force from the earth’s magnetic field. The globe will even continue to spin when held in the hand and it’s also available as a pretty political map of the world. 5. MP3 Spy Pen
6. Electronic Bodyguard
The bodyguard comes in two sizes, depending on what you want to protect but it essentially a slim, featherweight transmitter tag that clips or sticks onto the back of your device with a miniature monitor that clips onto your belt, key fob, or purse strap or you could just keep it in your pocket. An LED confirms you’re your Bodyguard is on duty and if you get up to leave in a hurry and forget to pick up or your laptop or travel beyond the distance you have set (either 30’ or 100’), the monitor lets you know with an urgent alarm. The makers claim the batteries will work for about 6 months of non-stop protection 24 hours a day and they are smart enough to not interfere with other wireless products. Several Bodyguards can be used together at the same time as each monitor will only recognize its matching transmitter signal. www.coolest-gadgets.com 7. Wine Steward
Wine Steward is a probe that fits into the top of an opened wine bottle and will help you save face and friends with its built-in computer that displays the optimal serving temperature for 19 varieties of wines. Select the wine you’re serving, insert the probe right into the bottle neck and in a couple of seconds you’ll see the current temperature displayed next to the temperature your wine should be served at, along with icons for “too warm”, “optimal”, or “too cold.” The Memory includes correct temperatures for the following wines: Alsace, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, Bourgogne, Burgundy, Cabernet, Champagne, Chardonnay, Chianti, Languedoc-Roussillon, Loire, Merlot, Pinot, Porto, Rh?ne, Ros? de Provence, Bordeaux Blanc, Sud-Ouest and Zinfandel. www.hammacher.com
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e-Readers are portable electronic devices specifically for reading digital applications like PDF, Word documents and e books, so avid Tom Clancy readers can now put less of a burden on the world’s forests.
Lost your balls? Find them again with these cool looking glasses that will help you locate your stray golf balls even when they’ve fallen into tall grass or shaded woods, so you can spend more time playing and less time searching. These golf-ball finding glasses work by using lenses which block out 90% of long wavelength light (that’s dark colors like greens and browns) while letting shorter wavelength light, like whites and yellows, pass through unimpeded helping you pick out balls in the rough.
Losing your balls is one thing but if you have lost yourself on the fairway then this handheld GPS receiver may get you back to the clubhouse in time for a quick drink. Although you can choose from several kinds of GPS units these days, even ones that clip onto your bike, this is the only GPS receiver so far that geo-references satellite images, aerial photographs, and topographic maps, which are downloaded from the internet with the GPS satellite network and overlays them onto the screen, allowing you to zoom in to see land features while navigating. 
Satellite images used to accurately decorate this desktop globe are one of its cool features but not as cool as the fact that it’s capable of continuously rotating on its own without any need for human contact, cords or batteries, exactly the way the earth rotates in space.
The title says it all. This secret agent like tool is basically a 256MB thumb drive in a ballpoint pen that can play and record up to 70 hours of secret meetings while you can also keep all kinds of digital files and folders in it too, which can be viewed when attached to a computer by USB; just like a regular thumb drive but with the added feature of being able to discretely record both written and audio notes to yourself or conversations with others. 
This is one extra little device that should go everywhere with you when you’re taking along valuables to a meeting like a laptop, camera or phone, especially if you are the forgetful type. 
It’s all very well buying an expensive wine to impress your guests but then all your credibility can be lost in an instant if the self proclaimed sommelier among your guests (there’s always one!) decides to loudly demonstrate their expertise by informing everyone that ‘this particular wine should be served 6 degrees warmer.’|
Tropical Living: July 2007, Volume 7 Issue 2 |
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