Coolest Gadgets

Hmmm, shutterbugs will definitely love the idea of the USB Camera Speaker. After all, it speaks volumes (pun intended) for folks who are looking for a unique desktop speaker attachment that will also echo the love of their hobby, which in this case, is shooting photos. As the name suggests, the USB Camera Speaker will let you connect all forms of devices as long as they play nice with the 3.5mm jack, and will connect with your computer via USB. That connection allows it to draw power straight from your computer or notebook, or if you decide to take the portable route, then a quartet of AA batteries will need to be summoned. Of course, we do have our doubts that the $75 asking price is worth every penny, but it is the idea here that counts.

Ah, heated car seats, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find them an incredible luxury, okay, a necessity. Dual climate control has prevented many an argument. DVD players, satellite radio, lets face it, in some cases your car can be even more entertaining, comfortable and inviting than your living room. Enter My BMW Remote, available this year for new 5 and 7 series BMW vehicles. It is just the thing you want to have just in case you ever wanted to preset the interior temperature of your car, while you were say, having your creme brulee and coffee, or maybe in your haste to get to Nordstrom’s half yearly sale, you forgot where you parked? Now, with your iPhone and this free app, you can preheat or cool your car, track it down via GPS, or just activate your car’s horn and headlights and let it signal you to come on over. Maybe you left your BMW hours ago and you just realized that your wallet is inside and you can’t for the life of you remember locking the doors, and ...

I have a secret to tell you, I can’t type. That’s right, I’m a writer, have about 17 years of schooling behind me, spend hours at the computer daily and simply cannot type with more than 2 fingers and *gasp* not a word without peeking at the keyboard. What I would have given to have had IRISnotes, it’s a digital pen and mobile note taker that captures handwritten notes and drawings and then converts them into editable text. You can write your notes anytime and anyplace and when you get back to your computer you can upload and convert your information wirelessly by way of USB receiver. IRISnotes digital pen works on the paper of your choosing by simply placing the receiver on the top, or corner of the document and you’re ready to start writing. This digital pen also utilizes normal ink refills. IRISnotes 1.0 recognizes 22 different languages, stores up to 100 pages of notes and is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP or a Windows 2000 operating system. The Execut...

Archos is a name that while isn’t as popular as the iPod family when it comes to portable media players, it has done reasonably well enough by itself to remain competitive in the market. Well, the company has just announced yet another Internet tablet for the masses, this time around concentrating more on storage space than anything else. We’re talking specifically about the Archos 70, where it sports 250GB of storage space. This unique Internet tablet will come with a unique over-molded PVD stainless steel structure that is not only slim but lightweight in design. Apart from that, it will also not disappoint when it comes to the amount of technology crammed inside, as you will find a high resolution capacitive touchscreen display, a speedy 1GHz processor that zips through your apps without breaking a sweat, and Wi-Fi connectivity to help you surf the Internet whenever possible, all for the relatively decent price of $349.99. Of course, despite packing in all those feat...

Momma don't take ... my Kodachrome away ... “KodaChrome, it gives us those nice, bright colors, It gives us the greens of summer Makes us think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah …” Yep, singer Paul Simon said it best. And anyone serious into photography remembers the stunning images they got when shooting Kodachrome film. Yes, that’s right, I said film. The old school analog medium which was as cool a gadget as there was from beginning to the end. But according to Gizmodo, the end has come as the last rolls of Kodachrome have been developed at Dwayne’s Photo, the last surviving lab in Missouri. End of an era ... The last rolls of Kodachrome have been processed. Kodak stopped making Kodachrome last year and so it was only a matter of time before the last rolls would trickle in for developing. In many ways, Kodachrome was the first experiment in high dynamic range photography. It offered amazingly bold colors and fine grain. The gamut of color was simply stunn...

SD Card capacity breaches 128GB with 133x write speeds Wow. Seems like only yesterday I was posting the ground breaking announcement that the 16GB threshold had been breached in high capacity SD cards. Now, Lexar is poised to surpass that mark by nearly 10 times with an announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show of an SD card that is 128GB! Using the SDXC standard (secure digital eXtended Capacity) which will eventually allow for up to 2TB of storage capacity, the 64gb and 128gb cards that Lexar is announcing will be aimed square at professional users and will also have a write speed rating of 133X, which translates to the ability to read and write data at 20MB/sec (my first hard drive was 20MB!). And their not stopping there. According to Cnet, the SDXC standard Lexar is pursuing will also have improved electrical contacts that will make transfer speeds three times as fast in the near future, nearly getting on pace with where compact flash cards are today. This ...

A piece of NASA's historic technology goes up for sale ... If you’re like me, growing up, you never got the space program out of your blood. I remember watching Neil Armstrong take that one small step on a grainy black and white TV and thinking I’d graduate college on Mars. Alas, my martian education wasn’t meant to be, but if I could afford it, I’d definitely be springing for some of the coolest NASA gadgets that are currently up for auction … Included in the auction, certified and run by RR Auctions, is the headset that astronaut and capcom Charlie Duke used to communicate with Apollo 11 when Neil and Buzz set foot on the moon. You may recall his infamous retort upon landing – “Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot!”. And with a few adapters, I know I could do a skypecast with it on my laptop! Also up for grabs is an official, pre flown, Apollo command module control panel, a pa...