It feels like April showers have come somewhat early this year. So if you’re looking for a manly way to keep dry how about this broadsword umbrella. It has a 2 handed leatherette grip and comes complete with scabbard. It may not be best rain cover of choice if you’re flying.
You can buy the broadswaor umbrella from cgets for $39.95. Alternatively if you want a more futuristic weapon to battle the rain check out the light saber umbrella.
Before there was Minecraft, there is Lego, and one cannot deny the fact that Lego has done plenty to kick start the imagination of many a young kid. The thing is, while Minecraft has more or less garnered a loyal following on the computer as well as on the Xbox 360 in addition to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the physical and spiritual predecessor from Denmark, Lego, is still around – and growing from strength to strength, I might add. Lego bricks have long been used in creative ways to exercise the brains of your little ones (and adults alike), so much so that entire theme parks have been built around Lego bricks. Well, the more creative minds do come up with something interesting once in a while, and here we are with this motorized Lego machine. What makes this motorized Lego machine different from the rest is that it can fold paper airplanes, followed by launching them into the air afterwards.
If that is not brilliant, I am not quite sure how else to describe it. The motorized Lego machine is the brainchild of YouTube user “Hknssn,” where this fully-automated machine has its building blocks in a couple of Lego Mindstorms NXT sets and five NXT Servo motors. Measuring 150 centimeters in length and 40 centimeters wide, this machine relies on motorized rollers to pull paper from a tray, followed by rolling it along the system where it has been folded. At the end, you will find a compressor that will help launch the folded paper planes, much to the amusement and wonder for some starry eyed kids.
According to Hknssn, the current design of his Lego device is capable of launching planes up to three meters, although he believes that with some tweaking done, it would be very possible to come up with a model that launches paper planes as far as 10 meters, which would certainly have teachers in school up in arms if every one of their students had one of these in the classroom.
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Are you a gambling person, or one who likes to take your chances? If you have answered in the affirmative, have you ever made your way to the races before? Surely you would revel in the kind of excitement that a horse race entails, and even more so when you have placed your bets, looking through the binoculars to see your favorite steed ramp it up in the final furlong to finish in pole position. Well, instead of spending your weekend afternoons at the races, you might want to do so at home – while getting your horse racing kicks in. You can do so with the $75 Horse Racing Game, of course, while sharing the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and spirited moments among friends and family.
The handmade Horse Racing Game has been described as “easy to play but difficult to stop”, and I do not doubt this claim, especially when you consider how the aspiring jockey in you cannot think of anything better other than to throw some money down on whom you think is going to rally past the finish line first throughout the week. This time around, you can more or less say that things are in your own hands, where all you need to do is pick your steed, roll the dice, and ensure that your stallion gets the best results with each dice roll.
“There’s an app for that…”, or so the saying goes, and we are quite sure that iPhone as well as Android owners have far more installed apps than stock apps on their respective handsets. While Apple might seem to be on the backpedal when it comes to their iPhone at this point in time in terms of market share compared to the expanding Android footprint, do bear in mind that Apple’s App Store is a well respected cash cow for the Cupertino firm, so to speak, as the App Store still outsells Google’s Play Store by a rather hefty ratio in comparison – and we all know that there is money at the end of the apps rainbow. What happens when you take into account hardware accessories as well? This is where this unique iPhone microscope accessory would come in handy for the medical field.
An international team of researchers recently reported in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that they managed to make use of a very simple microscope which was self-constructed, where thanks to a lens that costs just $8, it has been placed over the iPhone 4S’s camera and held in place with some sticky tape, and it was successfully used to detect the eggs of soil-transmitted parasitic worms, otherwise known as helminths, if you want to get technical about it. When compared to the results shown by a proper microscope when diagnosing children in rural Tanzania, it was discovered that for some nematodes, the iPhone microscope is more than capable of detecting worm eggs.
Well, what can we say about that? It would be nice if this makeshift solution was able to measure up to the kind of performance found in actual microscopes, but I guess that further refinements need to be made to ensure that this will happen sometime down the road.
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You know that soldiers are made out of tough stuff – if you were to get a bunch of geeks to defend the country’s honor, or to send them out to war, you would most probably end up making plenty of widows in the process, with mourning families in tow. No sir, a country needs a strong army to ensure that one’s sovereignty would not be trampled upon that easily, and churning out a tough batch of soldiers is easier said than done. Well, you might want to have some of these troopers around your home, too, where the £24.99 Soldier Doorstop will not stop advancing enemies, but rather, use their inherent toughness to prevent doors from slamming shut.
We know that war is hell, but ensuring that everyone around the home has enough peace and quiet is also important, as slamming doors not only send a shock down the spine of some of the weaker hearts around the home, they are also not too good for the ears in the long run, not to mention you might just have an extremely painful finger or two in the event that your finger/toe is parked somewhere on the doorpost itself by accident when a sudden gust of wind arrives. Made from sturdy plastic polyresin, the Soldier Doorstop tips the scales at a solid 1.75kg, ensuring he remains firmly entrenched whenever you place him, without suffering from fatigue or fear round the clock.
I live in a small town and I’m getting older. Translation: I get very little live music in my town and the stuff we do get is not in my wheelhouse. There are venues within an hour’s drive, but finding artists that are worth the drive, the parking, the cost of drinks and the all around hassle is a tough task. And forget about the days of simply popping in a club to check out a new artist. Those are looooong gone with geographic challenges and responsibilities like kids and daytime jobs. Oh do I miss the days of hanging out in hip clubs and venues!
Thanks to the technology age and demand for great music, ShowGo wants to bring great music right to your desktop, tablet or home theater system. ShowGo partners with big name, iconic venues to stream live shows. Get your favorite computer A/V setup ready to see artists from places like Yoshi’s (Oakland and San Francisco), The Mint (Los Angeles), Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley (Seattle), The Blue Note (Milan) and The Hideaway (London). With partners like that you know the quality of performers you will get. This year alone ShowGo has featured artists like Hiroshima, Billy Cobham, Edwin McCain and Kenny G. There are plenty of other acts too – meaning ShowGo also provides a way to hear artists new to your ears. Obviously we at Coolest Gadgets don’t often talk about ‘cool services’, but this new take on live music gives you a chance to exercise your computer and A/V and bring live music right to your home. Want to try it out? There are plenty of good shows coming up. So tune in and experience a new way to enjoy music from afar and discover new artists.
Now you see it, now you don’t! This is what the $199.95 Invisible Speaker is all about. Basically, the Invisible Speaker lives up to its name, where this wireless speaker will remain hidden within a lampshade, and it is capable of streaming music from just about any audio source, doing away with the need to hardwire speakers around your home. Setting up the speaker is a snap, as all you need to do is simply screw it into a lamp socket, and audio from a smartphone, a TV, or even a computer can be transmitted to the speaker within a 200 feet radius thanks to the included 2.4GHz base station which is plugged into the above mentioned devices via the included component and 3.5mm cables.
The Invisible Speaker will feature a 25-watt amplifier and 3? driver that delivers clear, rich sound, and fret not about carrying an additional power plug around the home, as the speaker will be powered by the lamp so that you reduce the amount of wires and clutter in your home. The Invisible Speaker will be accompanied by a harp that accommodates any lampshade, and a bulb up to 75-watts is screwed into the top of the speaker so that the lamp’s full lighting capabilities is maintained. Each purchase will also feature a remote control that enables you to adjust the volume according to your preference, in addition to turning the light bulb on and off.
I am quite sure that majority of our readers are technologically savvy in the first place, otherwise you would not be checking out this site, would you? Having said that, most folks in the US would have upgraded their TV to a flat screen display that is slim, in order to comply with digital signals some years back, meaning chunky CRTs are not longer in vogue. As for folks living in Europe, it really depends on your budget as well as the necessity of getting a large, flat screen TV in your living room. Philips thinks that it would not make much sense to jump over to Ultra HD resolution TVs like most of the other major TV manufacturers have done, but will instead continue to concentrate on a Full HD display that emphasizes lots on the external aesthetics without compromising on internal quality, which is where the Philips DesignLine range of TVs were born.
At first glance, it would be safe to say that Philips has taken design to a totally new level, as their DesignLine range comprises of one seamless sheet of gradient black glass, where it will lean against the wall without the need for a stand or visible frame. Now that is certainly a work of art, although I am quite sure any home with boisterous children who love running around and kicking a ball about in the living room would leave the parents in a difficult position – either the TV or the kids must go. No prizes for guessing which of the two will remain at home, of course.
The new DesignLine TV is not only light but transparent, where its frameless glass front displays a smooth flow from black opaque to transparent in standby mode, ending up as virtually invisible when watching TV. The inclusion of ‘Ambilight 3-sided XL’ will deliver a floating appearance of the Philips DesignLine TV, as the projecting light matches the color of the on-screen content precisely onto the wall behind. You will find the DesignLine TV series arrive in 46? and 55? screen sizes, as they hit Europe and Russia in Q2 2013 for a yet undisclosed price.
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I’ll admit it, I very rarely need to wear a pair of cufflinks however if I did these would be my cufflinks of choice as they satisfy my Star Wars geekiness and are also functional USB drives, the R2D2 USB Flash Drive Cufflinks.
Each cufflink offers 2GB of USB storage, hidden away in our favourite astromech droid. Not only do they look cool, store your stuff they will also fasten your cuffs together too. The R2D2 Cufflinks are available from cufflinks.com at a somewhat hefty $200 (who said functional fashion was cheap).
You know how you would love nothing better than to share some good news with your friends, right? Well, obviously watching a movie together works out great, but what happens when it comes to your favorite tune by someone whom you deem to be the best musician alive, ever? Sure, a good speaker would often do that tune justice, but you cannot be carrying a speaker around wherever you go, can you? This is where a good pair of headphones come in handy, but sharing half an earpiece is not the best idea around. I guess the $11.49 Rocker Headphone Splitter would be a whole lot better, as you get to wear your own pair of headphones without losing out on mobility and audio quality.
This is also the ideal audio accessory to use whenever your and your best mate are not rocking out to the latest band, but are playing a game or watching a movie on your tablet or smartphone. Couples would clearly learn to appreciate it, as it works great whenever you want to listen to some shared tunes while you are on a long road trip, on a long haul flight, out camping under the stars, or just cozying up with one another on the couch. Got to love the design, too, and the Rocker Headphone Splitter works with any standard 3.5 audio jack.
