Wacky Health Gadgets

Without plastic surgery?
Why massage your head when you can massage (and enhance) your breasts. The 2-in-1 Breast Enhancer and Massager ($29.99) is small, pink and sports an LCD screen. What information the screen displays, I don't even want to know. But the massager is said to "improve the firmness and natural curve of your breasts" and is powered by two small AAA batteries.
Features

* Enhances blood circulation
* Comfortable design for easy portability

Well, theres one worry taken away from me when I'm on vacation. It's portable!


iGallop

Not a lot of words can not desrcibe this...at least not my words because I would get in lots o trouble. The OSIM iGallop Core and Abs Exerciser ($499) Like riding a horse except, without the horse. Choose from three different fitness levels, including Trot, Gallop, and Race.


It's Fertile Time!

Time to get pregnant and with the plastic LAKS Baby Boom Pregnancy Clock watch ($114) it tracks a woman's fertile days. Once a woman is pregnant, the watch will tell her what week of pregnancy she is in, along with a name finder to choose the right baby name. Guys: Next time your on a date look at her wrist.

Weird & cool computer cases

From BoredStop.com

Standard desktop cases are either boring or ugly. With most d people who have real homes with nice decor, demand for stuff like this is going to go up.

This was made by one individual so I am not able to provide a buy it here link.



Sansun’s Batman tower – a computer tower every nerd has to have! (“nerd" in a good way that is).





Guess where the computer tower case is?

When IT and taxidermy collide. Kasey McMahon, 34, from Los Angeles, spent three months creating his Compubeaver.

Shoebox by Rebels



Seeing the 'how they made it"
puts ideas of becoming a Network Engineer in my head.

Blackmesa HL² by piloux

Magic Mouse - 3D Mouse

Wave your hand in the air use and your finger to tap the share ware -- because that's how ya gonna do it in the future with a gadget like Magic Mouse. A 3D mouse worn as a ring and allows the user to do some of the same operations as a traditional mouse.

Designed by a team of five tech students, they recently invented what they are calling Magic Mouse. A tiny device worn as a ring that lets a PC user move objects on a monitor simply by waving a finger like a magic wand. The magic Mouse is one of 10 inventions honored with the inaugural PopSci Invention Awards and is the cover story in the June 2007 issue of Popular Science.

The computer mouse was invented more than 40 years ago but the design and functionality has never changed dramatically since that time. The basic mouse operates in two dimensions — a user can move the cursor about the screen, click right and left for specific options. Recent developments in 3D software have tested the limits of the basic design adding anther scroll wheel to make zooming possible in certain applications. However, the user cannot move the cursor and zoom in / out at the same time like the Magic Mouse.

Users can move the cursor about the screen simply by pointing and moving their index finger. Move your hand closer to the screen and you zoom in, or move your hand back and the cursor zooms out. Since both clicking and zooming can be done simultaneously, the mouse makes it possible to work easily in three-dimensional applications such as 3D maps or manipulating objects in computer-aided design (CAD) drawing packages.

How it works

It works with five carefully positioned ultrasonic microphones, picking up signals from the ring and judging its position in 3D space. The basic principle behind the MagicMouse is called time difference of arrival (TDOA), the same principle that enables the GPS system to determine your position on Earth. Making the transmitter small enough to be worn as a ring proved to be one of the student's major challenges. The final prototype is one inch square and weighs less than 10 grams; a flexible, rechargeable lithium-polymer battery forms the band of the ring, and can power the transmitter for more than two weeks of continuous use.

The inventors also suggest that the 3D capabilities of the Magic-Mouse might inspire new types of computer applications. In their report, they say, “With a new interface like this, third party developers could design new applications that would take advantage of the intuitive connection between user input and motion on the screen. This device could pave the way for a new revolution in computer input technology.”

The MagicMouse team has not yet sought to commercialize the device, and instead is focusing on adding gesture recognition and extending the capabilities. For example, the working prototype doesn’t incorporate the functions of the traditional mouse buttons, but they are working on changing that.

Although it can appear awkward to point your hand at your monitor, this is a nod to the future. Fingers and wrists can often ache for those who work with multiple monitors, use their mouse continually throughout an eight plus hour workday or for those unable to operate a traditional pointing device.

Bright Eyes

An Ocularist is an eye specialist who designs, makes, and fits artificial eyes. The ocularist shows the patient how to handle and care for it and provides long-term care through periodic examinations.

I watched the Ocularist Kim Erickson video and was impressed, shocked and amazed at how important and how many details truly go into designing and fitting an artificial eye for someone. It's not like the artificial eye in Pirates of the Caribbean where you just popped it out, popped it in. There is both a science and an art to the craft.

This specialty combines an understanding of color and artistry with expertise in the science of ocularisty. However not everyone who is fitted with an artificial eye is an adult. Some babies are born with a condition called anophthalmia. Which means one or both eyes didn't form during the early stages of pregnancy.

Each artificial eye is molded, sculpted, polished and painstakingly painted to match the patient’s natural coloring. The finished product is so lifelike that I would hesitate to pick one up.

See for yourself

Powered Alcohol For The Person On The Go

Can you "powder" alcohol? I'm just stuck on the idea that you can make your alcohol out of pixie dust. Sounds kind of urban legendish to me. I don’t know how I missed reading about this, but it seems that powered alcohol has been on the consumer market for years. First in Germany (with large hoopla of controversy) and than a similar product snuck into the US under pit bull consumer activist’s awareness.

In the US market, it was ( I couldn’t find any place to buy it) classified as a flavoring, despite being 60 proof, and didn’t require any kind of license or special handling for purchase. It was marketed as a as a flavoring for different recipes. However, as far as I could tell it is now off the market in the US. Similar versions still exist in Germany and now the Netherlands.

The latest developers are Dutch students who say their product can be sold legally to minors, at least in the Netherlands. I did some research on powered alcohol and apparently if you can get the alcohol molecule to bind with another molecule such as. sugar it will combine and become powered alcohol. When you add water, the sugar dissolves, and the alcohol is released into the liquid.

The 3% alcohol powder has been baptised Booz 2 Go. A project member happily announces their marketing aim.

"We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen said.

Anther project member said
"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said Martyn van Nierop.

The legal age for drinking alcohol and smoking is 16 in the Netherlands.

So what’s next? How about a smokable version of vodka or rum -- better yet make me some Midori Sour Altoids, all the flavor and giddiness in a sucky adaptation. I guess that whole "water into wine" miracle wasn't so miraculous after all, was it?

Driving Computer Centers

We log into the net from home and from our office. Some log in on the daily commute on the bus or commuter trains. Too many people even log into the net at nightclubs and bars via crackberries. Where else could people possibly log in from? Our cars.

Today’s cars are using more computing technology. While the computer technology is primarily for engines and safety reasons, they are being adapted for other uses such as plugging in your iPod. So why not turn our cars into movable computer centers utilizing a mobile network?

UCLA engineers are working on such a possibility. According to computer science professor Mario Gerla and researcher Giovanni Pau this driving mobile network would just need the relatively low-cost addition of sensors to the vehicle’s roof and bumpers.
They say their mobile networking platform (MANET) would allow ‘moving vehicles within a range of 100 to 300 meters of each other to connect and create a network of cars.’

Mario Gerla explained, “We have all of these computer devices as integrated systems inside our cars. It’s time to extend that concept. Computers are already being installed in many vehicles, and wireless capability will soon follow, so a mobile network deployment would only require the relatively low-cost addition of sensors to the vehicle’s roof and bumpers and configuring the computer with new ‘mobile’ applications.”

Giovanni Pau added that the UCLA’s team was using existing technologies. “We use standard radio protocols such as Digital Short Range Communication, or DSRC, combined with wireless LAN technology to create networks between vehicles equipped with onboard sensing devices. These devices can gather safety-related information, as well as other complex multimedia data, such as video. The most essential aspect of this network is that it is not subject to memory, processing, storage and energy limitations like traditional sensor networks. It relies on the resources of the vehicle itself, along with those vehicles around it.”

Of course, not every driver wants to be part of the network -- privacy is a major concerns. The ULCA team plans to use the first mobile networks in emergency response vehicles such as police cars, ambulances and hazardous materials response units.’

The team has already built a vehicular testing unit to explore these issues and to study car-to-car networking experiments under various traffic conditions and mobility situations. With successful field tests completed, Gerla’s team has further plans to develop a UCLA Campus Vehicle, (or C-VeT) through a wireless testbed environment called WHYNET.”

Some high-end luxury cars already have small computer stations installed in the computer. However advancing technologies will some day make it possible that people will be able to check email using voice recognition, surf the Web and do all of the tasks that are normally done at the office from their cars.