Panoramic Digital Cam

Panoramic Digital Camera That Can Be Thrown -

Finalist for BraunPrize 2007, Triops is a robust digital camera which allows the user to experience new perspectives and perceptions and takes the potential of digital photography to a new level. The camera is equipped with three protected fisheye lenses and allows for an active, spontaneous and playful photography experience.

This product can take images while being thrown, suspended or just being placed in an unusual location. It captures the moment by responding to sound or movement, or by reacting to the manually operated release. Sequentially taken photographs are possible as well as 360 degree panorama images. All working parts are integrated in the robust casing and can be operated easily and intuitively. Pictures can be wirelessly transmitted to a separate display unit for display. This unit functions as a processing and storage device and the camera‘s charging station. [franziskafaoro]

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The Future of Books

The Future of Books -

With everything turning towards technology, we have adapted the out with the old, in with the new mentality. Designer Kyle Bean has created a design that illustrates the issues with “technology and the Internet, and the effect it is having on the way we source information”. We are becoming a society that is more virtual. We download music rather than purchase CD’s, we research on the net, rather than going to the library and reading books. According to Kyle, “Books also have personality - they have textures and smells which the internet can’t offer”. Kyle wanted to illustrate this issue by using a book turned into a laptop. The object is made from a book purchased at a discount bookstore for only £1.50, as well as a few electrical components to illuminate the screen.

The book/laptop, has a CD-Rom drive complete with CD, a keyboard that can be removed so as to access the battery, and a switch that turns off the screen light once the book is closed. The book when closed, looks just like a regular book until opened. The words, “The Future of Books” is inscribed on the spine. I think Kyle did a wonderful job expressing the changes the world is facing regarding technology. [kylebean]

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Extreme Extension Cord

Extreme Extension Cord -

Instead of just having power outputs on one end of an extension cord, designer Wilson Song placed them all along the cord itself. We’re not electrical engineers here at Yanko Design but we have our doubts. If a device is plugged into one output, doesn’t that prevent power from reaching the other outputs? On paper it sounds like a great idea. The cord itself can act as a flexible power strip. [via: mail]

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Smallest Battery Charger

The Smallest, Lightest Battery Charger in the World -

Main Features

• Recharge batteries via any USB port
• Smallest and lightest battery charger in the world
• Recharges all NiMH and NiCd AA and AAA batteries
• LED charging and battery power indicators
• Tough, rubberised casing
• Recharges batteries in 3-4 hours via USB
• Team up with the Freeloader Solar Battery and charge batteries in 1-2 hours (cable provided)

The Smallest, Lightest Battery Charger in the World -
Fed up with using up and throwing away more batteries than an Anne Summers convention? Battery chargers may be no new thing, but then none claim to be the smallest and the lightest AA and AAA charger in the world, and charge conveniently via USB – credentials that catapult the Freeloader Battery Charger sky high above its larger, more cumbersome competitors. At last!

Say goodbye to bulky monstrosities, the featherweight Freeloader portable charger weighs in at just 54g – and that's including batteries – and fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. Two complimentary rechargeable AA batteries come with your pack, but this handy battery charger will also happily charge AAA NiMH and NiCd rechargeable batteries too, both via its USB connection.

Pop up to two batteries into the fast battery charger at any one time and charge via the USB port on your PC – it takes three to four hours to reach 75% full charge. Clear LED indicators show the charging status of the USB battery charger, as well as your battery power levels, while tough, rubberised casing stays protected and looks good in the process.

If you hadn't already guessed from the name, the Freeloader Battery Charger is a close relation to another Gizoo favourite, the Freeloader Solar Battery (not included), and conveniently if you have both, you can use the pair together. In short, for all those times you're away from your PC and a USB port you can use the Freeloader cable provided and charge your batteries from this handy unit instead in just one to two hours – ideal for all those days you and your laptop aren't joined at the hip.

Specifications -

• Charge AA or AAA batteries either from Freeloader or from your PC's USB port.
• Includes 2 rechargable AA batteries
• The average time to charge the supplied batereies via USB is 3 to 4 hours
• Product dimensions (H)20cm x (L)13cm x (D)5cm
• Box dimensions (H)8.5 x (L)4m x (D)2cm
• Package weight 109g
• Power requirements USB or freeloader

[via : gizoo ]

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Bamboo Notebook

Asus Eco Book – The Notebook Made Out of Bamboo

Long time ago, the Apple I computer was built in a wooden box. Since then, things quickly evolved and we have been facing the plastic and metal invasion: the notebooks we know today. Asustek is trying to revive the good old days and promises to deliver an eco-friendly notebook, made out of laminated bamboo stripes.

Bamboo is flexible and resistive, and harvesting it in worth-mentioning quantities is highly unlikely to damage the ecosystem, since it grows at an accelerated pace. The industrial processing of the bamboo wood involves using some glues and laminates that contain toxins, yet, the Earth is spared from forest wood harvesting.

Asustek have a history with designing notebooks from alternative materials. High-end users can enjoy the Asustek notebooks that are calf leather-bound or the more recent faux alligator-skin models. "Originally we came out with a leather model style-book", said Cher Chronis, director of marketing communication for Asus Computer International, the Taipei-based company's US unit. "It was very popular. After that, it was kind of natural for us to experiment with other types of materials, so we decided to go green", she continued.

The bamboo model is still on the prototype workbench and the company engineers have to ensure that such approach is possible, since bamboo wood will be subject to serious resistive abuse and at the same time, it will have to allow the heat transfer from microprocessors and monitors.

The notebook comes in a time when every major hardware manufacturer wants to ensure everybody that their products love and care about the environment. There are energy-saving components, lead and mercury-free memory modules and even peripherals entirely made of recycled materials, but Asustek is the only one to offer a bamboo-cased notebook. [source: softpedia]

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