Archive for July 30th, 2009

It’s not ergonomic and it will probably tempt you into visiting the office vending machine more throughout the day—but what chocoholic can resist the Chocomouse?
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Kodak’s Zi is taking it to the next level for portable camcorders with a major update to its portable camcorder. The first and most obvious is the polished new look and 3 glossy color options to choose from. The bright 2.5 inch LCD looks to be the same quality and size as previous models. That’s about the only feature that hasn’t been upgraded. The Zi8 can now shoot 1080p video at 30fps. An hour of 1080p HD video will take up 3GBs of space so up to 10 hours can be recorded on a 32GB SDHC card.

Once you get over the shock at such a tiny package being able to capture 1080p, Kodak has also added image stabilization to its list of features to help combat any jitter or bounce on your travels. There’s an jack for an external mic so you can enhance your audio over the built in mic. You can also snap off 5 MegaPixel digital stills if you need to. Another notable addition is the ability to buy spare rechargeable batteries for it which is a must if you plan to use it for more than just occasional videos. Use the swing out USB arm and the included software to quickly get your indie movie aspirations up on youtube. Priced at a reasonable $179 this could make you an instant star of your own movies.
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Not sure how this made it past Brando but Matsunaga wants you to clip on it’s Wink Glasses to keep you alert. A small sensor and screen clip onto your glasses and attempt to keep keep you on your toes. This is accomplished by nuisance factor as the sensor detects slowed blinking, which is a sign of both of “spacing out” and drooping lids preparing for sleep. The lens starts to fog in just the one eye which is enough of a disturbance to your brain to bring you out of a stupor. While this may not seem like much of a distraction to keep one awake but anyone who’s lost a contact will tell you just how disturbing that is.

The Wink device can run wirelessly off of 2 pill sized watch batteries for 8 hours or can run off of USB power by wire. Wink can be attached to prescription frames as well as the included non-prescription frames. This is targeted towards tech workers trying to pull long shifts or for reading/studying. They are shockingly proud of their foggy-screen-thingy though. The Wink device will cost about $167 and the stylish frames are $265.
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