dotCURE has announced it will release a USB flash drive that features data encryption and a SELF-DESTRUCT feature!!! That’s right, self-destruct. Not sure why you need that on a flash drive… I mean, can’t you just put a flash drive under your foot and smash it? Anyhow, it looks damn cool. Unfortunately, I have no other details about the encryption or self-destruct features as the company site is in Korean, but the drive sure looks cool.

[source aving]

Filed under: Gadgets | Technology — Santi @ 9:15 pm

The Perfect Scent is not a book I would have picked up on my own, but I’m glad I didn’t miss it. My mom was reading it, and she recommended that I read it because of my background in chemistry. Don’t think you need to be a chemist to appreciate this book, though; the author gives enough detail to satisfy someone like me, but it’s not necessary to understand or enjoy the book. And while the chemistry of perfume creation is there, the truly fascinating insights are on the business side of things: the utter dominance of Chanel No. 5, the small and hidden group of perfumers that create nearly every scent on the market, and the variable level of celebrity involvement in the scents which bear their names. While the advertising suggests that labels craft their own perfumes, the reality is that they provide only a general picture of what they want, and contract with outside companies to blend the actual scents! Similarly, a celebrity perfume might simply bear their name - or its creation may have been carefully controlled by the individual. While I haven’t finished reading The Perfect Scent yet, I can heartily recommend it as a glimpse into a world that’s vastly different from what advertising suggests it is.

Filed under: Books, Media | Entertainment — Max @ 9:14 pm

So I saw Iron Man last weekend and it’s awesome, but that is not the focus of this text. The segway, however, will be elegant and subtle, like Samuel L. Jackson. There’s a commercial out there for Verizon where clips from Iron Man are mixed in with some terrible acting and the end result is Iron Man dropping his cell phone after getting hit by a missile at 30,000 feet with two teens picking it up on the ground below. “It” being an LG Voyager. My problems with this are twofold. First, my experience with Verizon tells me none of their phones are that durable nor is their customer service equipped to handle such a claim. Second, if I were a billionaire-industrialist-turned-superhero. Sorry, scratch that. When I am a billionaire-industrialist-turned-superhero, I will sure as hell not get caught with a LG Voyager. No, no, no. This is the phone a billionaire industrialist talks on. The Blackberry Bold. Now, I’ve never liked cellphones with names; model numbers do just fine for me (I will be correctly referring to this phone as the 9000 henceforth). But something about this one sticks with me. Maybe it’s that the name is a good match for the phone’s design. Maybe the marketing student in me appreciates that most mere mortals can’t remember model numbers. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that this phone has every piece of kit in it you could imagine, expect or want from RIM. There’s no price or release date yet, but with 3G HSDPA, GPS, WiFi, 1GB internal flash and microSD all in a svelte 0.55 inch package, the wise have already begun cracking other peoples piggy banks and raiding neighbors’ couch cushions.

Oh and best of all, it’s on AT&T, so that’s one fewer ETF I have to pay.

Source & Image Engadget

Filed under: Phones — Roy @ 8:24 am

I’m looking for a new wall clock for my living room, and I came across this kick ass clock from Wrapables. You get the center piece (with the arms) and then some numbers and index blocks. All of these parts have adhesive backing, and you get to stick them on the wall however you want. I think I’ll stick to a traditional circle, but I just might try a triangle. I think this product is a great idea, and from the picture the build quality looks decent.

I’m ordering one this weekend, so I’ll post up the results once the clock arrives. In the mean time, if you want to pick one up yourself, one of these clocks will set you back $39.95 from amazon.com

Filed under: Art | Design, Gadgets | Technology, Home | Garden — Santi @ 8:18 am

By now everyone and their mother has seen Iron Man and probably told you how cool it was. Well, just in case you are neither someone nor someone’s mother nor any permutation of the two, here it is: Iron Man is cool. It’s kick-ass fighting robot suit on robot suit action for the whole family (Unless someone in your family has epilepsy. Leave them at home, it’s for their own good). I’ve always been an Iron Man fan; I used to watch the mid 90’s cartoon religiously. I had serious fears that this film would ruin that (like Hollywood’s last try at the Hulk) but this movie is faithful and entertaining. It’s packed with references that only the true fan will recognize (did anyone else catch that the terrorist organization is called the Ten Rings?) but is still fun for the uninitiated. And make sure you stay through the credits. I won’t spoil it but I’ll give you two words: Sam Jackson.

Filed under: Movies — Roy @ 8:14 pm

It’s a boring looking contraption, certainly. Indeed, it’s a device for cooking rice, one of the less exotic foods around. But it is rice’s status as a staple food that makes this worth discussing: The inability of so many rice cookers to make decent rice. Maybe I just have bad luck, but I keep getting rice that’s overcooked - the latest one leaves a nice burnt bottom layer which “seasons” the rice above as it sits in the pot to stay warm. So I asked around, and the answer I heard most often was that I should get a Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker. I looked it up on Amazon, and the sheer number of positive reviews was enough for me: of 138 reviews, 112 people gave the NS-ZCC10 five stars out of five. The drawback is the price: at $185, it isn’t cheap - but I’m still planning to get one. I usually don’t regret springing for big-ticket items if I use them every day - a part of me even regrets waiting until the price drop to buy the iPhone. Strange, but it might also be due to the fact that the two months I waited were spent in the clutches of Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone, which was … counterintuitive, to say the least.

If you, like me, lust after perfect rice; buy the Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 using this link and help us pay our hosting!

Filed under: Home | Garden — Max @ 5:52 am

It was a long time before I bought myself a leatherman-style tool. I always thought that too many compromises were made in the attempt to include as many tools as possible, ensuring that none of them was actually any good. Then, the Gerber Suspension caught my eye, and I ended up using it constantly - comfortable spring-loaded pliers, two knife blades, scissors, a saw, and more in a compact package. But there was a problem - I never actually carried it. It lived on my desk, in my backpack, but never in a pocket - it was too big for that. And it was cowering deep inside my bag, racked with fear, when the TSA ripped it from its home and threw it away before allowing me to board my flight to New York. As you may surmise, this was a tragic moment for me, despite it being entirely my fault.

The silver lining turned out to be dark grey: the Tungsten DLC coating on the Leatherman Skeletool CX.

Continue reading Leatherman Gets Cool: The Skeletool

Filed under: Gadgets | Technology — Max @ 8:55 am

May I present to you the Craftsman 80th Anniversary 3/8 in. Full Polish Next Generation Ratchet. This limited edition ratchet features Craftsman’s Midnight Black titanium finish and the 80th Anniversary logo. It includes an engraved cherry display case.

As far as I can tell, there are only two products in Craftsman’s lineup that feature this drop dead gorgeous finish. The other one is the NASCAR Collectible 3/8″ ratchet, which looks pretty much the same except that it features a NASCAR logo rather than the 80th Anniversary logo.

This baby is available online only for $79.99 at sears.com (the nascar one is $89.99). I want one sooooo bad, although I think would be afraid to actually use it for fear of messing it up.

Filed under: Art | Design, Gadgets | Technology, Home | Garden — Santi @ 8:53 am

“Mr. Edison, I don’t want to deal with plugging it in…just give me a bee hive and I’ll make my own candles”

Yes, change is hard. Yes, prototypes or first editions don’t work exactly the way you want to. But get used to it, because as cool as dinosaurs are, things change and good technologies help us immensely (i.e. light bulb).

And with the Tesla Roadster, the future isn’t some fuzzy, hazy thing. It’s right here and it works.

Continue reading Tesla Roadster: Dinosaurs Move Over

Filed under: Cars | Transportation — Pilar @ 1:27 am

Siegfried Linkwitz may be one of the most important names to loudspeaker designs ever. His theory and approach to speaker design is quite literally out of the box. His creations include the Audio Artistry Beethoven and the Orion and his influence is obvious on speakers like the Jamo R909 and Legacy Audio’s Whisper.

Continue reading Linkwitz Lectures about Loudspeakers in Living rooms!

Filed under: Gadgets | Technology, Home Audio — Santi @ 3:24 pm