Posts filed under 'Gadgets and Gizmos'
Sharpie Twin-Tip
Fine point performance
Sharpie markers are well-known for being indelible, particularly on plastic, glass and metal surfaces. Folks in labs, movie sets, and hospitals who need to mark things permanently use Sharpies. If the ink goes on, it won’t come off. What’s special here is that the other tip of these pens is an ultra- fine point Sharpie, fine enough to write like a ball-point pen – but permanently—when you need to. The “industrial” version of Sharpie ink will even resist chemicals and scrubbing.
Sharpie Twin-Tip Permanent Marker
$1.50
Available from Amazon
Source: Cool Tool: Sharpie Twin-Tip
November 18th, 2006
Microsoft to release the “Ultimate Keyboard”. The first wireless, rechargeable, backlit, keyboard is coming soon and at first glance it looks like they have listened to the feedback from their Media Center keyboard, added most of the desired features, and are releasing this. Definitely looks to be a worthy product for the living room computer segment, and with its looks it may catch on quite nicely with the desktop crowd as well.
As I have yet to physically put my hands on this unit I can’t yet provide a full review, specifically the two major areas that will make or break this unit will be its “feel” for typing and gaming and its wireless stability. From the images it looks to have a relatively low key profile, so let us hope that the tactile feedback is still there for touch typers.
See more at, Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Hardware – The Ultimate Keyboard
June 29th, 2006
I recently received information from American Express about complimenting my current card with a ‘’Butterfly”. The Butterfly is a classy looking key-chain that houses an American Express card inside of the key-chain. The card actually folds in half to fit inside; you can just pull out the half with the magne cartic swipe strip or you can remove the card from the case and unfold it to full size. From what I could tell this is available to all current Gold Card holders so it does not seem to be anything terribly exclusive. See this link for more information and a neat Flash presentation.
June 23rd, 2006
Here’s an interesting article on the new privacy policy released by AT&T. This is the first such policy shift that I’ve seen in which the emphasis of the policy is focused on the rights of the company in regards to your personal information vs. the rights of the consumer.
They state explicitly now that they own the data that you generate, instead of you. In addition they clear they way for making it easier to avoid lawsuits caused by handing over that data to other entities. In addition they state that they will track what you watch, play, etc. if you use their new video over phonelines services providing television programming and gaming services. It should be noted that this is currently illegal for cable operators, since lawmakers didn’t envision such a technology at the time of passing the law they didn’t include telecommunication companies in the restrictions.
Whatever happened to being customer focused?
Matt Ridings
MSR Consulting
Technorati Tags: privacy, security, internet, policy
June 21st, 2006
After viewing a prototype demonstration of the “BumpTop” interface I’m convinced that the future of organizational interfaces (such as your computer desktop) will be those that expand on the the dimensional aspects of current interfaces. I have evaluated several takes on this concept over the years but most of them take it too far and end up making something that looked good on paper but just didn’t translate to anything functional in the real world, or required too steep a learning curve.
The BumpTop however takes a simpler approach (simpler in regards to visualization anyway). By taking a standard metaphor like the top of your desk, and tilting it slightly, they retain an immediately intutive interface while gaining a tremendous amount of usable real estate.
This is one of those topics that requires visuals since words can’t really express it so see here for screenshots, and videos of the interface in action. I particular like the ability to stack items (they call them ‘piles’)
[http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html]
I hope this guy gets funding to complete development of this.
Matt Ridings
MSR Consulting
June 21st, 2006
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