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| Volume 6 Issue 27 | July 13, 2007 | |
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Sci-tech The Beltless Heart Rate Monitor Magnetic Pajama Buttons Japanese Portable Hot Plate Cooks Everything
Cellphone Projectors on the Way? Compiled by IMRAN H. KHAN Source: Gizmodo Online and WIRED Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2007 |
The Beurer GmbH heart rate monitoring glove ditches the traditional belt system used by other companies, like Polar, in favour of a new method called plethysmography. Instead of wearing an obtrusive belt across your chest to pick up your EKG signal, this little glove measures the reflected light from an artery found in the index finger. That's right, no other restricting equipment to strap on that you have to worry about falling off. All you do is slap on this little glove, and go. It will even measure blood pressure.
This Fiat 500 plays ball with Microsoft, building in Windows Mobile to give you GPS, USB connectivity and Bluetooth goodness all in the same car. Jointly developed by Fiat, Microsoft and component company Magneti Marelli, the car's voice-activated system lets you connect any Bluetooth device to its stereo system, giving speakerphone capabilities as well as text-to-speech readouts of your SMS messages. Check out that USB port, where you can plug in a thumb drive full of music and have all of it playing on the car's stereo. Then you can control everything with conveniently located buttons on the steering wheel. Besides all that cool tech, the tiny car has an available 100hp engine, giving it plenty of pep for those spirited touring sessions.
If you're anything like me, your major complaint about pajamas is that they're just too hard to take off. These magnetic pajama buttons take the clothing-removal equation to the next level. Of course, these magnetic fasteners are designed for the elderly and disabled, but our question is this: Why isn't this on all articles of clothing? Think about it, you could remove clothing LIKE THAT. I think I'll add this to my items to follow up on.
For about 10x the price of a George Foreman grill, this $200 grill/hot plate set better cook 10x the amount of stuff. It does. From the Japanese translation, this Zojirushi grill looks like it can roast meat, grill vegetables, make fried rice, smoke meat, cook vegetables, make chow mein and a bunch of other things. And of course you can pack it up into a really, really hot briefcase afterwards. Sorry people, it's only available in Japan (so far).
Proporta Laptop Battery Gives You Extra Laptop
South Korea's Iljin Display has been crowing about its coin-sized laser projector module for more than a year with no haps, but now the company says it's inked a deal with South Korea Telecom (SK Telecom) to mass-produce the projector for use inside cellphones. Is Iljin's so-called Nano Projector finally for real? Iljin says the diminutive projector will be installed in SK Telecom's cellphones beginning this September, and those pocket-theater-toting cellphones will be for sale both in Korea and perhaps even here in the US soon thereafter. The company blurted out even more bluster about the future of its of its pint-sized projectors, saying by the end of this year it will begin cranking out tiny stand-alone units that'll let you set up an 800- milligram-ish guerrilla theatre with a 20-inch screen virtually anywhere you want. We'll believe it when we see it.