Super-Spy Privacy Monitor Lets You Browse in Total Secrecy. It’s pretty safe to say that if you use a computer connected to the Internet, there have been at least a few times when you’ve been browsing on a page you’d rather the people around you didn’t see.
Instructables user Dimovi turned an old LCD monitor into a “privacy monitor” that looks like a blank white screen to everyone except the user. Brilliant! The process to make your own involves taking the monitor apart and removing the polarized film. This film is the magical ingredient since it allows only certain light waves to pass through and be seen. Hook Line + ‘Stinguisher: Awesome DIY Grappling Hook Gun. Plenty of DIY projects can help you pass some time and enhance your tinkering skills, but this one can actually help fulfill your geeky dream of being a little more like Batman.
High-Tech Silencer: Painless Mic Gun Shushes the Wordy. While you may get the urge to pull out a gun every time that loudmouth in your office starts rambling, common courtesy and a number of laws suggest that’s not the right way to go about regaining your peace.
A team of researchers has developed a silencing gun called the SpeechJammer that serves to shut people up with no pain or risk to you or them. The SpeechJammer consists of a directional microphone, a distance sensor, and a directional speaker that all work together to provide you with blissful silence. Social X-Ray Specs Take the Awkward Out Of Conversations. Nonverbal communication is said to make up much more of any conversation than the actual words being spoken.
But for people who have trouble reading facial expressions it can be extremely difficult to tell if the person they are talking to is interested in what they are saying. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing glasses that can read facial cues and let the speaker know what the listener is really thinking about the conversation. The Eyes Have It: LED Lenses Make Cool Heads-Up Display. Watching TV or surfing the internet might be easier and more convenient than ever right now, but they still require having some kind of device in front of you.
That’s not very futuristic, now is it? Researchers at the University of Washington have worked out a way to implant teeny-tiny LEDs in contact lenses so we can wear heads-up displays absolutely everywhere. Info Overload? ASUS’ Three-Part Plan to Virtual Freedom. Information overload is a very real problem for many modern humans.
The problem is only increased by our mobile computing devices, smartphones and other gadgets that let us stay in touch and share information no matter where we are. ASUS thinks their Waveface system is the solution to the problem. Look Closer: $10 DIY Microscope Uses Cell Phone Camera. We all know how handy a cell phone can be when we’re stranded on the side of the road or late for a meeting.
And far from just making phone calls, cell phones let us take pictures, send text messages, and even watch movies. But now a UCLA engineer has come up with an entirely new way to use cell phones. He took a regular cell phone, around $10 worth of off-the-shelf parts, and software that he wrote himself to make the world’s first cell phone microscope. He hopes it can be used in remote locations to diagnose diseases when getting to a hospital for tests just isn’t possible. Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at UCLA, has formed a company called Microskia to develop and market the technology. Info at Your Fingertips? Futuristic Cybernetic Reading. Universal Power: Wristlet Gives Gadgets Emergency Juice.
True geeks are never without a holster full of gadgets, but this lifestyle begins to get problematic when away from power sources for long periods of time.
ThinkGeek offers a solution with this outstanding little device that gives you power no matter where you are. The Universal Gadget Wrist Charger powers any device that is compatible with mini USB. Before you leave home, you charge up the charger’s battery and strap it onto your wrist. And when you’re out taking care of business (or waiting in line for tickets to the newest nerd flick) and your iPod, phone or handheld game starts losing juice, you’ve got a backup power source right there.
Power to the People: Whole-Body Gadget Charging System. Whether running errands or running a marathon, our body movements can create a lot of energy every day – energy that is basically wasted since we tend not to capture and use it.
The Tusk concept would harness the energy of the human body and use it to charge mobile gadgets. The clever system uses rotary dynamos, rectifiers and linear regulators to create electricity from the repetitive movements of its wearer. A Sunny Concept: Clothesline Solar Power Collectors. We all know the benefits of hanging our laundry out to dry: it saves money and energy over using a tumble dryer, and your clothes and linens smell great when you pull them inside.
Seeing laundry hanging outside on clotheslines gave designer Jinsic Kim another idea for saving energy: hanging small solar panels outside to soak up the sun. The idea behind the Sunbox concept is that your home appliances probably won’t be in use while you aren’t home, so there’s plenty of time to charge the solar collectors during the day while you’re off at work. When you come home, you simply grab them from the clothesline, plug them into whatever appliances you need, and enjoy your clean solar power.
While the concept is lovely and poetic, sadly it’s not too realistic. Based on the designer’s renderings, the Sunbox is very small; a solar panel that size would be able to provide only an extremely small amount of power to any electric device. Power to the People: Camping Pot Cooks Up Electricity. If you’ve ever seen the show Doomsday Preppers, you know that there are some pretty bizarre ideas out there for producing off-the-grid power. This idea isn’t marketed to preppers, but it will no doubt appeal to them as well as to campers and people who want to provide simple power to folks in developing parts of the world.
The PowerPot is a brilliant product that makes use of energy that is ordinarily wasted during cooking. It’s a regular cooking pot, but with one important difference: a small thermoelectric generator attached to the bottom that produces electricity to charge your USB gadgets. It can be used over a fire, on a grill, or even on top of a stove; while your rabbit stew or ranch-style beans are heating up, your electronic gadgets will be charging. Planet Power: Chemical Reaction Makes Clean Electricity. No matter how energy-efficient your appliances are, there is always at least a little guilt associated with using electricity for people who are environmentally conscious. Somewhere down the line, the chances are that the electricity powering those appliances came from a planet-harming source.
This interesting concept product from designer Jun Hyuck Choi, Jooyeon Kim and Sungi Kim would take away the guilt and provide clean power for up to three devices at a time. Moving Pictures: Wearable Camera Documents Life Events. Cell phones have taken the place of pocket-size cameras for a majority of the population, but design group Artefact wondered what it would take to get a teenager to go back to carrying a separate camera. They came up with Meme, a wearable camera with an integrated greyscale screen and Bluetooth connectivity. The 8 megapixel camera is aimed at teens and young adults, a demographic that typically prefers to use the latest and greatest technology. Thumbs Up: Gesture-Controlled Camera is Nearly Invisible. With electronic components shrinking all the time, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t yet started embedding gadgets like mobile phones right into our bodies.
The Air Clicker camera concept does the next best thing by taking away all but the most essential elements of a digital camera and turning those elements into tiny wearable components, rendering the camera virtually invisible. Designed by Yeon Su Kim, the Air Clicker consists of a miniature lens which is worn on the thumb and a barely-there shutter button that attaches to the forefinger. To take a picture, the user simply makes a gesture in the air as though she is framing a photo. Pics in the Blink of an Eye: Iris-Reading Biometric Camera. Recent Royal College of Art graduate Mimi Zou is rethinking the way we take pictures. Rolling Snail Shell Shelter is a Wheely Tiny Portable Home. Snails and turtles are so lucky, carrying their homes with them everywhere they go. Human-Powered ‘Rolling Home’ Rotates as You Run Around. Bodily-Fueled Lamp’s Energy Comes at the Cost of Blood. Green Light: CO2 + Water Power ‘Algae Energy’ Eco Lamp.
Pet rocks and Chia pets, move over – or just sit there, as the case may be- here is a home hobby that goes beyond kitsch aesthetics to add functionality to your daily life. Yes, now you can grow your own living, breathing, all-organic lamp with just a little love, care and the occasional fill-up with an outdoor hose or indoor kitchen faucet. Long considered for potential bio-fuel properties, algae can be tapped for low levels of continuous electricity – perfect for the minimal power requirements of an elementary lighting fixture.