Bushnell range finder a god send for golfers!

The Ryder Cup has been responsible for a new wave of golfing enthusiasts with attendance figures, as ever, showing a marked spike after the historic Ryder Cup of 2008. However, how do the golfers of today find their range? How are they able to calculate the yardage to the flag?

While the use of caddies and pinpoint yardage cards is common place on the professional circuit it is not as easy for the amateurs, until now!

The Bushnell Golf Tour V2 Laser Rangefinder is set to give each and every golfer in the land the chance to at least find their range – whether they hit the spot is a different matter. The V2 Laser Rangefinder does not use the latest GPS, prisms or reflectors but relies entirely on a laser system which can estimate the distance to the flag to within 1 yard. This ensures that the device can be used on any golf course around the world.

So next time you step onto the golf course you will have no excuse for ‘getting the yardage wrong’ and will instead have more time to concentrate on actually hitting your shot. Does this mean we should see more Tiger Woods over the next few years? Well, that is a whole different matter for debate……

The Phone Charger That Charges As You Walk

While the use of kinetic energy is nothing new, couch potatoes will be able to walk and talk at the same time from next year with the release of a new kinetic mobile phone charger.  M2E Power claims that it is in talks with a number of mobile handset manufacturers about a joint venture for launch in 2009.  So what will it actually do and how much will it cost?

The idea behind the M2E Power charger is greener energy and fitness all in one, and if the initial tests are anything to go by it looks as though 6 hours of motion will get you anywhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes of extra talk time.  But the device may also offer an interesting option for those left stranded and unable to phone home.

While it would be wrong to assume you would walk 6 hours to phone home, rigorous movement of the charger for a few minutes could give you enough battery charge to get help.  Like so many gizmos and gadgets which start life as a would be fashion item the M2E Power charger could literally be a life saver for many people in the future.  The cost is estimated at between $25 and $40 when launched in the US, before being rolled out worldwide.

Advent 5311 Laptop Review with Specification And Offers

The Advent laptop range has gone from strenght to strength in recent months with specifications getting better and prices getting lower.  This Advent 5311 is one such machine. For starters it is an amazing £330 from pc world and it has a good spec too.

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Video Games Improve Social Skills

It’s the news that all kids have been waiting for and all parents will attempt to censor from their children. Apparently, according to a recent report, computer and console gaming holds the key to social development and improved social interaction skills. That/’s quite a step from the days when gamers were seen as being social pariahs and outcasts with no friends (I remember the days bitterly). More on social gaming

XBox 360 To Be Cheaper Than Wii By The End Of This Week

Microsoft has taken the most unusual step of confirming an upcoming price drop after a Tesco page was leaked to the press that shows Xbox 360 prices dropping below those of the Nintendo Wii for the first time. The savings are yet another price drop that will take the cost of the Arcade version will cost just £130, the Premium 60GB hard drive version will drop to £170 and the Elite 120GB hard drive version will cost just £230.

The cost of the arcade and premium versions will both be lower than the price of a Nintendo Wii at the end of this week when the price drops will come into force. The drops are equivalent to about £30 on each console – a very good price reduction in anybody’s eyes and especially in the eyes of those looking for the cheapest console.

The Xbox 360 is most certainly cheaper than its other main competitor, the PS3, which has continually been blighted by problems – the latest being yet another delay in the release of the Home software that was to attempt to rival the popularity of Xbox Live.

BT Apparently Didges Phorm Shaped Bullet

The government has claimed that they are happy with the way that BT trialled the Phorm advertising software despite the fact that they didn’t have consent from users. The findings of a government report are something of a mixed bag because despite claiming that they are happy the initial trial was perfectly legal they have set out quite different guidelines for the future implementation of this kind of user behaviour tracking software.

BT, Phorm, and other other organisations have come under some fairly serious fire recently once it was revealed that BT had trialled the Phorm software without gaining consent from their users. The legality of the software’s use was also questioned by the EU and whether these findings by the government will be the end of the questions remains to be seen.

The paper outlined usage guidelines for any future deployment of similar software. Users must be made aware of the software and how it will be used including what data will be collected and users must be given a clear option to opt out of the software’s use. Clearly none of these guidelines were met in the first instance which begs the question of how it could have been a legitimate use of the software.

Image courtesy of the BBC.

The PureCart Trolley Cleaning System

Whether you suffer from OCD, are the kind of snob that won’t walk too close to other people, or you just don’t fancy running the risk of catching any old disease there’s great news on the horizon. We once again find ourselves looking into the tomes of content we’ve given over to shopping trolleys in recent years by bringing you news of the PureCart shopping cart that eliminates any germs found on the shopping trolley in question.

The PureCart, in actual fact, isn’t a shopping cart but is more of a sort of drive thru cart wash. Shove the cart through the PureCart system and it will spray it with disinfectants and antibacterial to minimise and eliminate the possibility of catching some hideous cold or the Peruvian Bovine flu (it’s a particularly nasty one… probably).

Happily, the PureCart system can also be expanded through the addition of a nozzle, no less. This allows the cleaning of baby seats, wheelchairs, and other items. No price details as yet, but we’re guessing you’re probably not that obsessed that you need one for those drunken nights when you go Sainsbury shopping cart drag racing (I think there’s an official circuit outside my house).

Dots Gloves

With all three days of our finest British summer now firmly behind us and the undoubted onset of generally crap weather ready to kick in at any moment we thought it was about time that we looked at some suitably wintry gadgets of sorts and first up are known as the Dots Gloves that are designed with the mobile gadget freak in mind.

Dots Gloves have, surprisingly, a number of dots on the finger tips of the gloves so that they offer g accurate grip when attempting to control your iPod, mp3 player, mobile phone, or other mobile device. The dots look kind of reminiscent of the backs of old school mobile phone buttons; something similar, I should image, to the back of the keyboard on a ZX81 but we’re reliably informed that they are effective in their plight against slippy finger syndrome.

They may not seem that great an innovation at the moment but we guarantee that now you know about them you’ll want a pair the very next time you step out into freezing cold temperatures with nothing more than your Bon Jovi collection for company. You’ll either be regularly removing your gloves to control the iPod (and to check to frostbite) or you’ll give it up as a decidedly bad and very cold job.

The Black Hole Machine Hacked

Considering the amount of potentially bad publicity that accompanied the Large Hadron Collider and how it would apparently spell the end of the world via a small black hole the news that it was hacked the other night is more than a little concerning. Fortunately, though, while Cern apparently don’t have much idea regarding computer security they’re already well practised at brushing aside problems and attempting to set the public’s mind at ease.

Cern said that the Greek Security Team of hackers managed to hack into a computer that is connected to main network and then left a message on the organisation’s home page. They also said that it had done no damage and had been little more than a nuisance but that it had highlighted the need for computer security (no, really?).

You’d think with the ridiculous amount of investment that has gone into creating the LHC that they could have afforded a twelve month Norton subscription or something. At the very least there’s a number of free, open source applications that do a perfectly admirable job for budgets of any size.

The Energy Ball Wind Turbine

It sometimes seems a little odd that in a country far more famed for its gales than for its bright sunshine we would rely more on generating energy through solar power than through wind turbines. When it comes to alternative home energy, though, solar chargers and solar powered devices are the craze. Granted, wind powered chargers and devices do have some glaringly obvious difficulties but the possibility exists.

The Energy Ball from Dutch company Home Energy International could be the start of things to come (ok, maybe we’re getting a bit carried away). While you might look a bit of a tool carrying round a phone charger that uses one of these use as its alternative source of energy you could certainly erect one in the majority of back gardens.

It’s that effective that it can be used to harness the wind’s power even when it drops to less than 4.5mph (that’s probably a good 360 days of the year generating energy then) and the design that looks like a cross between an aeroplane and an egg whisk is certainly an improvement on the extremely industrial looking turbines that we normally see.

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