The HY Handheld Wind Turbine

Solar power is so last week. Wind power is the new portable power choice of the eco gadget fan, especially those that live in the UK – after all, we enjoy persistent gales more frequently than we enjoy extended periods of decent sunlight. However, short of erecting a 200ft turbine and dealing with the hideous complexities of tapping in to the power that it produces there was no genuine and affordable solution.

For marginally less than £40 you can get what looks like an adapted handheld fan that is, in fact (you might have guessed by now) a personal wind power charger. It charges when it reaches speeds of 9mph and remains active up to speeds of 40mph, although it will cut out at this point. Blowing and extracting other personal gaseous solutions won’t work, and you’ll have to drive around real slowly with it hanging out of the window of your car to charge it that way (we’re not sure about strapping it to the internal fan, that may not produce enough gust).

A 20 minute charge will give you 30 minute iPod time or 4 minutes of mobile natter time. It will charge a huge range of mobile phones and mp3 players. A separate bike attachment enables you to fit it to your bike so you can charge your iPod, while listening to it (you do, after all, get a positive return for doing so) during your weekly country bike ride.

Non fossil fuel power may be difficult and costly to implement in your own home – solar PV panels for the roof and garden turbines (if you’re even allowed them, which is unlikely depending on where you live and the size of the turbine) cost a small fortune and take years to become cost efficient. However, their gadget charging relatives are a genuinely viable tool and they don’t cost the earth any more (literally or metaphorically speaking). Next up is the pocket bio-fuel generator that runs on… nastiness.

The PC Wiimote – Actually, It’s Called The Stix

The Pcmote might have been a perfectly good name, but Stix is the name of the motion sensing, all singing all dancing Wiimote copy clone styled remote for the PC. OK, so the reason most gamers prefer their PC is because they aren’t limited in their controls in the same way as they would be with a games console. But, there is still something to be said for the originality of the Wiimote for the Nintendo Wii.

The Stix does look a little different, although we’re not entirely convinced it looks or acts differently enough to warrant not getting sued by Nintendo. The Stix 400 is the top end of the range and includes touch screen controls as well as motion sensing to give a completely unique method of playing games.

There’s not much information abound, in all honesty. There’s no list of the free online or Games for Windows games that will be compatible, no pricing, and no details of a release date, or where it will be released. But, apart from that, it all looks good. We’re still not convinced that your average World of Warcraft addict is going to be particularly interested though.

Virgin Media Clamping Down On Illegal File Sharing With… A Letter Campaign

It’s estimated that approximately one fifth of the UK’s population partake in illegal music downloading and the music industry obviously wants to take some form of action. Their latest proposal is to take ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to court if they refuse to take reasonable action.

While these plans are still in the pipeline, Virgin Media has signed up to try and help clamp down on file sharing by educating their customers. The first approach to this has started with the sending of 800 letters to customers whose Internet connections have been logged as being used for illegal download purposes.

This move is said to be a bid to prevent children from downloading music unaware that it was illegal. The letters would obviously be read by parents and, theoretically, the kids “educated” in the ways of spending their parent’s cash on genuine music.

Despite claims in the 800 letters that court action would proceed if the downloading did not stop, Virgin Media has said that this was an error in wording and that this is really just the first step in an educational policy, not a bid to locate and cut off offenders.

The Sat Nag System

Sat Nav may be responsible for preventing a lot of relationship breakdowns – men get lost, and women give bad directions. They’re just two facts of modern life that we all need to come to terms with and so the Satellite Navigation systems that many of us have come to rely on do so much more than help us find our way to a location we’ve never been before. They could genuinely preserve the sanity of the driver and passengers, as well as maintain an amicable ambience from within the vehicle – a much better way to start your holiday.

The Sat Nag is the most satirical take on this imaginable and combines the two perfectly. At less than £10 (£7.99 from IWOOT) it’s clearly not got a valuable function, but it does contain a raft load of funny quotes including such gems as “In 100 metres turn left. No right, err, no left. Sorry, I never can tell my left from my right” and “I know you’re a man, but it’s been 35 minutes now, so can you please admit you’re lost and ask someone the way”.

The map also displays those essential local roads, such as backseat drive and earache avenue. Using the Sat Nag there’s a very real chance you’ll still get lost but at least you’ll laugh about it when you do.

The New Nikon D700

The Digital SLR camera is an odd, middle of the round kind of market, but it’s one that Nikon has pretty much got in the bag. After a solid year last year, releasing high end and budget cameras, it is set to release a mid range (if you can really call a £1,999 price tag, mid range) D700 camera at the end of this month.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t offer great value for money, because it includes many of the features that you would normally only find on its vastly more expensive older brothers and sisters. It also contains many of the amateur features that you find on the D300, which was designed with amateurs in mind, except that it also includes the FX sensor and associated picture quality.

The 12.1 megapixel camera has some superb features including lightning fast times. Startup speed is only marginally more than one tenth of a second while shutter lag is an impressive 40 ms. 5 frames auto shutter speed can be achieved when employing the included rechargeable battery, but this can be boosted to 8 frames per second with AA sized batteries, or an improved rechargeable battery pack.

Auto exposure, auto white balance, and auto focus are all improved by the innovative Scene Recognition System. If you want to delve beyond the world of auto settings then the D700 also has a startling array of intuitive settings that you can meddle with until your heart’s content.

The stand out feature of the D700 though, like its more powerful and more pricey brother the Nikon D3, is the incredible picture quality offered by the FX sensor. If you’re serious about your photography and use your camera for a little more than holiday snaps, but you don’t want to pay the £3,500 and upwards of a professional level Nikon then the D700 is a very strong candidate to be your ideal choice.

Acer Predator – The Hardcore Gaming Machine

When it comes to PCs, gamers like to shout about it – after all, what’s the point in having the mutt’s nuts of a computer if it doesn’t look as good as it performs? The Acer Predator is the ideal gaming rig for even the most flamboyant owner. Having seen the way it looks it’s kind of difficult to even move onto the specs of what it carries under the wing-door hood.

Quad-core processor, as has become the standard of ultra high spec gaming PCs, power the big copper beast and a choice of graphics packages. The liquid cooling system will at least keep everything at an operational temperature and you also get a Blu-Ray drive and Dual LAN technology. Unfortunately, gaming computers also come with equally high end price tags, which is little surprise when you consider what they’re typically packing. A price range between £1,350 to more than £3,000 awaits potential Predator owners.

Gaming PCs, also useful for those that perform other processor and graphics heavy tasks, aren’t usually the PC of choice for your average home user and designs can look a little over the top on occasion but, you know that’s why we love them. At least you know that it should have the necessary kick to run Windows Vista without too much trouble.

Unfortunately, it seems like the whole of Europe, besides the UK, is getting them before a release date is even announced over here. Still, what’s a few extra pounds to have it delivered?

The Hyper Intelligent Livescribe Pulse Pen

A lot of time when you peruse through details of emerging technologies it’s difficult to see either a point to the technology or, worse still, a date when a genuinely useful technology will become available. However, the Livescribe Java pen happily bypasses both of these bugbears. Available now, it already has some ingenious applications.

The Java enabled pen not only records audio as you type, but it maps that audio to whatever you scribe using the pen. You can write on the paper pad, and the device maps audio clips so that they exactly match the section of text you’re writing. By clicking on a word, or bullet point that you wrote, the pen will then play back the appropriate section of audio. But, that really is only the beginning.

Because the pen is Java powered it can be customised and developed to do virtually anything. One application that has already been created is an instant translator. Once the pen is running the translator, it instantly recognises the words that you write on the pad and you can then select a language and click on any of the words or a passage of text and get an immediate translation into any language.

The pen includes 1GB or 2GB of memory, depending on which model you purchase and an OLED display tells you how much audio you have currently recorded and where in that audio you are currently. Developer kits are also available so there will certainly be some excellent packages available to complement the translator.

Obvious examples include lectures and business meetings. You can keep written notes throughout either, and if they fail to make sense when you read them back just click on the section that you’re struggling with and play the audio back. You can even translate your notes, should you need to.

The dot paper that is provided uses a patented dot positioning system to accurately and quickly track what you write and combines with the pen to produce a product with serious potential.

There’s even a developer’s workshop on the Livescribe website that includes templates and instructional information so that developers can create their own content without any prior programming knowledge. I don’t expect every household to have one, but it is truly ingenious and plainly has some serious possibilities.

The Green Car Guide Live 2008

If stereotypes were true, then staging any car show in Liverpool would be asking for trouble, and making it a green car show would be even more dangerous. Liverpudlians (stereotypically, speaking, of course) certainly aren’t renowned for giving back to the the community, and I think we all know what happens to cars that are left unattended for too long.

All steretypes aside, though, the Green Car Guide Live 2008 was indeed held in Liverpool and was a roaring success. The show was the biggest green car show held in the UK and featured cars from manufacturers like BMW, Ford, Citreon, and many more.

While the majority actually managed the previously unfathomable (to make a green car look like any other car on the road) there were some exceptions at both ends of the scale.

A Honda Insight developed by Oaktec was highlighting rally cars using hybrid technology. AT just 998 cc, the car actually won the A Class Formula 1000 Tarmac Rally Championship so there really is no excuse for poor performing hybrid cars.

When it comes to the other end of the scale, you can always rely on Smart cars. The Smart Fortwo, the hideously styled car in the picture above apparently offers big car luxuries (except, presumably, for a big interior or ample space) with what I have to begrudgingly admit to being money saving and environment saving class. £35 per year road tax is almost unthinkable if you own anything bigger than a scooter, but that’s one of the returns you get for owning the zebra.

First The C5, Next The Flying Car?

Sir Clive Sinclair believes that the future lies in personal flying cars, and despite often being remembered for the C5 electric car failure he has pioneered a number of impressive designs. In fact, looking at the current wave of electric car designs, it might be fair to say that he was just a little too far ahead of his time.

With rising tax, petrol, and oil prices, as well as a greater understanding of how emissions are damaging the environment, an albeit cooler version of the C5 may prove a success where cycle lanes exist.

The C5 doesn’t require a license, because it only achieves a top speed of 15mph and anybody over the age of 14 can drive one. Add a new, more efficient battery, that takes less than 8 hours to charge and runs longer, and the miniature electric car really could take off.

Sir Clive has no plans to resurrect the C5 just yet, though. Plans to resurrect the Zike, which was an electric bike that faced an equally dismal popularity in 1992, may be more likely. When interviewed by the BBC he said that he would “need huge success in the electric bike field” before he converted his efforts into creating a Bond style flying car.

The Stylophone - Retro Music At Its Finest

Anyone for a bit of retro music making? That’s not a euphemism either. The stylophone is an inexpensive little electronic retro musical instrument that was made famous (sort of) by numerous bands in the 70s and 80s. Bowie, Erasure, and even Rolph Harris were known as being particularly skilled stylophonists and you could walk in those particularly heady shoes for no more than £14.99 at IWOOT.

As you might imagine of something of “that” era, the stylophone is devastatingly simple. A small digital display shows keyboard keys and the player uses the stylus pen to strike the notes. Because of its synthesiser make up, it’s possible to create all sorts of funky 80’s sounds.

This version has been updated (phew) and includes bass, synth, and classic sound libraries for your pleasure. You can also choose to go it alone, in solo, or play along to your own mp3 tracks. An immeasurably irritating vibrato tweaker has also been added to really ramp up just how obnoxious you could be. It is definitely one of those instruments that fools the player into thinking that they really do sound like they’re in the White Stripes, and yet heard by anybody else it just sounds repulsive.

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