B5 Network - Tech, Gadgets and Weird Things

Well well, I really seem to be getting the habit of reviewing clocks lately. I’ll drop it. I promise. However, this clock is really weird, and so it deserves to be mentioned. It really stands out of other clocks, yet it is incredibly easy to conceal too - what a combo, eh?

Just imagine - you can just put this up with other books, and tell the time just by looking at the bookcase. Soon, people will realize that they can’t see a clock around (They won’t be expecting some books to be the clock, so they won’t notice it - trust me, this principle works everytime - well, at least it always works for me). And when people can’t understand something, they begin to feel stupid. And then it is time to exploit this newfound weakness - life can be great.

This clock comes in two styles - black (for those with a more serious looking library) and colorful (ermm…I like black better, so I won’t comment on this). Requires 1 AA battery.

The clock costs $24.99.
The black model is available here.
The colorful is available here.

Several gadgets mentioned on this blog, like the Flying Alarm Clock and the Sonic Boom Alarm Clock are great at making you get up in the mornings if you’re a hard sleeper. But some of you might be tired from all these noisy toys. Just for once you’d like to be woken up gently, without a stupid alarm screaming in your ears.

Then you need the Voco Alarm Clock. Instead of the usual noise, you’ll hear a pleasant butler voice, reminding you something along the lines that time will stop without your awake presence. Then you get your usual treating of alarm, until you turn it off, just in time to hear the butler voice his disapproval of the racket the alarm was causing.

The clock (fitted into a shell of an ordinary, traditional clock), has 65 wake-up messages, 12 thank-you messages and a 90 second long relaxation program to help you fall asleep faster. It’s powered by 3 AA batteries.

If you want to be woken up in one of the most gentle of ways everyday, get the Voco Alarm clock. It’s £24.95 (50$) at firebox.

Do you still remember what started the gadget craze? What was the very first gadget of our times? Sure, there were fun toys earlier too, but one gadget really started the craze on the global scale. For those that can’t remember, it was a USB drink warmer. A true classic. And this gadget is it (or a reincarnation of the original). Anyway, let’s get to the details. The warmer has a stainless steel heating pad, 7.8cm in diameter. The borders of the heating pad get heated up to 40 degrees Celsius, while the center warms up to 80 (hey, it’s only supposed to keep your things warm - not cook anything. That’s still enough to give you a nasty and painful burn). The USB cable is 96cm long - considering it’s gonna be sitting on a desk near your computer anyway, that should be more than enough lenght. This classic, but still just as practical piece of electronics will keep your drinks warm just for a one time investment of 15$ - pretty good, actually. Found at usbgeek.

Have you ever been in a situation where you really want/need to finish your work now? You can’t put it off, and you can’t go rest. Stretching is out of the question too, because if you get up, you won’t be able to concentrate afterwards. What do you do?

Well, it depends. Some people drink loads of strong coffee until they star to puke. Others can’t stand coffee, and try to find some other ways to do it - listening to music until it becomes irritating, eating glucose pills, drinking energy drinks, etc.

Well, here is a new way to keep yourself awake - Warp Mints (the name sounds just as cheesy as the ones I think of). There are two main ingredients in it - ginseng (works pretty much the same way as caffeine) and guarani (a simple, quickly working natural sugar). So, all in all, this is just a highly concentrated energy drink.

But this is better. Inside a neat and stylish tin box you’ll find a stack of mints, depending on your choice they can be peppermint, cinnamon and lemon-lime (with green tea extract).

This way of boosting your energy will cost you £2.95 (6$) for a tin full of mints. Found at firebox.

Usually a gadget is an innovative piece of technology - nothing new, just used in a whole different way. However, the Soundbug is really more than just that.

Imagine a situation - you’re stuck with your family on a holiday. What’s worse, you’re confined to the guest house, since it’s raining heavily outside. You’re surrounded by the dullest people you’ve ever seen in your life. And all you have is a mp3 player full of 80s hard rock and the Soundbug. What do you do? Simple - you plug the soundbug into your mp3 player and stick it to some smooth surface - a window or a table. And the surface cranks out up to 75dB of hard rock.

Some basic theory: sound is vibrations. Loudspeakers vibrate the air, and the vibrations (sound) reach our ears. The Sounbug works on a simple principle - it vibrates the surface that you stick it to, and that surface creates air vibration (sound). Simple enough?

The best thing is - it comes with a common headphone jack. That means you can connect the soundbug to nearly everything - laptops, mp3 players, radios, MC players, some cellphones. By the way, the soundbug has a power saving function - after the music has stopped, it turns itself out and conserves it’s battery.

This little toy, that turns any hard and smooth surface into a loudspeaker, costs £24.95 (50$) - about as much as some good loudspeakers would cost. Found at crazyaboutgadgets.

Oh no! You suddenly need a job done that requires tools that noone in their right mind has on them. What are you gonna do?

Well, having all of the tools with you is exactly what made Swiss knives so popular. Some people like to be ready in the event of any occasion (even if they wouldn’t have a slightest idea what to do in the case of that event).

There’s a problem though - you might forget it at home. A solution that’s just dumb enough to work. Carry the tools in your wallet. I mean, if you leave your wallet, you’re pretty much screwed anyway, so you won’t even remember about the tools, right?

Stupid jokes aside, the Swiss Card is like a credit card edition of the popular Swiss Knife. It’s only 4mm thick (that’s about 2 or 3 credit cards put together), yet inside it has a knife,scissors, a ruler (cm & inches), a stainless steel pin, a toothpick, a ballpoint pen, a nail file and a screwdriver. Pretty impressive - it has all the tools that you could possibly (though it’s unlikely that you would) need.

The Swiss Card costs £14.95 (30$). I don’t remember the exact prices for Swiss Knives, but from what I can recall, they are far more expensive. You can get one here.

Most gadgets use wall sockets, batteries or USB sockets to power them up, right? Well, there are solar powered, shakable, some use dynamos that you have to turn, etc. Still, most electronic gadgets use those three.

Well, this is a USB gadget made for battery gadgets (actually, it would work perfectly fine with everything else too, but it’s more fun to have a gadget power a gadget, right?). These AA batteries have a USB plug concealed inside, that they use to charge themselves. You just plug them in and that’s it - and the LED indicator tells you the state of the charge. And there’s more - you can charge these in just about any battery charger.

These are NiHM rechargeable batteries, meaning they are 1.2V (non-rechargeable are 1.5V, and lithium batteries are 1.7V), so they may be weak for devices that require a lot of juice (Like lasers - nothing less than lithiums for them), but they will satisfy the needs for pretty much all usual electronics.

A pair of these batteries cost £12.95 (26$) at firebox. Being able to charge them from USB sockets could be handy, for example, charging them from a laptop while you’re on a trip, but consider that normal NiHMs at that capacity (1300mA) cost about 2 to 3 dollars a pair.

Some time ago there was a post about a chocolate fountain. Not only does it look good, but hot, melted chocolate is pretty tasty. Well, this cocktail fountain is pretty much like it - well, it doesn’t make it tastier, but it sure looks good, wouldn’t you agree?

This 58cm high fountain has an electric pump, that lifts the drinks up to the top bowl, and from there, is travels down through the holes in the bowls. The pump uses power from a wall socket, so you won’t have to worry about batteries dying just when you try to impress your friends. By the way, the bottom bowl is illuminated - just to make it cooler.

The fountain itself is made from plastic, and can store up to 4.7 litres of drinks in it. If you like it, it will make your wallet a £49.99 (100$) lighter. Found at drinkstuff.

Imagine a peaceful scenery. A high class tea party. Everyone’s sipping their tea, relaxing, discussing world events. So relaxing…

And so incredibly boring. How can anyone sit in one place for so long doing nothing? Someone really needs to liven this up.

Do you remember the classical gorilla prank? This is a perfect occasion to jump out, dressed in a gorilla suit, and run around shouting. At the very least, it will temporarily shock everyone. Ain’t that fun?

And guess what - there’s a costume already made and just waiting for you. It’s a full body suit, covering every inch of your body, with the exception of eye holes. Just what you need to run around and spread mayhem.

Of course, since this is just a suit, people who know how monkeys look will definitely see through it - after they stopped screaming. So use the element of surprise to the fullest extent - very few people can think when they are scared.

This suit was found at drinkstuff - get it now and spread panic in your neighbourhood

Laptop owners, here is a typical situation. You just legally obtained (downloaded it is more likely) a new album by your favourite band. And you’re just dying to share the sweet sounds with others. And then it hits you - it sounds terrible, because your inbuilt speakers are worthless. If the surrounding is noisy, you can just forget about hearing anything.

The simplest solution would be to buy some small (so you would be able to carry them around with your laptop) loudspeakers. Problem is, they’ll be small and just as worthless, or small, good and expensive. Also, they require an additional socket for plugging them in.

So, if that is the case, might I recommend this little gadget. As you see, it really is quite tiny - with it being able to fit in the palm of one’s hand. However, it packs 2 speakers and a sub-woofer inside itself. And what makes it a gadget is it’s USB cable. Yep, that’s right - it draws power and gets the input signal through this cable. The cable itself can be folded and hidden beneath the body of the speakers.

Finally, the best part about it is it’s price. £14.95 (30$) is way cheaper than anything you can get in stores. You can get yourself one of these from gizoo.