ON COMPUTERS | BY BOB AND JOY SCHWABACH
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LET'S TALK GADGETS The big annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is over and now just about everybody in the high-tech world figures we have to see their stuff. Since we live in an apartment building, we passed on the robot lawn mower. Here are some of the odder offerings. CHILL OUT
The Consumer Electronics Show is mostly full of computer stuff, but
among the stranger items that appealed to us is the CoolIT Beverage
Chiller, a small platform for keeping your drink chilled. We've seen
lots of gadgets and
A circular platform big enough to hold a soft-drink can or an ordinary
drinking glass contains a printed circuit that chills the drink. You
plug it into a USB port on any computer, as well as some game machines,
and set your drink on top.
We tried it out with a can of root beer, and the can was still ice cold
after sitting out in a warm room for several hours. A small fan draws
off heat from the drink container, and some people are bothered by the
fan noise; we weren't. We found the CoolIT Beverage Chiller for $25 at
Amazon.com. MOTION PICTURES
MotionBox can turn a video into a flip book. Flip books were the
earliest form of moving pictures. A series of pictures, usually
drawings, were linked together in a sequence that appeared to show a
scene in motion when the pages were flipped rapidly.
You can re-create this early moving picture technology by sending a
video to MotionBox.com. The site
provides 300 megabytes of storage for your video clips, which can be
shared with others. For $30 a year, you can upload an
It's called simply Portable Power Pack (how straight-forward) and can be
charged up either by connecting it to a USB port on any computer or
using its small power adapter plugged into a wall socket. It takes about
an hour to fully
The Portable Power Pack is smaller than a deck of playing cards and half
as thick. A sequence of LED lights on one surface lets you judge how
much power is left. The device comes with a USB cable and adapter plug
for attachment to an iPod or smartphone. It's $60 from
Kensington.com.
GERM PHOBIC
We got a washable mouse from Belkin. This is an issue we never
considered, but some people are quite fussy about accumulated dirt and
germs, to say nothing of kids' sticky finger marks. We're a tiny bit
fussy ourselves.
It's called Washable Mouse, and it costs $30 from
Belkin.com or Amazon and
others. You can wash it with soap and water, but Belkin suggests you
don't
The mouse is supposed to work with Windows XP, Vista and Mac, but we
couldn't get it to work with Vista. Too bad, because if you can get it
to work with Vista, it's supposed to be able to scroll sideways as well
as up and down.
Note: Disconnect the old mouse when you're plugging in a new one. If the
computer doesn't recognize the new mouse, restart the system. GREEN THUMB ON A STICK
Thirsty Light is a small metal stick that looks like an oven
thermometer. You stick it in the soil of a potted plant, and a green LED
light blinks rapidly if the plant is thirsty. Our little bonsai forest
was very thirsty. After we watered it, we
This little made-in-China gizmo costs $10 from
ThirstyLight.com, or probably
any hardware or plant store you walk into. We are about to lose our
black thumb.
ZIP CODE INFO
If you go to ZipSkinny.com
and enter your ZIP code, you get all kinds of demographics on that area:
income averages and range, education levels, housing density, size, etc.
Big-city ZIP codes are often misleading, however, because conditions can
vary considerably just a few blocks apart.
NOTE: Readers can search several years of columns here at oncomp.com or seven years worth of columns at oncomp2.com
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