Can you believe that only 30 years "pause" was touted as a feature!

From time to time fans of the Weekly and Daily Giz Wiz offer to send gizmos they were fond of to Dick’s Gadget Warehouse. Sometimes, if the item is really small, I will take it. But mostly I just like to give it some air time, especially if it something that got a lot of attention at the time of its introduction. Addie Dillon, a fan of the show told me she has  two old RCA VideoDisc players she bought more than 30 years ago. And like most gadget lovers, she’s finding it hard to part with them. Since RCA spent a bundle promoting their CED Video Disc format, I thought I’d talk about on this Gadget Warehouse segment. Selectavision came out in 1981 and ended about five years later in 1986. It was not the most convenient format for watching movies. The movie discs, about the size of an LP record, were stored in a protective sleeve. You would insert the entire disc, label, sleeve and all into the Video Disc player. The player would pull the disc out and you would then remove the sleeve. Halfway through the movie, you went through the reverse procedure so you could flip the videodisc over in order to play the second part of the movie. That’s because one side of a video disc could only hold about an hour of video. The upside was that no dust or fingerprints would ever get on the discs. Advanced features that RCA touted included index skip, fast forward, and fast rewind. Even --- pause! You can’t tell from the commercial (link below), but the image quality was about the same as video on a VHS tape with a 240-line display and analog sound. Later on units with remote control and stereo were introduced, but since these unit couldn’t record like VHS could, they were doomed. Selectavision players cost about $400 to $500 when they first came out. I was not a big fan of collecting movies, so I never bought one. And I thought storing all those movie discs would be a problem too.

Here’s an RCA commercial on the “amazing” Selectavision:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhO4cweRnfE

See or hear this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1310

The Weekly Daily Giz Wiz, week of April 18th, 2011 (5th week of the new format.)

A Watch People Will Watch!

Even though I love my very old Timex Datalink when I was offered the change to use Phosphor E Ink digital watch for a couple of weeks, I jumped at the opportunity. The model I have is the new World Time Curved E Ink digital watch. The innovative E-ink technology – yep, just like you find in e-readers, makes this a really unusual watch. I wore it to a dinner the night I got it and it was just a few minutes before some asked about my ‘unusual watch’. So if you're looking for a conversation starter, this is a good choice. You can select from 24 time zones for one display mode, while displaying a second time zone simultaneously if you like. I set mine to display both NY and west coast time. The dual time zone display can also be configured to display the time of day or both the date and time in either over-sized or conventional-sized segments. (In the over-sized mode it’s really easy to see the time at a glance.) The case is curved to fit the wrist and it’s very comfortable for a watch that’s larger than usual. According to the instruction booklet, the band is integrated with the World Time watchcase and is non-replaceable. They don’t tell you what to do if you need a new band, but the one that comes on the watch is quite rugged and should last a long time. The company says the watch is water-resistant to 165 feet (50 M). You’ll need the booklet to set up the watch because all the settings are done using a single rocker bar at the bottom of the watch. Once it’s programmed you can cycle through the following display modes: Time of Day + World Time, Time of Day + Calendar / Time of Day Large / Time of Day Small / World Time. At the push of the bar you can select a white on black display, or black on white display. There’s plenty of contrast, but they’re not vivid black or white. A downside is that there is no night light function. With the polyurethane band, the MSRP is $150.00. I saw it on Amazon for $119.00 at this link. (I have not purchased anything here:)

http://www.amazon.com/Phosphor-WC01-World-Curved-Polyurethane/dp/B00404U0I4/ref=pd_sbs_watch_3

Company website: www.phosphorwatches.com

See or hear this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1310

Video of the week - From the Propel Green Products Expo, Kohler explains how to save water.

At the Green Expo Kohler was showing 3 ways to save water as part of their Save Water America campaign. The easiest and least expensive - about $5 to $10 is to change the faucet aerator to a more efficient one. Kohler has developed an aerator mesh grid that allows air to be mixed with the solid stream of water. This results in a stream that looks and feels as powerful as the one that uses 2.2 gpm (gallons per minute) but it’s more efficient, using just 1.5 gpm. That’s saves about 30% of the water normally used. Although Kohler makes them to fit all their various faucets, you can find similar aerators for standard faucets. Kohler has also designed a line of low-flow showerheads that use 1.75 gpm. The standard flow rate of most showers is 2.5 gallons per minute. So cutting the flow rate to 1.75 gpm again gives you a 30% water savings. You won’t feel the difference because the Kohler showerhead has been designed to offer full body water coverage and feeling of a powerful shower. Another water saving is to install a high-efficiency toilet that flushes with 1.28 gallons per flush or less. Kohler says 50% of home toilets in the U.S. consume 3.5 gpf. While the sink aerator and the showerhead are easy add-ons, the technology in their toilet is only available as a complete unit. By the way, it turns out the toilet on display at the Kohler display was for demo purposes only. Opps!

Kohler web page on how to save water:

http://www.us.kohler.com/savewater/how/landing.htm

Where to buy kohler products: www.kohler.com/wheretobuy.

The lowest price I could find online for a Kohler low flow Aerator was $5.50 for their Karbon Series Kitchen Faucets. However there are a lot of other low volume aerators available. Conservation Mart sells them for as low as 99 cents. There’s a $5 minimum order, so you could share them with your friends. (I have not bought anything here, however.

http://www.conservationmart.com/c-13-faucet-aerators.aspx

They were not showing the brand new Kohler Numi Smart Toilet which costs about $6400, but you can see it here: http://kohler.com/numi/#video.html

See or hear this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1310

If you want to throw your iPhone4 off a roof, this case is just what you need!

Need to attract attention? Want to start a conversation quickly? How about throwing your iPhone4 against a wall? Well, according to the folks at Ballistic, you can do exactly that! The Ballistic HC series iPhone case is the only one to pass MIL-STD 810G military specifications. They also have HC cases for the Blackberry, and HTC devices. I was hoping to get one for the iPod touch, but it turns out they don’t make one. This rugged case is engineered with shock absorption and an interchangeable outer gel skin layer, front facing inward holster and built-in screen protector. But wait, there’s more! It also incorporates connector seals, water resistant meshes and tough lenses to keep moisture, dust and dirt from entering the connector, speaker and microphone ports. To ensure that Mil Specs (Military Specifications- MIL-STD 810G) were met tests for shock (drop test), vibration, extreme temperatures, humidity, and dust were performed during certification. The company sent me some product samples so I could examine the construction for myself. Not only do they look and feel ruggedly built; if you watch the video at the link below you can see one really get a heavy duty beating.

Funny thing though. As I was unpacking the Ballastic cases a friend asked what they were. I said they were indestructible smart phone cases. He replied: “Then were did they pack them in huge cardboard box with tons of shipping peanuts??” My guess is the shipping department packs everything that way. The HC cases are $49.99.

Watch the beating a HC case can take here:

http://www.goballisticcase.com/blogs/news

Company website: www.goballisticcase.com

See or hear this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1310

Leo's Turn The Table Turkey of the week![http://sculptedeers.com Sculpted Eers by Sonoma

Leo puts balloons in this ears!

Eers is a unique set of earphones. They're molded to fit your ears, but here's the surprising part. The molding process is done at home, and you do it! The first thing you do is put on the sort of strange looking headphone device in the photo. Then when you're ready to have your custom earbuds made, you trigger a switch located over each ear. A small balloon type device inflates in your ears and you'll slowly hear all the background noise disappear. Now you have to sit still, and not talk for four full minutes. You shouldn't your open either. This is critical, because your earbuds are being formed right in your ears. Leo says there's no pain, just a funny feeling for the first few seconds as the balloon inflates. After the four minutes are up, you break off the headphone forming device and you're left with a perfect fittings pair of Eers! Custom-made earphone can cost a $1,000 or more and you have to go to an audiologist for a fitting, wait a week or so and then set your ear mold to an earphone manufacturer. Here the whole process is done in just four minutes. There are two versions of Eers. A single speaker version is about $150 and a dual speaker version is $300. There's a demo at the website below. Eers will be available shortly.

http://sculptedeers.com

See or hear this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1310