Weekly Daily Giz for week of May 16th, 2011, Netcast 1314

This week three gadgets from The National Hardware & New Products Show.

The INOVA 24/7 has been around for a while, but the folks at Niteize have given it a great makeover. It’s a multi-functional LED flashlight and emergency light combined with a system of accessories that provide an almost infinite number of uses and applications. The rugged polymer case is water resistant and can endure temperatures from -20° to +50°C (That's -4 to +122 F.) Utilizing advanced LED technology it provides eight steady and signaling functions. The base is stable enough to make the INOVA 24/7 a freestanding flashlight. There's a built-in stainless steel clip for attaching to clothes or gear. The included accessory kit adds a neck lanyard, headband, magnetic mount and four wall mounting brackets with the options of mounting screws and foam adhesive strips. The eight high-output, lifetime-guaranteed, LEDs include 4 White, 2 Red and 2 Yellow. The LEDS change as your rotate the bezel switch. There’s Low intensity white, High intensity white, White strobe, White "SOS", Red & Yellow flashing, Red and Yellow strobe, Red, and finally – if you set the bezel between any of the regular settings, you get the “find me” mode. That’s where the two red LEDs flicker briefly every 5 seconds. That’s so you can find it in the dark. Prices are all over the place, from about $42 to $60. At the link below it’s $42 at Amazon. (I have not bought anything from this web retailer, however:)

http://tinyurl.com/4y7g8hh

Company website: www.inovalight.com

See or hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1314

Video the week --- One2Flush

The One2flush Water Saving Toilet Kit is pretty neat. It’s a dual flush conversion kit, the first U.S.-assembled water conservation product that can help your family save thousands of gallons of water a year. You save water every time you flush your toilet. As you’ll see in the video, installation is quick and painless and the tank doesn’t have to be moved. Once installed you push the handle one way for liquids and the other way for solids, and the chamber knows exactly how little or how much water to use during each flush. The savings? The company says about thirty gallons a day for the average family – for a total of about 12,000 gallons a year! This is a “green product” in a lot of ways. With its reduced water needs, the One2flush eases the demands on local waste water treatment plants, and it gives an extended life to old non-degradable porcelain toilets, reducing landfill space. It’s a great product for under $30! Shop Amazon for an under $25 price. Company website with more info:

www.one2flush.com

UPDATE: The company tells me the newest version that installs without having to remove the toilet tank from the wall should be on the company's website in the next few weeks. The current model does require you to remove the tank. This update was posted on May 17, 2011.

Giz Wiz Video from the Hardware Show: http://youtu.be/ABUiWsDe8gQ

See or hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1314   

At the Hardware Show Someone Handed Me One of These! Guess you guess what the heck it is?

Trade shows are sometimes used as a way to find out if a company, or an individual, should move forward with a product. Two guys at the show were handing out the gizmo you see below. I couldn't guess exactly what it was, but I did say I thought it folded in some fashion. I was right about that, but I didn't figure out its exact use. Give a quick look, and see if you can guess. I'll tell you what it is below the picture.

That gizmo is called Kar-Kool. You hook the bottom tabs together to make a holder for a can of soda or beer. They you use the two hooks at the top to hook it to one of the car's air-conditioner vents. That way as your car is cooled, your beverage will be cooled too. (Remember soda is for the driver, beer is okay for the passenger.) When I asked when they might be available for sale and how much they might cost, the guys told me they were just judging people's reactions. They company makes other plastic products, so they said it was easy for them to make a bunch of samples to give away at the National Hardware Show. The company website is below, but there's nothing about this device on it yet. Depending on the reception at the show, it may or may see distribution.

www.erapro.ca

See or hear this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1314

And now it's time for Leo's Turn The Table Turkey!

So what's Leo's gadget this week. If it's not a new cell phone, or a new camera, that means it must be a new tablet!

Talk about being jealous! You will be too, when you hear this! Leo went to an unveiling of this new Google product and everyone who attended was given the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition. Yes this is the latest entry into the ever increasing crowd of Android Tablets. From what we could see on camera, this is one high tech beauty. At just 8.6mm the frame is thinner than the iPad2, and there's a beautiful screen with front and rear facing cameras. Even though the megapixel count is lower than the one on the iPad2, Leo says the camera on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 takes better pictures. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition is white and does not have a removable battery or an SD card slot. It's priced exactly the same as the iPad2. BUT, and notice I put that in capital letters. Leo said the 3.0 Android software isn't perfect yet, and he's not recommending it over the iPad2 until the next version - 3.1 of the Google Android software is released. That should be soon. The tablet itself is set to go on sale June 6th, 2011.

http://tinyurl.com/4xx2zug 

See or hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1314

One of smallest color TV’s ever made! With an awesome 2” screen!

Dick’s Gadget Warehouse

Sometimes, if it’s very small, I will take a “new” old gadget for Dick’s Gadget Warehouse. Thanks to Brahm Schatia, I now have a color TV that about the size of a pack of playing cards. It’s the CASIO TV-300, produced around 1983/84. This is one of the smallest color TV’s ever made.   The entire unit is just 3 X 4.5 inches and it sports a 2-inch diagonal screen. Two inches seem too small? Not to worry - a mirror built into the pop-open cover increase the screen size by 50% to a giant 3-inch diagonal screen! To keep the size as small as possible there was no built in speaker, so you needed earphones to listen. Power was provided by two AA batteries. That was an optional backlight-unit that mounted directly to the Casio TV-300. There are photos & lots of great info on early day TV’s at Frank's Handheld TV pages. That’s where I found the photo that’s shown here.

http://www.taschenfernseher.de/e-mini.htm 

See or hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1313