New from Wild Planet: The Mobile Forensics Kit!

Thursday, September 17, 2009, Netcast 919

The Spy Gear Evidence Kit is perfect for kids who love the detective shows on TV or just want to play detective at home, school, etc. The Evidence Kit is a mobile forensics set that includes a 30X microscope, UV light, fingerprint kit & glow-in-the-dark powder. Collect fingerprints of potential suspects and file them on your ID card. Use the dusting brush to cover surfaces with fingerprint powder, then shine the ultra-violet light and glowing evidence will appear. Use lifting tape to transport untainted prints back to headquarters where you can inspect them at 30-times their original size. For nighttime sleuthing, attach the light to the microscope to illuminate your enlarged specimens. There are tweezers to collect additional clues – hairs, clothing fibers, crumbs, etc. Place them in sterile bags to avoid contamination. Compare the prints you collect with those on your ID card for positive identification. When kids get home from school, they can check their doorknob for prints and figure out if anyone was snooping in their room. Parents, in turn, can use the Evidence Kit to determine if kids were spying! The Evidence Kit comes with a 30X microscope, LED flashlight, UV blacklight, glow-in-the-dark powder, ink pad, tweezers, ID card, dusting brush, collection bags, double-sided lifting tapes, storage compartments and carrying case. Requires 3 button cell batteries, included.

http://www.target.com/Wild-Planet-Spy-Evidence-Kit/dp/B0024ULNS2  $16.99

 Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw919 

A Digital Photo Frame With Some Very Nice Features.

Wednesday, September 16^th, 2009 Netcast 918

The new Pandigital with PanTouch 8 inch digital photo frame has a decent resolution of 800-by-600 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The PanTouch screen lets you access photos and control the display using the touch screen or the included remote control. There’s also a limited set of controls located directly on the back of the frame. So you don’t misplace the remote control it has a metal back and there’s a place for it to “stick” on the back of frame. Kind of clever, I think. You can view photos like pages in a photo album with a page turn effect by using a forward or backward swipe motion on the touch matte. You can also set up a slide show with various fades and wipes. You can store your JPEG photos, MP3 audio, and AVI videos on the internal 1 GB flash memory. Intelligent compression software allows the frame to hold up to 3,200 images without any distortion or cropping done. For even more photos, the frame has a built-in card reader that supports CF I, CF II, SD, MS, MS Pro, MMC, xD, Micro Drive memory cards and USB memory drives. It also features stereo speakers, single picture display, clock and calendar. The older model has 512MB of memory, but the link below is for the new 1GB unit. For all these features, the price is really good. Under $100 at BH Photo.  There are optional Bluetooth & WiFi add-ons.

BH Photo sell its for $99.99:  http://tinyurl.com/lk5t79

 Company website: www.pandigital.net

 Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw918

A Hard Drive Enclosure --- $129! Hard Drive, not included!

Tuesday, September 15^th, 2009 – Netcast 917

Remember: Hard Drive not included. It's the enclosure that's $129!It's the MCE OptiBay Hard Drive Enclosure. On this Turn The Table Tuesday Leo told us about a product that he thought was very clever, but wildly expensive. Never one to be happy with the components inside a computer he buys, Leo loves to upgrade just about all of them. He recently upgraded the internal drive on one of his MAC laptops. Here’s a little bit of info from the website where Leo bought his new drive. “The new MCE OptiBay Hard Drive was created for those users who need as much hard drive space as possible inside their MacBook, MacBook Pro or PowerBook G4. The MCE OptiBay Hard Drive replaces the notebook's internal SuperDrive or Combo drive with a high performance hard drive up to 500GB, providing unheard of capacities for internal notebook hard drive space - up to 1 terabyte when combined with a 500GB internal hard drive - for all your projects... digital video, music, photos, etc.”  Leo actually may have installed a solid-state drive, but it wasn’t the drive that was his choice of the day. What Leo picked as his Turn The Table Tuesday gadget was an enclosure for the drive that he took out of his MAC when he put the new one in. Again from the company website: “This external portable enclosure holds your SuperDrive or Combo drive so you'll still be able to use it anytime you want for loading system software or applications, as well as burning, playing, or ripping CDs and DVDs!” The thing Leo didn’t like was the price. The enclosure alone – not including any drive – is $129! I don’t own or use a MAC, so I hope I have this info correct. But if you want more info, you can get it directly from the manufacturer at the link below:

 http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=OBSXGB-UNB&Category_Code=STORHDOPTIBAY&Product_Count=0

 Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw917

You probably know about Gorilla Pod, but how about Gorilla Torch?

Monday, September 14^th, 2009

Gorilla Torch, made by Joby, the folks who brought you the Gorilla Pod. (In case you don’t remember, the Gorilla Pod is a flexible mini tripod. You can bend the legs in any direction, like around poles, benches, branches, etc. It's a quick and easy way to hold your point ‘n shoot camera in place for self-portraits when no one's around. Gorilla Torch is similar, expect a flashlight replaces your camera. The Torch, however does not unscrew, or come off. So now you can wrap this flashlight (or: “torch”) around anything to hold it in place with the beam facing the way you want it. (This is assuming you don’t have a Giz Wiz LED baseball cap!) The “Torch” is a super-bright LED light with a built in dimmer. Joby says it’s weatherproof and shockproof. The adjustable intensity light can be turned up full to 65 lumens, which is really bright! The average battery life is 20-80 hours depending on how bright a light you use. Another neat feature are the magnetic footpads. That means you can hook it on to a refrigerator or car door. And if you drop something metallic you can use one of the feet to retrieve it!  It’s powered by 3 AA batteries, which are included. $29.99. It will be available mid-September 2009.

http://joby.com/gorillatorch/features

Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw916

Ever Forget to Put Your Credit Card Back in Your Wallet?

Friday, September 11^th, 2009, Netcast 915. Back to Dick's Gadget Warehouse.

This gizmo goes back to 1991. Here was a new device called the SecuraCard Wallet. Koltov, a company that still makes ladies pocketbooks and travel bags, manufactured it. Other Koltov products are easy to find on the web today, but there’s no sign of the SecuraCard Wallet anymore. Here’s how the SecuraCard wallet worked. Each pocket of the wallet that held a credit card had a document retainer. When you removed a credit card,  the contacts would touch and set off an audible alarm. Now that would drive you crazy, so there was yet another device installed in this wallet, a light sensor. With the wallet open, the alarm would not sound. This assumed – correctly – that your wallet would be open when you took out your credit card. And that you would leave it open waiting for the credit card to be returned from the waiter, or merchant. Once you returned the credit card to a pocket, the contacts would be pushed apart again. But if you closed the wallet with a credit card missing, once the light sensor was covered, the alarm would sound. Each pocket of the SecuraWallet had a dummy credit card in it in case you didn’t have enough credit cards to fill every slot. The version I have is a red leather ladies model. It’s from a press event, and I can’t recall if there was a man’s wallet version. It was expensive. About $40 and that was in 1991 dollars.

Hear this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw915 

Update on September 11, 2009 by The Giz Wiz

Dane Golden, President of TWiT, and all around nice guy, found another mention of SecuraCard. It was featured in Popular Science back in 1986. It looked more like a man's wallet in the photo and sold for $31.50. That must have been before Koltov licensed the technolgy for a more deluxe model.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NUzwukoJzGIC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=%22The+Secura+Card%22&source=bl&ots=k0c86wYNES&sig=OL8a0hoA0YoaXZQ6hRJpp_NoPZY&hl=en&ei=4eOpStWrIoe6swOU7dX6BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=Secura-card&f=false