GadgetReview

Over the summer I saw a bunch of cool expensive looking RC jets and helicopters.  This one dude was even flying his RC helicopter upside down and doing all these cool stunts.

The “not a toy” SkyShutter Helicam RC Helicopter will allow you to capture some seriously sick aerial footage and is quite the technological marvel.  Two people are required to control this thing properly, as one person flies the copter and the other controls the camera.  The electric powered helicopter weighs 30lbs and is capable of carrying up to 6lbs of camera gear from SLR’s to decent HD cams.

Once the camera is affixed to the helicopter it can tilted and panned to produce some truly professional shots you’d often associate with real helicopter footage.  Just don’t ask for this for Christmas as it costs $9,000.

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Today, I read an article that made me question my own sanity.

I read all about the Liquid Image Scuba Series HD320, and when you hear what this is and connect it to earlier work, then you’re going to have a serious problem yourself.  Because by the time I finish talking about this you’ll wonder the same thing I did:  namely, maybe Thanko’s Underwater USB Camera wasn’t so lunatic after all.

The Liquid Image Scuba Series HD320, you see, is a diving facemask with a side-mounted HD video camera.  All you have to do is line up the crosshairs on the mask with the thing you want to photograph, then press the button on the mask to take the footage.  It’s the equivalent of a five megapixel camera and can go as far down as 115 feet.

You can get one of these beauties via West Marine for just $300, but there are lower cost versions available.

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A new rumor has burst onto the scene out of the Kodak company, and everyone’s frantically trying to figure out just what exactly it is.  A “highly placed source” has promised that Kodak’s got something really big planned for the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show this January in Las Vegas, but what exactly it is, no one’s sure.

In fact, the only piece of solid data involved is that it’ll be bowing right alongside the successor to the current Kodak Zi8 pocket camcorder.

Possibilities at this point could be most anything–a storage device, a new DVD burner that works with the Zi8’s successor, anything.  In fact, this could be little more than a giant pot of smoke and mirrors designed to give Kodak free publicity by having gadget bloggers like us endlessly try to play guessing games about what it’ll actually be until CES hits.

I guess either way, we’ll have to wait for CES to find out how this one finally boils out.

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We’ve talked about the Argus II once before back in March, so this will be an update.  Seems that a test group of thirty two blind folks got implanted with Argus IIs, got their cameras and set out to see if they could actually see anything.  The early results are actually very promising, with many of the recipients now able to see shapes and lights.

One recipient, an optical scientist turned lawyer named , who had been sightless for thirty years prior to his receiving an Argus II system, went from thirty years sightless to being able to make out a door in front of him.  Sure, the whole system is pretty low-resolution right now, but that’s how these things start out.  Got to have a cathode tube system before you can get the 1080p plasma, you know.

The company that makes them, Second Sight Medical Products, is trying to get approval to market the devices, which are slated to cost $100,000 each.  Here’s the interesting question: will any insurance plan cover this?

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Oh Thanko…have I told you lately that I love you…r insane brand of gadget lunacy?

The boys and girls out at Thanko have truly done it again.  They’re offering up a waterproof USB camera that will remain waterproof up to 20 meters deep, which is approximately sixty feet.

It’s got four gigs of onboard memory, USB, stores files in AVI at 736X280 resolution at 20 frames per second.  Even better, the battery takes up to two full hours of nonstop running to go blank, so you’ll have plenty of time to learn all its various features.

But yes, you read that right…they’re actually offering up a waterproof diving USB camera.  I admit there are plenty of other possible uses for it, but the fact that you can actually use it as a diving camera strikes me as a bit outlandish.  But if you ever wanted to hunt gold in the Caribbean, and don’t mind shelling out a hundred and forty bucks worth of that gold in advance, this has GOT to be the way to do it.

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I’m not sure why you’d ever want a tiny spycam built into an equally tiny bedside clock–the less savory application would probably be too impractical as this is a VERY tiny clock–but just in case you’ve got an urge to keep a clock and a camera by your bedside, $47 will indulge your clock / camera desires with the Tiny Spy Camcorder Clock.

The internal Li-Battery will offer two hours of continuous use, and has four gig of built in memory.  It can also patch into your computer with an included USB cable so you can swap out data on the fly, clearing out the clock’s internal memory to continue recording.

If you’ve always wanted to watch yourself sleep, or just hope you can record something else, then the Tiny Spy Camcorder Clock is what you’re after.  Otherwise, I can’t imagine anyone either wanting or needing such a thing.

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If you’re anything like me, you’ve got an old cell phone or two laying around the house and you’re about dying to get rid of it.  But you’ve got no idea where or how to dump it.  We all know there are loads of hazardous material laws to grapple with, and those collection drives expect you to pay to dump your hardware.

Enter the EcoATM, a device the size of an actual ATM that’ll let you dump your hardware quick, easy, and sometimes, profitably.  Simply drop your old phone or other device into the EcoATM’s slot, and the machine will determine if it has any value.  The machine will then make you an offer for the device, which it will pay off from a separate slot, usually in the form of a gift card.

What if your device is worthless, you say?  Not a problem–there’s no such thing as a worthless device to the EcoATM.  Even if it has no residual value, you’ll still be able to leave the device with the EcoATM, but you’ll also get a “freebie item”, plus EcoATM will arrange for a tree to be planted in your honor somewhere, which still beats having to pay off the collection people all hollow.

EcoATM is actually doing pretty well so far–its first day in operation netted 23 phones and passed out a full hundred bucks in gift cards.  Word is it got a BlackBerry Curve in prime condition.  So chances are, this prototype will likely be coming to an electronics store near you.

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Thanko doesn’t exactly have a good record when it comes to their gadgets, folks, but here’s an exciting piece of news–apparently their MP4 viewer is coming to be regarded as a solid buy!

Now that’s exciting enough as it is–it’s almost like saying “Man, this fried cockroach tastes delicious!”–but not only will this little item, the DIGITAL MP4 AudioPlayer AV, play your MP4 videos, but it also serves as a digital camera.  It has 8GB of onboard memory, with miniSD cards fully supported, even if they only work with Microsoft XP and Microsoft Vista.

Moreover, it also includes a 4.3-inch screen, a mini remote, two mini speakers and an estimated battery life of four to six hours, making this one of the most portable media viewers ever.  Thanko is already selling this device to Japanese customers–word is that the English store will be selling it soon, in case you want to take the chance that this is Thanko’s best product ever.

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If you’ve got a hundred and thirty bucks to drop and you’re getting just so gosh darn sick and tired of people always noticing that you’re carrying a camera around, then you may be interested to hear about the Hammacher Schlemmer pen camera, a small, sneaky little spy cam built into a pen.

It records video from up to fifty feet away and can record in 6y40 x 480 resolution, which isn’t half bad for a tiny little pen camera.  Also, it has onboard internal memory sufficient to hold two and a half hours of video.

The best part is the price–you can live out all your James Bond fantasies now for just a measly hundred and thirty bucks, like I said above.  And just in case you were wondering, yes, the pen function does actually work.

And you can even buy them direct from the manufacturer, and there’s never been anything wrong with that.

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It’s really, REALLY, hard to find a camera any more without an LCD display, so I was definitely shocked to find the OneShot camera, a camera so tiny that it’s about the same size, length and width, as your thumb.

There is no LCD display here.  No slots for flash memory, either.  But it apparently somehow manages to not only come with face detection, but also never need batteries.  This camera actually recharges like some of those flashlights you see–all you have to do is shake it.

The OneShot seems to not only run on a dynamo but also offers no expansions in memory.  This may be one of the weirdest cameras I’ve ever SEEN.

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