A Chinese design student has solved the eternal not-enough-USB ports problem in one fell swoop. The solution is more than just a USB hub, it's an infinite USB plug, that in theory lets you plug in as many USB devices as you can fit on the desk.

Getting enough power for all of them while not zonking out your computer's cooling system could be the problem, but hey, kudos to this student for thinking outside the box.

Sadly only a concept, we hope someone's going to pick this up and start manufacturing.

[via engadget, source yankodesign]

While we're on bike-related gadgets, let's mention the bike mug. it's not the most complex piece of human engineering we've ever covered in these pages, but for those of you who like cycling and like drinking hot beverages this could be the bike mug for you.

No it doesn't pipe warm tea into your mouth, it is an insulated cup that attaches to your handlebars. During pauses in your cycle, you can pick it up, take a sip or two, and enjoy a relaxing drink while you wait at the traffic lights in front of roaring motorists.

Holding 16oz of tea or coffee, it has a slide-button lid you can operate with one hand.

Apparently, it really pisses motorists off: "Every time I lifted the cup from its handlebar-holder while waiting at traffic lights, I swear I could hear the drivers behind muttering in disapproval." writes Helen Pidd in the Guardian who, err road-tested it.

While the idea is nice it seems that the attachment and the lid are a bit shoddy, breaking loose after a few trips and spilling liquid when taking speedbumps.

Soma Morning Rush, £35, from Soma

You know when you want to screw two different sorts of screws in, have a nut-removing wrench and then open a bottle of beer afterwards? Wouldn't it be convenient if you had all those tools in one device, perhaps a device that is also a keyring? Ha. Ha well you can have all that, for under five dollars too - the screwpop keyring combines two different sorts of screwdriver bits, a nut-remover wrench and a bottle cap. The keychain perfect for DIY at short notice.

The ScrewPop Keychain tool, $5 from ScrewTopTool.com

I'm a fan of Quirky's community designed products after checking out the Mugstir spoon they cunningly created.

A new product thrown up by the website this week is the Wrapster, a useful way to store earphones in your pocket or handbag, avoiding the usual snarls and tangles that are such a pain in the ass.

Yes it is just a bit of rubber, and yes it will mean you have to

Described as a "cord-management solution" it is 4" long, comes in different colours and clips onto your shirt pocket.

Wrapster: $6.50 from Quirky.com

A Londoner with a bike, some precision-cut aluminum sheeting and a hell of a creative vision has create the ultimate pimped-out bicycle. Made from the afore-mentioned aluminium sheeting bolted on to a steel frame, Charlie Hope's bicycle features lights, music and the bike bit still works too. Apparently it's inspired by Japan's dekotora art truck craze in the '70s. No, I don't know what that is either, but there's some information on it here.

[via PinkTentacle]

Why touch a screen when you can touch yourself? Er, that seems to be the message of SkinPut, a new technology that turns your forearm into a control panel for gadgets.

It allows you to tap your arm to input commands into your phone instead of fiddling around with the keypad. Yes your arm is now the touchscreen.

Skinput technology uses two pieces of technology to make this work - a projector and a microphone. The pica projector which can be built into mobile phones projects buttons on your skin; and then very sensitive microphones can 'hear' the sound you make when you tap your skin. Not only can they hear it, but the microphones can also analyse the sound and work out whereabouts in your arm you tapped. Depending on the density of bone and flesh in different parts of your arm, slightly different sounds are made when you tap it and Skinput is able to work out what.

Freaky eh?

The catch is that you have to project these buttons onto a very particular place on your arm for this to work, which means you need to wear an armband to hold the phone.

Alternatively you could just a get a few buttons tattooed into the correct places and do away with the projector but hold fire on that till we hear a bit more about whether this technology will actually take off or not.

Once the armband has worked out which gesture you performed it sends a signal via Bluetooth to any of a number of nearby devices.

"Skinput works very well for a series of gestures, even when the body is in motion," the researchers say, with subjects able to "deftly scroll through menus whether they moved up and down or flicked across their arm."

Microsoft are funding the research on this by scientists at MIT, who will be presenting their findings in April at the Computer-Human Interaction meeting in Atlanta, Georgia

[via The New Scientist]

If laying your head down on an inflated plastic bag placed on top of your laptop is your idea of comfort... My God.

Anyway, if you do find yourself yearning for such an accessory, you now purchase a professionally made one: the iSleep USB pillow - specially honed for powernaps. It plugs into a USB port on your laptop and auto-inflates when you shut your laptop, deflating when you open your laptop again. I suppose the advantage is that you don't have to move to snooze.

Even better than the actual product is the description of it on the German site where the inventor explains the concept with an evocatively-described late-night scenario:

"It is almost midnight, the eyes get heavier and our "to do" list waits with several prettily marked points of work, which have to be done until 8:00 o'clock in the morning. Yes, sleep is luxury and our working place "NO SLEEP" area.

This continues:

"Because of this sad fact our upper neck hurts for days after slaming on a wooden table or against the keyboard...even after consuming 3 bottles Club Mate!"

Tell me about darling, the slamming on the desk, the Club Mate... my head does hurt.

"This painfull experience will now stop! Now there is i -sleep, a comfortable soft pillow which can be attached on the top of each leptop and functiones like a rescue west in an airplane - with the difference...it really saves us. If we tend to fall asleep, we just close our laptop, a pillow gets filled with warm air, music is being played and after 10 minutes the alarm clock rings. Bonne nuit!"

Alternatively go have a hot bath while eating chocolate ice-cream, truffles watching Friends and drinking - you won't get any work done, but you will learn the true meaning of comfort.

The iSleep USB pillow is actually a university project, so not commercially available, but do see digital.ukd for more information.

It's 30 litre capacity, it accepts standard bin liners and oh yes - it's an intelligent bin. The Intelligent 30l Bin from Jaycar knows when you want open the lid - and opens it for you. Using motion sensors in its lid it detects when you are waving your hand around above it and opens automatically.

Great - unlike with swing bins or pedal bins you don't even need to make contact with the bin's gleaming chrome surface: keeping yourself a bit cleaner and News3 also points out that this would be good for people with disabilities who find these things hard to operate.

On the downside, waving your hand with rubbish in it over the bin could result in little pieces of tomato juice or whatever you're holding getting splattered around the walls.

Or if if you're just a heavy gesticulator you might just find the bin just popping open as you emphasise a point. Crazy.

It runs off a pack of 6A batteries that need to be replaced approximately every 6 months.

$199 NZ dollars from Jaycar Electronics

[via 3news]

I'd heard of pasta-making machines, but not toilet-paper manufacturing ones. But a Japanese company have taken recycling to a new level by making one.

And not only have they made it, they've called it White Goat which is a great name for a gadget and captures the chewing and masticating functions of the machine perfectly. Put paper in one end and it is shredded, mixed with water and turned to a pulp and deposited out the other end as loo roll.

It's not an instant solution so if you've run out toilet roll, you'll have to wait for half an hour before your copy of the Guardian sports section becomes usuable in its new form. In fact, this isn't really intended for private use: more for big office blocks with a large turn-around of printer paper: it takes 40 sheets of A4 to make one roll.

The toilet rolls produced work out cheaper than the average roll, at 10 or 11 cents a roll - 6p, but you have to set that against the initial $100,000 for the 6 ft tall 600 kilos gadget.

As Geekwithalaptop say: this would be a good gadget to have around in a company where security is important. Yes, no matter how interesting that document I doubt anyone will be dredging it up after it has made its way into the sewer system.

How comfortable is the loo roll produced? We imagine it's not Andrex but surely the warm glow of doing the right thing by the environment must counteract any scratchiness.

Video:


[via GeekwithLaptop]

Smartphones are the obvious location for apps, they've got loads between them but, they're not the only places. Obviously laptops and desktop computers have had apps or widgets for ages, whether they're calculators or a Spotify launcher.

Apps are creeping into TVs - new sets from places like Samsung and LG come with Facebook and weather applications - and other household appliances are getting in on apps too.

The Wall Street Journal drew attention to one of the more surprising places you can find apps, a Bluetooth headset, Aliph's Jawbone Icon. It's headphones that connect with your computer or indeed smartphone via Bluetooth meaning you don't need to plug them in and you can talk hands-free.

Plug the headset into a computer go to the relevant website and you can download apps for this, what is essentially a microphone with an earpiece.

Of course as the WSJ points out - this is great for consumers because it means that when they buy something it can increase in functionality through these extra pieces of software.

So how can you possibly increase the functionality of a headset with apps?
Well, through your computer you can give it either audio apps or dialling apps. Audio apps do things like give you an audio reminder that the battery is about to die, dialling apps "perform functions by dialing out on your phone, like hands-free text messaging". Presumably you need a handset to really understand what that means.

See Jawbone products here
The Jawbone MyTalk software site is still in private Beta
The Wall Street Journal is behind a paywall so you probably can't see that either, but if you can, it's here

Weird invention of the week goes to the carbon-dioxide sensitive Corset, the C02rset.

Not only is this hook-and-eye corset sensitive to C02, it's also gonna make darn sure that you're pretty sensitive to C02 too after you've worn it, because as carbon dioxide levels in the air increase, tiny motors draw the laces in, tightening the corset.. Making it MORE DIFFICULT TO BREATHE. Like carbon dioxide does.. you see. The C02 sensors are sewn onto the front in an embroidery pattern.

This eco-conscious S&M piece is not part of a new range in Topshop but is in fact the creation of Kristin O'Friel, a student at NYU ITP, a New York art school, who made it as a school project last Spring.

It also optionally has a visual indicator on a jacket, shape changing ornaments or light-up patches to warn you about the C02 levels before you become so squished and breathless you can't move.

See women and a man getting squished by the C0rset on Flickr
And Kirsten outlines the project and influences on her blog

[via Gizmodiva]

Want a webcam with a difference? A webcam that boldly goes where few webcams have gone before. A webcam that shows that you more than anyone else in the office is a true Trekkie fan..?

From that house of magic, Brando, comes the Star Trek webcam - a mini replica of Original Star Ship Enterprise NCC-170 - complete with a "stylish bendable gooseneck mount", glowing turbo engines (red LEDs) and a cunningly concealed webcam. Perched elegantly on top of your monitor this signals TREKKIE to everyone in the immediate vicinity. You need only get the cute uniform to complete the effect.

$30 from Brando (worldwide shipping available)

We're always up for weird USB gadgets, and this one is pretty out there. Not only is it a kooky shape - a flower, it also releases aromatherapy scents that waft gently from the head of the plastic flower and fill the immediate vicinity of your USB port with soothing odours.

I suppose it does the same job as a scented candle, but try pulling one of those out in the office - you'd either get health and safety onto you or everyone would think you were trying to turn your desk into some hippy romantic boudoir - or both. :O
Invented by an American entrepreneur called Fredrik Perman, a man who clearly wants to bring nice smells to offices all over the country, the USB Scent Flowers have just been launched in the USA.

One downside I suppose is that the scent flower uses what you might call proprietary scent sachets. The Scent Flower comes with 3 refills each lasting approximately a month, giving you 3 months of fragrance before you will need to purchase more. But I suppose given that the whole thing costs 10 dollars or £6.15 that's not too bad.

Also I haven't had a err 'hands-on' with this so I don't know what the scent actually smells like. However I do know it comes in four different scents: Ocean Breeze, Purple Lavendar, Pink Jasmine and White Chamomile.

Costs $9.99 - not including postage, from USBflower

Just so you didn't think everything was too serious at CES, here's the iPhone hat. It looks like a mixture between a baseball cap and a small head-tent and it lets you watch videos on your iPhone or iPod touch, with ease. Incorporating an iPhone holder and a magnifying glass it creates a private mini cinema around your head. Only catch being of course that you look a bit stupid. And if your phone rings...? you're gonna have to dismantle the whole affair.

Anyway, for only $19.95, it might be worth it for the times you have to sit on a train and don't really mind if fellow passengers give you funny looks. Hell you won't be able to see their funny looks anyway, you'll be watching a film.

Imagine a disaster scenario: burning lava, an earthquake or maybe just the fusebox has blown and you need a light - where's your flashlight? Your pocketknife? Your energy pills? Why, of course, they're in pockets on the cat's emergency jacket.

Yes your cat can have an emergency jacket.

The pet emergency jacket is a real true product you can buy, from helpful website JapanTrends. The Pet Evacuation Jacket is good for you and good for the cat. Made of flame-retardant material it comes with a convenient carrying handle for picking up and transporting your skittish pet in times of crisis. = Win for cat.

Packed into the sides of the jacket are pockets containing pet food, transportable pet bowls and your own emergency kit: flashlights, nutrition packs, a first aid kit and an emergency whistle. = Win for you.

Above all, the pet evacuation jacket is another triumph for Japanese design. Just make sure that kitty wears its jacket at the right time, oh and it weighs 20lb so make sure you tone up its forelegs to cope with the weight.

Find it for $480 at the Japan Trend Shop

Yep another survey this time from Logitech, the webcam maker, which has just asked a load of women over the age of 50 what they want for Christmas, and guess what they all want webcams! Well many do want webcams (to talk to their grandchildren obviously) but also other high tech goodies like widescreen TVs, PCs and even games consoles.

Logitech discovered that over two thirds of over 50s females wanted high tech stuff much more than they wanted traditional pensioner friendly fodder like foot spas and gardening gear.

Yehia Oweiss, Regional Director for Logitech UK & Ireland says: "Our research shows a growing demand for gadgets from the over 50's age group. With Christmas just around the corner, we're conscious that grandparents across the UK will be looking for expert help when it comes to getting all their new gadgets up and running and have made sure our support teams are on standby for a busy season."

I think Logitech is being a little bit naughty with its age barrier. In many ways 50 isn't that old and the over 50s women category now includes Madonna, Joanna Lumley and Helen Mirren. However it is clear that tech toys are no longer the preserve of young geeky males, and that's a good thing.

Sleek, powerful, creative ... these are the phones, laptops, games consoles and cameras that got me weak at the knees.

I say for girls, boys can join in too.

Click on the image below to start the gallery

Satnavs tell you where to drive, so it was only a matter of time before they started telling you how to drive too. And someone's just gone and launched one in the UK. With a twist though.

Econav fixes on your car's dashboard like a TomTom or other standard satnav and tells you how to drive in most efficient and eco-friendly way possible as well as where to go. That means a) it's better for the environment and b) you save more fuel.

Select the make of car you own from the Econav's 8000 strong database and it sets up the sat nav up so it can accurately tell you which gear you should be in and if you're accelerating or braking excessively. It also has an inbuilt speed limit warning.

This reminds me of my mum. But the Econav, unlike my mum, then measures how much fuel you've saved by following the good driving recommendations and presents you with a Econav Report.

Econavs were initially launched in Spain by creators Vexia but their new versions will be available in the UK as well.

Available on Amazon.co.uk:
Econav 480 (4.3" screen) UK & Ireland maps: £179.99 inc VAT on amazon

Econav 380 (3.5" screen) UK & Ireland maps: £149.99 inc VAT on amazon

You can get GPS systems for driving and cycling, so it stands to reason that someone would invent a GPS system for skiing, hiking and err.. golfing. (Well, not golfing so much, but the other two).

Satsports do GPS applications and hardware for sports, and they have just released 3 new mobile apps for Windows and Android handsets. They are:
1. Satski: for skiing and snowboarding
2. Pocket Caddy: for golf
3. SatsportsLog: for running, cycling, mountain biking, hiking, walking

What with the chilly onset of winter and thus the skiing season, let's take a look at Satski, the winter-sports offering. They say:
"This 'must have' ski gadget enables skiers to navigate the piste, record their day on the slopes and speed levels all from their pocket."

Working either on Windows or Android phones Satski is a GPS system which uses 'real time' while on the piste to plot user's routes and guide skiers and boarders of all different levels around the resort, providing an easy to use, interactive piste map.

Key features include:
1. Point-to-point navigation
2. Real-time stats (speed, distance, altitude)
3. Record and replay your tracks
4. Emergency button
5. Resort Info (restaurants, ski hire etc)

The Satski app is available on Windows Mobile for 7.7 euros, for 5 euros on Android, or alternatively on Satsports own GPS device which costs 339 euros. It's not on iPhone, we note. Will your phone work at temperatures below freezing? We hope so. Get a nice warm woolly case for it perhaps?

Find out more information on all three apps and the Satski hardware device on the SatSports homepage.

Related: Nu-m8 lets you track your kids with a GPS wristband

Computer-design tends to get sleeker and more minimalist as time passes - with laptops increasingly resembling ice cubes or pebbles.

But one desktop is bucking the trend and drawing its influences from 1950s TV sets and antique technology, referencing a time when computers were machines and there was more steel involved than silicon.

This retro PC concept from Philco draws on typewriters and ancient TV sets to create this strangely attractive piece.

Sadly this is more of a design concept than a for-sale-now item. But look at more pictures from SchultzeWORKS