Your latest gadget 007.....

I grew up thinking that we would never see the cool gadgets in the James Bond movies. As technology progresses we see more and more of those "secret agent" gadgets coming to light. The Planon DocuPen RC800 just such an item.
This gadget (worthy of its own 007 film) is a hand held, full color, 24 bit scanner. The RC800 can store 100's of pages in its on-board memory (which is upgradeable with a micro-SD card slot inside the pen!) and scanning a page takes a flick of the wrist. A number of options are truly at your finger tips too: black and white, standard color or high color (24 bit) scanning. You can scan at resolutions from 100 to 400 dpi. Using "Paperport Software" which comes bundles with the Docupen you can scan letters, color documents and pictures. What sets the DocuPen apart from other scanners (other than its sheer coolness) is that it scans a FULL PAGE width, subsequently you get the entire page including text and graphics in as little as 4 seconds. The Docupen doesn't have wires nor does it have to be "connected" to your computer in order to scan. So, you can scan anything anywhere. Planon certainly lives up to its motto of "Redefining the way we work". At a price point of $249.99, its not cheap enough to add to your gadget collection but it's certainly affordable for the business professional.

I can see clearly now.

Sunglasses are a bane of our existence. The problem is no matter how much you spend on your designer (or thrift store) sunglasses you always run into the same problems; smudges on the lenses, sweat and dust.
Well the mad scientists over at Oakley have developed a cure. The Oakley Radar is their newest addition to an already huge variety of sunglasses and lenses that cover every activity you can think of (and let me say this up front, I LOVE Oakley! They are always working on the latest in eye wear technology and they make wicked cool glasses. Do I get paid by them? No but if they want to sponsor TheDigitalBlast.com, call me. Now back to the review). The benefit of the Radar? The hydrophobic (scared of water) coating makes the lens repel water, moisture (i.e. fogging) and finger oils. Not to mention the lenses have an antistatic treatment that prevents dust and other junk from sticking to the lens. Style and function in sunglasses that work for both athletic and night on the town endeavors for $155. What a bargain!

Sweetheart, you make my heart pound. Just look at my ring.

Yes, that could quite possibly be the worst use (and pick up line) for this new gadget but if I can think of it I'm sure there are tons of other guys that'll think it too. This is the Pulse Ring. A little gaudy yes and not the newest piece of bling you'll see on your favorite star or in an MTV video but it does a great job for such a tiny device. Training with a heart rate monitor (HRM) is the only way to train nowadays.
If you're like me you get tired of the ritual of putting on your "workout gear" (i.e. changing clothes, taking off your daily watch to strap on a different watch/receiver and a chest strap monitor) in order to go out for a run or a bike ride. Well the little Pulse Ring makes it a little easier. Just slide this ring on your finger and you're ready to go. The Pulse Ring is much smaller than a traditional watch-chest receiver set up and features: stopwatch, continuous heart rate display (30-250 beats per minute), a maximum/minimum heart rate target zone and ten hour count up timer. Not to shabby for a device that slips on your finger. Not to mention easy to use with only two buttons and the unit is safe from interference from other HRMs (like that guy running beside you with his own HRM) and its safe to use if you have a pacemaker. Which is pretty cool and big kudos to you if you have a pacemaker but are still out pounding the pavement. So you get all that for a price point around $40. Great price for you to try out something new or as a gift for the exercise demon in your life.

It ain't easy being green.

Well, as bad as it sounds to me...as I get older I realize that we produce a ton of waste. Eventually there will me little tech heads running around the "Digital Den" (new members to the party search the blog archive) and I like to make sure I don't leave the world worse of then when I got here. I'm not gonna go all "Al Gore" on you and preach about global warming or anything like that but I would like to offer a few options for how to handle those items that don't go in the recycle bin. The recycle bin...you do have one of those right? That little blue or green plastic container you put out on the curb once a week where you put plastic, aluminum, paper and the like? Has this symbol on the side.
Yeah, that one. Well there's a number of things you can't put in there and shouldn't go in your trash. Here's what to do with some of them.

Clothing: Come on ladies, you know there's stuff in those closets that you're never gonna wear again. And for the love of god don't give me the "its gonna come back in style" excuse. Neon, tie-dye and those clothes that are 2 sizes too small now aren't doing anyone any good in your closet. If you have women's professional clothing you can donate them to "www.dressforsuccess.com" which is a non-profit that helps disadvantaged women look for jobs. Then there's always the Salvation Army. They'll take anything you want to cast off: clothing, furniture, dishes or whatever. Go to "www.salvationarmy.org" to find your local drop off. Oh yeah, don't forget to get a receipt because you can claim those donations on your taxes.

Eyeglasses: If you wear them you probably have 2 or 3 old pairs stuck in a drawer somewhere. You can drop them off at your local Lion's Club or Lenscrafters and they will go to people who can't afford eyewear. Check out the Gift of Sight program at "www.givethegiftofsight.com".

Chemicals: Don't dump out the last of your cleaners in the toilet and recycle or throw away the bottle, visit "www.freecycle.org" and they'll drop by to cart away your spray bottles and cans.

Medications: Did you know that in a recent study more than 80% of our rivers contained chemicals from antibiotics, birth control pills and anti-depressants mostly because people just flush 'em? The Starfish Project "www.starfishproject.com" redistributes certain medications to countries in Africa. For expired meds, call your local drug store and see if they can incinerate them for you.

Cellphones: (see eyeglasses) Yup, in upgrading to that iPhone you got at least one old one in a drawer. Don't throw them in the trash; you can take old cell phones to Verizon and/or T-Mobile stores to be recycled or donate them to Collective Good "www.collectivegood.com" where your donation can be turned into cash for your favorite charity.

It’s not be easy being green but its getting there. And now for my moment of Zen……

Even my picture frame has an e-mail address!

I know at first glance, a wi-fi enabled, e-mail address having picture frame may sound far fetched but bear with me.
The eStarling 2.0 is in attractive digital picture frame on its own. The frame has 480 x 270 resolution in Widescreen Aspect Ratio. I would've liked a higher resolution but the .jpeg images still look great. What I really like is the wireless connectivity because it opens up a ton of new options. With its own e-mail address (once your eStarling is on the net, you get assigned a free dedicated e-mail adress to send photos to it. No worries about your picture frame getting spammed by allowing only e-mails from a certain e-mail address to be received) you can send pictures to it from a cell phone, friends can e-mail their photos to it or you can even set up a photo feed from you Flickr account. If you don't want to do that you can upload photos directly to the frame as it supports MMC, SD, MS and CF memory cards.

Away at college? Seperated by long distances? Wanna make your family members feel like their part of your life without having to own a computer and check e-mail? Then the eStarling 2.0 is just what you need. For $199, it makes the perfect Christmas gift too!

Dutch on CNN. What?

How wierd, I just had a bud send me this link for a piece I did for CNN a while back. One of the great benefits of my job is getting to work with the media in oreder to explian the cool stuff we're working on. Seems a bunch of people have seen this. Maybe I am getting famous (or infamous).

Our Grand Theft Auto just got carjacked!

Yes my fellow felons, it now looks like the next installment in our favorite crime doing-car jacking-hooker merriment (also known as Grand Theft Auto IV) has been pushed back to next year.
In a statement from Take-Two Interactive announced this past Thursday that the "game would not be released on Oct. 18 for PS3 and Xbox 360 as originally planned. Instead the game will arrive in Spring 2008.

Now the reason for the delay given in the statment was that it was "due to additional development time required to complete the title". WTF? Take Two has had engineers from both Sony and Microsoft working at thier studios. We've been tantalized with trailers for the game every couple of months to build the hype for the game. Not to mention the same studio has announced pushing back its other big tilte "Manhunt 2". That will not bode well financially for the company. The last GTA title that launched (and on time mind you) has sold 20 million copies thus far. Let's be honest, we've been seeing Xbox 360 versions of GTA IV stuff for a while but nothing on the PS3. Probably because as everyone in the industry has stated, the PS3 is the most difficult console to program for. Thanks again Sony, you lost your most exclusive title and now you're making the rest of us pay for it!

So while the industry is whispering about a giant potentially being toppled, others are gonna push up launch dates now that the juggernaut of GTA will not be here this holiday season. If Halo 3 gets pushed back, I'll start fashioning a noose out of power cords.