The ever-so-geeky-but-cool Segway was launched in 2001 to revolutionise urban transport. The 80,000 Segways in operation worldwide include police and military patrols using the odd bikey-scootery-type two-wheeled electric vehicle operated by standing on the small platform and leaning, to change your direction and speed.
Most iPad cases are as glossy and elegant as the iPad itself and not designed to withstand the sticky fingers of a peanut-butter encrusted four year old or the handbag-bashing run for the train of the stressed-out Mum commuter. Here’s a superb case for the garden-variety Family iPad – The Aerosphere. Boasting a soft inner layer resembling a favourite furry toy, easily unhooked stretchy elastic fasteners and a foamy protective outer cover, it’s lightweight and cheap.
The Leapster Explorer is the latest must-have gizmo from the clever folk at LeapPad, complete with touchscreen display, high-res graphics, educational activities (disguised as games), exceptionally annoying music, mini-videos – plus a digital camera add-on. Every 4-8 year old will want one!
Always wanted to busk – but your instrument of choice is the piano? Would love to join the musicians around the campfire – but don’t want to set the baby grand alight? Move over, jazz hands – piano hands are here. These neoprene rubber gloves feature a fetching piano-key-themed design reminiscent of particularly sad neckties.
The LASER Navig8r i50 with “unique driver profiles” could be a handy gadget for the harassed parent with a learner-driver on board. With Driver Profiles allowing you to set up unique limits and logs, the GPS can monitor the learner drivers’ speed against the signposted limit, maintain a driving log and display real time data on driving hours completed. Automated learner nagging in irritating calm GPS voice – what’s not to like?
More and more research reveals that spending upwards of eight hours a day perched on one’s buttocks is terribly bad for one’s health – but by working at the Treadmill Desk, you can stop muscle wastage and by walking at two kilometres per hour for eight hours a day, five days a week, you could lose about 25 kg of weight in one year without making any other changes.
What the iPod did to music, the iPad will do to newspapers, ask any futurist. (After you’ve asked them how you get to be a futurist, of course – that’s the most important first question to put to any futurist you happen to meet.) But what on earth is an iPad anyway?
The Gorillatorch is really just a Gorillapod attached to a torch; with magnetic feet complete with rubberised footpads and magnificently twistable legs, it can be set up in all sorts of unstable situations.
For any parent who has run panic-stricken towards every unfenced water feature in a large park when their toddler has disappeared, for all those parents who were on first-name terms with the local police from when their kid could stagger – have I got a gadget for you!
It’s not a phone – it’s a phone holder, with loads of appeal. Yellow and shaped like a banana, the Banana Phone Cover is the perfect foil for those wielding a less-than-trendy so-last-year mobile phone