Gadgets, gadgets are everywhere! We live in a world where ideas run free and people have the power to turn them into real projects. Sometimes these ideas are by big companies, sometimes they are by independent designers. They range from extraordinarily practical to devices that leave you thinking, “WTF is the point of this thing?”

Looking for some of the coolest, strangest or downright most unique gadgets out there? So are we.

In our latest feature, Mobile Magazine scores the net looking for some of the most interesting (or odd) gadgets we can find. Some of these will be mobile gadgets, some will be for automobiles or really anything in between.

Without further ado, we present you this week’s gadget roundup:

BACtrack

While not the first mobile breathalyzer, this one is a bit unique. The purpose of this breathalyzer goes beyond just knowing your current ‘score’. With a detailed smartphone app, you can get information on when you will be able to drive again or simply an ETA on when you will appear sober – Perhaps for those of us returning home to an angry wife just waiting to catch you at your worst? Whatever reason have you, this is a pretty slick idea.

Beyond giving you an ETA on when you will be sober, the information can also tell you information like how well you can hold your liquor and give you a better idea of when you’ve had too many to safely drive, walk or whatever have you.

The device itself will run you $150 and works with devices like the iPhone using Bluetooth technology.

BlueBulb

Alright so we don’t normally think of light bulbs as sophisticated pieces of technology, and certainly not what we could call a ‘gadget’. The BlueBulb LED light does things differently, though it isn’t the first of its kind by a longshot.

BlueBulb is designed to use Bluetooth and an iOS app that allows you to control and color customize the light. It works with any light socket and can produce quite a vast array of colors.

Quirky.com Concept Paper Shredder

Ah, one of the standard office gadgets that just about everyone has around the office or even the house. While this particular ‘gadget’ isn’t yet an available device, it comes from Quirky.com and is one of the many devices on the site that start as concepts and a voted on. If enough votes are achieved, the device is made a reality.

So what makes this paper shredder different? According to its creator Pavol Huserka, it is designed to not only shred paper but also has a unique compactor function that turns the shreddings into cubes that work great as briquets for your fireplace or where ever else you are looking to start a fire.

While not a totally revolutionary idea, it is still a pretty cool concept that we felt was worth mentioning.

McDonalds “Potato Holder”

Most of us should and could live without the fast food french fries. Still, if you are not only tempted to occasionally munch of some fried potatoes but like to do so while driving, then you’ll find this potato holder to be exactly what you are looking for.

With this McDonalds holder you can simply have your fries propped up in your cup carrier, instead of scrounging around the bag making a mess of things and diverting your focus away from the road.

The potato holder is designed by McDonald’s of Japan, so you probably won’t have an easy time getting ahold of it elsewhere.

Predator Helmet

What could be cooler than a specially modified motorcycle helmet designed to look Predator headgear? This unique helmet is the work of Russian company NLO Moto and weighs in at a rather protective price point of $780 – and that’s just the base model. Extra optional features like a protective face shield adds $59, teeth adds $95, carbon fiber shell brings up the price by $249 and carbon fiber tips for the Predator’s dreadlocks adds another $109. That means a top of the line helmet would run $1292.

Outside of looking pretty awesome, the helmet is actually built on a certified motorcycle helment and features three optional red LEDs to replicate the Predator’s targeting system.

While it might have been certified before the modifications, it is worth noting that the helmet could seriously limit visibility and so it isn’t actually recommended for wearing on the road.

Watermelon cooler

Not going to lie, when I first heard about this one, I wondered what the hell would someone do with this. Still, the Japanese “Tama-Chan” could be great for those who wish to picnic and want a way to keep their watermelons absolutely cool outdoors in the summer heat.

The Tama-Chan is a product of Joybond and the cooler is designed to work through a car’s cigarette lighter and of course it will keep things cool even after being unplugged at least for a while and until you open it up for a while.

What’s even more interesting and worthwhile is that the it can also work as a heater, keeping items that need to be warm from getting too cold in the winter.

The Tama-Chan is priced at 19,950 yen – about $200 – which is probably more than most of us would pay for something like this when we can simply put some ice in a standard cooler and call it good.

That’s A Wrap

So that’s this week’s Gadget Roundup. Which of the gadgets were your favorite? Could you see yourself buying and using any of these, if so, which one?

If you know of a relatively recently released unique gadget that we didn’t cover, let us know about it in the comments. We will be watching this page and if you come up with a cool idea, we will be more than willing to add it!

The post Mobile Magazine Gadget Roundup (4/24) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Being a father isn’t easy. You want to be with your kids and keep them safe, but you need to know when to give them a little freedom and trust. Then there is also the matter of getting your daily dose of gadgets and hunter drones. It’s a tricky balance!

This was the dilemma Paul Wallich faced with his son, but rather than remain overly protective and personally walk him to the bus each morning, he chose the altogether more awesome option of building a quadcopter drone to track his son to ensure he kept out of trouble.

The full details of the quadcopter can be seen over at IEEE Spectrum, but basically the drone has been designed to lock on to a GPS tracker hidden in his son’s backpack. The drone then follows his son for a set distance ensuring he is safe before returning back to base.

Not only a great concept for keeping your kids safe, but also an excellent way to improve your child’s imagination, who can now walk to school pretending they are being chased by Terminator style robotic drones.

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The post Dad Builds Flying Drone to Track Kids on the Way to School appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Samsung has decided that every pocket needs it’s own projector, and so the company is launching a nifty looking Beam Projector.

Rather than shoehorning a miniature projector into all of their phones, Samsung has decided that there is enough demand to warrant producing a handheld projector which can link up to your current gadgets and turn any wall in to a cinema screen.

While Samsung hopes you will be using the new Beam Projector with their Galaxy phones, tablets or players, they have been courteous enough to allow it to work with any device which supports MHL/HDMI.

So what about the specs? Well a 20 lumens bulb should generate enough light to project your Christmas movies on the living room wall while a 1650mAh battery should see at least a few hours of use.

Unfortunately (yes, there has to be an “Unfortunately”) the Samsung Beam Projector seems to be headed for the Korean market only, and no news of a worldwide launch has been announced at the time of writing.

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Personally, I don’t see much value in Windows Gadgets, but there are many Windows Vista and 7 fans that do make use of them on regular basis. The problem is that gadget users are about to find that Microsoft is ripping them away with a new security patch. You might be curious about what kind of possible security risk a widget on your desktop could have, but apparently they are bad news. Recently, MS made the realization that desktop widgets have a web-based code that has flaws that could easily allow gadgets that look normal to be malicious spyware. Because of the way gadgets work, these things could use backdoors that would make it much easier to affect computers negatively than other methods.

As a result of this discovery, Microsoft has created a new patch that disables the gadgets entirely, though its not entirely clear whether or not the company has intentions to fix the security problems and put gadgets back, or if they decided to just ax them permanently. Just curious, any Windows users here that actually make use of these gadgets? If so, how do you feel about MS just ripping them away? I understand security is important, but surely there has to be other ways to fix these vulnerabilities.

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The post Windows Vista And Windows 7 Gadgets Prove To Have A Very Real Security Flaw appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

According to an article on Gizmodo, phone cases are unnatural. The phones that are painstakingly designed by different manufacturers should be allowed to “roam free, nude, as nature intended”, showing off the beautiful designs to everyone. And it’s not worth all the protection as people will end up upgrading to the latest device as soon as their two-year contract is up. The author has even said that a few scratches will also be a great memory, a reminder of who you used to be. And apparently the techies at the above said website are united on the matter as revealed by a quick survey.

But we are sticking to another formula, no phone case = broken phone. And every human being has the tendency to become clumsy at some point in their lifetime. And most families have at least one Bart Simpson type in their home to bring about a few scratches on their most beloved gadgets. So which way do you go?

We can take as example one of the most popular devices out there – the Apple iPhone. Both the faces of the iPhone are made up of glass and those faces have been placed at a raised position above the frame. And the bezel around the edge of the glass is very tiny as well. The conclusion: the device has not been designed to be used without a case.

And of course, it’s fun to show off our latest tech to everyone. But what if there is nothing left to show off? And most people find their device as precious things; they want to keep it with them as long as possible. There is no two year limit to their gadget love. And memories? Seriously, do you want to end up remembering the night you got so drunk that you used your phone as a foot rug?

And we are tempted to say something about that nature intended thing that they were talking about. Evolution did not design man at first with clothes on. Does that mean we should also set ourselves free?

The post Are We Ruining Our Phones With Phone Cases? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android Smartphone

This is the ultimate. The Galaxy Nexus from Samsung and Google has officially landed at Verizon in the United States and at Bell in Canada. The true Google smartphone is the first with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, as you know, loaded with that beautiful 720p Super AMOLED HD Contour display, 32GB storage, LTE/CDMA, 5MP rear camera, zero shutter lag, and a 1.2GHz dual core processor. Oh, and that face recognition unlock feature is pretty spiffy too. The official price from Verizon is $299 on a two-year contract and Bell has it for $159.95 on a three-year agreement, though there are some special holiday deals kicking around that could save you some money too.

Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1

Speaking of Android, the Google-powered army of tablets is on the rise, but you don’t have to break the bank to get enlisted. Whereas Honeycomb tablets from Asus and Samsung can run you $400 or more, the Lenovo IdeaPad K1 can be had for $300-$350 if you shop around. You still get a 10-inch screen, 1GB RAM, and a Tegra T20 dual core processor. Yes, the Kindle Fire and Kobo Vox are even cheaper, but they offer a more restricted experience out of the box. After all, they’re e-readers first and tablets second.

Olympus E-PL3 Micro Four-Thirds Digital Camera

I really like my Olympus E-PL1. The micro four-thirds format gives the flexibility of interchangeable lenses, as well as plenty of manual controls, without the bulk of a true DSLR. The image sensor still isn’t as big as your Canon or Nikon SLR, but the Olympus E-PL3 offers tremendous image quality from its 12.3MP High Speed Live MOS sensor and new TruePic VI image processing engine. The flippy-uppy flash has been swapped out for an external flash that goes in the hot shoe, and the 3.0-inch display tilts 80-degrees up and 45-degrees down. Pricing ranges depends on the kit you choose, but expect to pay $600 or so.

CyberPower TRVL918 Travel Surge Suppressor

Don’t you hate it when you show up at a hotel room and there are no available wall outlets? Then, you have to unplug one of the desk lamps just so that you can charge your laptop? For the traveling gadget geek in your life, consider the CyberPower TRVL918. This is the same kind of idea as the Belkin travel surge protector that you may have seen before, but there are a couple of notable differences. Yes, there are still three regular surge protected outlets, but now you get two USB charging ports. What’s more, these USB ports do up a full amp each, so they should be able to charge most iDevices, Android devices, and whatever other USB-charging gear you might have. The TRVL918 retails for about $20.

Star Wars R2-D2 Interactive Droid

Last and certainly not least, we have the droids you are looking for. This is the R2-D2 Interactive Droid. Your Star Wars sidekick may not be quite as smart as its on-screen counterpart, but it is smarter than just a prop that sits in the corner. It’s interactive, moving and dancing around the room, playing music and games, and even “remembering” you and reacting accordingly. Too bad it’s so expensive at $400, but I have seen it get down as low as $150 or so.

The post 2011 Gadget Gift Guide appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Summer is right around the corner, so you know what that means: you’re about to start sweating like a pig (even though pigs don’t actually sweat). Helping you overcome that sticky situation is something called the CoolWare Personal Cooling System.

Available from The Sharper Image, it’s a collar that you wrap around your neck and it’s supposed to keep you as comfortable as possible when the mercury starts to rise. The inner part is made of anodized aluminum (cool metal always feels nice on a hot day), and the inside contains a two-speed fan and two ounces of water in a reservoir.

Taken all together, you experience a cooling sensation that “refreshes” your entire body. You’ll probably still want to have an icy cold drink on hand and you’ll need to swap out the battery and/or water in the CoolWare every 2 to 4 hours, but at least you’ll look like Rover with his invisible fence collar while you’re doing it.

Check it out for $49.99. Or just stay indoors with a desk fan reading Mobile Magazine.

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Now the Rock-It.  It’s been done before, but has it ever been done right?  The video of OrigAudio founder Jason Lucash and Mike Szymczak on Fox Business News shows them strapping the Rock-It to anything from a recycling bin, plastic cup, to a cereal box.  Each thing you stick it on, depending on its acoustical properties, will give off different sounds and qualities.  Great for hotel rooms, i’d like to see how it would work on our 10′ windows. It runs off 2 AAA batteries or a USB connection.  OrigAudio sells it for $49 and they recommend strapping it to cardboard boxes, doors, windows, mirrors, lamp shades, flat surfaces, file cabinets, dressers, and home appliances.

The post Fold n’ Play speaker cube guys show off Rock-It, sound transducer appeared first on Mobile Magazine.