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The 'mouse' and its many mutations
Since its inception in the mid-'60s, the "mouse," as it came to be known, has morphed and mutated into a diverse assortment of styles to accommodate efficiency, ergonomics and portability. In this week's Rewind we surf through the history of the device from its humble beginnings to its current futuristic incarnations.
The oversized iPhone 6 Plus needs an oversized thumb to match
Did you order an iPhone 6 Plus only to find that the phone was far too big when it finally arrived at your door? I mean seriously, the thing is practically a coffee table. But that's ok, thanks to Japan's Thanko Inc., which has come up with an absolutely genius solution to the phablet problem: A bigger thumb. You read that correctly. A Japanese accessory maker has a massive slip-on thumb for sale that is designed to help you reach all the corners of your phablet without two hands. It's obnoxious and silly and it looks like a joke... but as far as functionality goes, it would seem to work just as well as any capacitive input device. The third thumb is priced at 1,480 yen, or roughly US$13.50, and it even comes with a three-month warranty. You'd obviously get plenty of laughs if anyone ever saw you wearing something like this in public, but if you're particularly miffed by the unreachable corners of your iPhone 6 Plus, you might not care about the giggles. [via Wall Street Journal]
This year's hottest pocket mirror is also a USB 3.0 multi-format card reader
We always knew that the worlds of technology and popular culture were on a collision course of epic proportions, and if this isn't proof... well, you might say that proof simply doesn't exist. Brando's newest gizmo has an identity crisis that Charlie Sheen would simply salivate over, but if we had to guess, we'd surmise that a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed card reader -- complete with support for CompactFlash, SDXC and M2 cards -- does a lot more #winning with a mirror slapped onto the side. Pre-order yours today for the tidy sum of $25, or alternatively, a vial of #tigerblood.
Crapgadget: 'blurring the line between comical and offensive' edition
Just because the flow of Crapgadgets has apparently slowed from an outpouring to a mere flood doesn't mean we haven't been dutifully collecting the worst of the bad over the past few months. Without further ado, we present to you the latest edition, complete with a handful of this quarter's most atrocious / splendiferous gadgets. Frankly, it's a chore just deciding where to start -- should we extol the portable speaker kit with an utterly unnecessary Core i5 label on the outside, or give priority to Thanko's heated mousepad / hand-engulfing cat face? On second thought, maybe it's the real wood stick-on that enables every smartphone owner to literally knock on wood whenever the mood strikes. Unfortunately for us, there's also an iPhone 4 steering wheel to consider, not to mention a stick figure speaker with a questionable audio jack and a retrofied telephone with an integrated reading light. Have a peek at each below, and let us know in the poll below which is most abhorrent. And remember, honesty really is the best policy. Read - Portable speaker kit, Core i5-powered! Read - Audiobot, who could use a zippered fly Read - Thanko's cat face / mousepad / warmer Read - Knock On Wood iPhone stick-on Read - iPhone 4 steering wheel (with speakers!) Read - USB retro telephone (with alarm clock!) %Poll-62274%
Earbud / alarm clock takes the comfort out of sleeping
Love sleeping with earbuds in? Hate setting your smartphone in its alarm dock before you go to bed? The folks at Thanko have unveiled a little something called EARINALM which may be right up your alley. The premise is pretty straightforward: it's a set of earbuds that contains an alarm clock, stopwatch, and a calendar. The package includes a USB adapter of charging. Yours now for a mere ¥2,980, or roughly $35. The As Seen On TV infomercials practically write themselves.
Thanko's USB kitty mask might get you noticed
You know why he's so happy? Because he's Japanese, and being Japanese is awesome. Trains run on time, robots do the work, and you get to wear kitty-faced masks with a USB- or battery-powered fan to circulate the atmosphere in front of your air holes... and nobody cares. ¥1,980 (about $24), or ¥2,190 gift wrapped for someone special.
Thanko's monitor hub takes all your desk clutter and hangs it from your LCD
Your desk is a mess. Didn't your mother teach you anything? I mean, really, wouldn't that pen be better off in a drawer or something instead of tossed haphazardly behind your keyboard? And how long are you going to keep those empty soda bottles there? Maybe you should organize yourself a little, and maybe Thanko can help with its LCD monitor hub. It attaches to the sides and bottom of your LCD, giving you a four-port USB replicator below to help reduce cable-clutter and a series of tilt-out drawers on either side of your display where you can stuff the pens, pencils, cables, candies, thumb drives, screwdrivers, utility knives, digital cameras, toy cars, Gorillapods, memory cards, stickers, scissors, headphones, Wiimote wrists straps, and everything else that might not otherwise have a home. Or maybe that's our desks and we're just projecting.
Thanko's Laptop Table Bag stores your laptop, hides a table, saves your lap
We've all ready the scary reports of what happens when a laptop makes your lap top a little too toasty. The solution? Buying a desk, obviously, and now Thanko has one that you can take with you. It's called the Laptop Table Bag and it looks like a surprisingly normal, if decidedly corporate-issue, laptop bag. But, out of the bottom pivots four legs to hold your mobile device at what may or may not be a comfortable height. The 5980 yen ($75) contraption weighs about six pounds empty, making it a poor companion for your ultralight, but if your machine is more of a luggable -- or if your manservant does the carrying for you -- you may not even notice the extra heft. %Gallery-106360%
Thanko's Spy Button video camera becomes slightly less ridiculous with high-def video mode
It still won't fool your mark if you pin it to a stained T-shirt, but if you're rocking the plaid button-down look you'll be happy to know Thanko's Spy Camera has received an incremental update. For ¥4,980 (about $58), the third revision of the button-hole camera will shoot 8 megapixel stills and record in 1280 x 960 HD for up to 50 minutes on a charge, which sets the household espionage device just this side of crapgadget territory. Bring your own dignity... and microSD card.
Crapgadget: you never thought you'd need this (and you were right) edition
A great idea can change the world -- and a bad idea? All too often, that becomes a crapgadget. Do you really need a pair of speakers for your MP3 player shaped like stuffed bears? Juicy Couture seems to think so. How about fluffy "cat ear" headphones? We wouldn't recommend them unless you're a 13-year old girl -- or maybe getting ready for Anthrocon 2011. And don't even get us started on Tuttuki Bako, the little green box that exists so you can put your finger in it and see a heavily pixelated, monochromatic rendering of you finger... in a green box! We also have a Bluetooth speakerphone unit for your wrist and an ultraviolet toothbrush sterilizer that gets power from glorious USB. No thank you. Read - UVMini USB Toothbrush Sanitizer Read - Tuttuki Bako green box toy Read - Nekomimi Headphones for Cosplay aficionado, perverts Read - Juicy Couture Mini Bear Speakers Read - Atomic9 Bluetooth wristband speakerphone %Poll-50123%
Thanko's Bluetooth earpiece / wristwatch for the on-the-go, shameless tech professional
Thanko has given us much joy over the years, from e-cigarettes to necktie / spy cameras. But the Bluetooth Headset Wristwatch? Hell, this one looks almost useful: your watch can be popped out of the wristband to do double duty as a Bluetooth earpiece. Charging for two hours via USB will give you around four hours of operation, depending on whether you're using it to make calls or listen to music. Available in Japan for roughly $90.
Thanko's Bracelet Battery is back, better and geekier than ever
If 2007's Bracelet Battery from Thanko didn't match your lifestyle, there's a good chance 2010's model won't either. That's because it looks identical to the prior model, sporting the kind of style that would go perfectly with a Caped Crusader costume and virtually nothing else. New with this year's model is an adapter cable that enables it to work with an even greater variety of devices, a 1,500mAh lithium-ion battery, and (wonder of wonders) an on/off switch. Yours for just ¥3,980 -- about $40. %Gallery-92509%
80-port USB hub makes you feel like a powerful soldier
You know that 49-port USB hub you picked up last year? Sissy. Thanko just introduced an 80-port USB hub to charge all of your gadgets from a single location. Fantasy or nightmare? Well, first you have to consider the price (¥14,800, about $165) and the cabling chaos this will bring. Then you must know that the hub seems to charge your devices only: no USB data. And are you really man enough to handle the repulsive stares that a device like this will surely invoke from your family and so-called friends? Who cares! When a gadget promises this: "When viewed from the side of the port in line, you feel powerful and somewhat like a soldier in the army." You'd be crazy not to want it. %Gallery-84213%
Thanko Microsports MP3 player is small, really small
Thanko is a brand forever tied to crapgadgets. It can, however, surprise us occasionally as it has with its new Microsports MP3/WMA/WAV player in 2GB (¥4,980 / $55) or 4GB (¥5,980 / $66) models. Measuring 16×25×22mm / 8g, it's about the size and weight of an average Bluetooth headset. And while we've seen similar micro players strung from lanyards, this is the first we can recall with an integrated ear-bud -- the second bud attaches via USB-cable for stereo audio. Looks comfy, eh? %Gallery-73295% [Via Akihabara News]
Thanko USB dental device will help prove you still need a dentist
Oh, the joys of self-diagnosis. Thanko's unleashed a USB dental "microscope" to let you check out the inside of your own mouth in great detail -- because you're so much more knowledgeable than a real dentist, right? This puppy's got six LEDs plus a small CMOS camera so you can shoot JPEGs / BMPs or 1,280×1024 resolution vids of your champers then check them out on your home computer. Of course, the sample shots (which are disgusting and after the break) inexplicably show a closeup of someone's scalp, demonstrating that this USB badboy has a variety of uses, all of them pretty gross. Is there something wrong with us if we just don't want to see our bodies in that much detail? It's only available on Thanko's Japanese site for the time being, and costs in the neighborhood of $80, but we have a feeling that it'll show up in the States anyday now... as soon as Oprah gets wind of it. [Via Gizmodo]
Thanko Silent Keyboard EX might sneak up on the unalert
So you've bought your Silent Mouse EX and now want to pair it up with a similarly radical text input device? Thanko is keen to make that choice as easy and obvious as possible, and has now updated its venerable Silent Keyboard with the EX moniker and an extra shot of quiet. The value of cutting 16.5 dB from the sound of a keyboard tap is somewhat lost on us, but Thanko seems to think it is precisely $52.79. Bundle the two sort-of-silent peripherals together for $77 and you might just save enough money to buy a decibel meter, which will be the only thing capable of telling the difference.[Via Akihabara News]
Thanko's Spy Button video camera, because you've already failed
So what if Thanko's ¥5,980 (about $62) Spy Button Camera doesn't look exactly like the other buttons on your shirt. Anyone inclined to wear such a device to covertly record VGA video at 15fps (or 1280x1024 stills) to 4GB of internal memory isn't likely to get noticed in a crowd anyway. At least the magnetic on/off switch gives renewed purpose to your wedding ring while offering evidence of your continued poor decision making skills. Just be sure to bring your inhaler to keep your breathless excitement in check.[Via Akihabara News]
Silent Mouse EX reduces mouse-related noise pollution by 22.5db, no one cares
Oh, Thanko, fine purveyor of hidden cameras and ill-advised input devices, whenever it gives us a peripheral that looks like, well, a peripheral, it feels like a big step in the right direction. And what do we have here? The Silent Mouse EX is a bit of a misnomer. After all, it isn't totally silent -- rather, the manufacturer claims that it generates 35.5db of noise when in operation. Compared to 58db of sound the "average" mouse makes (or so we've heard), that is... well, it's less. Actually, we have a hard time believing anyone cares about this sort of thing, but if you'd like to prove us wrong, you can hit that read link and put ¥3,180 (approx. $33) where your mouth is. Or better still, just use a trackpad.[Via Akihabara]
Thanko's new wireless mouse can be operated without a desk, but only in the worst way
You know when you flip over your optical mouse and trigger the beam a few times just for kicks, sending your cursor skittering across the screen? Thanko turned that into a thing. The company's newest wireless mouse includes media controls and so forth on the flip side of the mouse, allowing it to act as a remote of sorts, but it also presents you with the optics of the mouse for mid-air operation with your thumb. Sure, maybe it works great -- but we somehow doubt it. If you're hanging out in Japan at the moment, it'll run you 4,980 yen (about $50 US) to find out.
Thanko's own necktie doubles as spy camera, naturally
A necktie from Thanko -- you could tell this thing was only fit for a double agent already, couldn't you? Freshly introduced and ready to draw attention to your poor taste, this here spy tie includes a built-in video recorder along with a minuscule handheld remote used to turn it on and off. The video camera itself is installed on a USB-equipped slab of flash memory (4GB, or about four hours of low resolution footage), making those tie-to-PC transfers extra snappy. And at ¥12,800 ($128), it comes off as a bona fide steal compared to less useful alternatives in Bloomingdale's. Our only lingering question? What's a brother got to do to get a clip on version?[Via AkihabaraNews]
