Quick on the jaw
Price: $1,275
Website: www.nikon.com
You never hear a trap-jaw ant say anything
incriminating, because it shuts its mouth quickly: at 50m/s, it’s over 2000
times faster than humans blink. Also, it can’t talk. Thanks to its Expeed 3A
processor, Nikon’s new snapper is similarly nippy, taking 45 full-res photos in
three seconds with autofocus on or 40 shots at 60fps with AF turned off. And
unlike the trap-jaw ant, it’ll snap but it won’t bite.
Oakley Airwave
The mind goggles
Price: $795
Website: www.oakley.com
Snowboarders. Just how do they do it? Not
the snowboarding - that’s just falling down a mountain attached to a long
stick. How do they get vision-augmenting wearable computers first? That honour
was surely meant for some Palo Alto geek.
Or us. But thanks to a mix of Oakley
goggles and Recon Instruments eye level monitors (and an iPhone), ’boarders can
now get information, from maps to texts to GPS data, constantly fed into their
eyeballs while they play in the snow.
Philips Hue
Not to be confused with Philip Hughes
Price: from $75
Website: www.meethue.com
You might think that you’d have to be as
crazy to spend US$75 on a lightbulb as you would be to eat one, but the Hue is
no ordinary bulb: using the companion app (for iOS or Android), you can pick a
spot in one of your photos and the bulbs will change to that colour. Use the
preset 'light recipes’ to optimise the light in any room for waking up,
relaxing or reading or set it to go mental for your next party But don’t invite
Philip Hughes. That guy is weird.
Green Throttle
Galaxy S360
Price: from $45
Website: www.greenthrottlestore.com
While we’re quite excited about Ouya, the
Android games console, it has one flaw: when you already have a graphics-heavy,
quad-core Android device in your pocket, buying a graphics-heavy, quad-core
Android device to stick by your TV is a bit like buying a landline phone. Green
Throttle’s approach is to use your phone as the console and supply a
familiar-looking controller, a dev kit for makers and an app, called Arena, so
gamers can find titles. Could work.
Focusrite iTrack Solo
Sounding bored?
Price: $205
Website: www.focusrite.com
You there, amateur musician! Your bedroom
recording studio has more bumps and hisses than a poorly driven snake
transporter! Swap that loud PC and stage mic for a silent iPad and a studio mic
with XLR output and phantom power. Add in a decent pair of cans (it has a live
monitoring loop, so you hear sound delay-free) and you’ve got a proper, silent
studio on the cheap. Until we start shouting at you again.
Attacknid
Technically, it’s an insectodroid
Price: $110
Website: www.firebox.com
Battle bots of Christmas past were limited
to wobbling around clumsily before falling over without even hitting each
other. They were so disappointing that in most cases kids would be back to
running around outside healthily within hours. The Attacknid, on the other
hand, has six legs that can cover any terrain, a 360°swivelling head that fires
discs up to 30ft, and armour that pops off when struck by said discs. Running
around outside? Pah, let Attacknid’s rob opponents do the running.
Belkin NetCam
Boom! Sneakily tape, tape, tape the room
Price: $130
Website: www.belkin.com
Belkin
NetCam
Covertly filming your beloved pet because
you were suspicious of its daylight assignations used to be the sort of thing
you only got to do on an episode of Secret Identity Spaniel. But now
there’s a simple, installationfree way to track your unreliable dachshund: Belkin’s NetCam connects to
your Wi-Fi network and streams to your phone or tablet using a free iOS/Android
app. It even has a mic and night vision, and can be set up to email you when it
detects movement - for Spaniel-spotting or burglar-busting alike.
WeMo Switch
A plug socket you can turn on and off from
anywhere using Belkin's WeMo iOS app.
WeMo
Switch
WeMo Motion
A motion sensor that can also control the
Switch, say by turning the lights/TV/stereo on whenever you enter a room.
WeMo
Motion
WeMo Baby
This unit keeps a digital ear out for your
wee one's tears, and turns your iThing into a baby monitor.
WeMo
Baby
Drift HD Ghost
Who ya gonna call?
Price: $400
Website: www.driftinnovation.com
Drifting around as a ghost is dull. Sure,
you can sneak into movies for free, but incorporeality loses its charm when you
realise you can’t touch the popcorn. Or taste it. Or feel hunger. Best, then,
to stay alive and capture all of life’s joy with Drift’s HD Ghost action cam. A
three-hour battery 11MP burst stills, built-in Wi-Fi and mobile app mean you
can easily capture your escapades then host screenings for those envious
ghosts.
FMCG F1 Simulator
Jenson's buttons
Price: $145,000
Website: www.fmcginternational.com
We were going to say, 'Unless you’ve got 5
million, this is the closest you’ll get to owning an F1 car.’ But it isn’t, is
it? You don’t have US$145,000 to spend on a carbon-fibre replica F1 car with
5.1 sound, authentic controls and three 23in monitors, each with its own GPU in
the ludicrously fast PC under that hood. The closest you’ll get to owning an F1
car is finding a potato that looks like Bernie Ecclestone.
