ExiTool: A More Practical Approach To Escaping Your Automobile [Multitools]

Posted by DesignShrineHost in Gadget News on March 10th, 2010

Here are a few things you don't have time to do when your car plunges into an icy lake: remove a Leatherman multitool from your glove compartment; unfold it; cut through your seatbelt; refold it; smash through your window.

Thankfully there's the ExiTool, a clever little gadget that attaches to your seat belt for quick access when your shit goes "glug, glug, glug." It includes a high-carbon stainless steel slicer, a tungsten carbide smasher, and, just for good measure, an LED light.

Sure, having an open blade attached to your seat belt all the time isn't ideal, but it's definitely more ideal than being trapped in your car at the bottom of some murky body of water.

The ExiTool will be available soon for $27, so if you're the type of person that worries about this thing it's probably a worthwhile investment. [CRKT via The Awesomer]



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Pluto Files’ Hate Mail Declassified [Science]

Posted by DesignShrineHost in Gadget News on March 10th, 2010

If I were Neil deGrasse Tyson—host of the Pluto Files and director of the Hayden Planetarium—I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Not after reading the hate mail from thousands of outraged American kids.

The kids wrote to de Grasse Tyson demanding an explanation about why scientists changed Pluto's classification from planet into a Kuiper Belt object. The Natural History Museum also retired it from their Solar System model, which logically got a lot of kids reaching for their pellet guns.

Neil, they may sound sweet, but they are vicious, those beasts. [PBS]



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Zinnet’s Brite-View LinkE Streams Content to Four Devices Over Powerline Networks [Zinnet]

Posted by DesignShrineHost in Gadget News on March 10th, 2010

Sometimes Wi-Fi just doesn't do the trick when streaming something to several devices. Zinnet's Brite-View LinkE system will cover you there by allowing you to stream things over a powerline network to four ethernet devices and at up to 200Mbps.

It's pretty simple: You plug an ethernet bridge into a wall outlet and connect it to a modem. Then you plug the four-port ethernet switch into another wall outlet and tada! You're able to stream content.

The kit's even a pretty decent deal at $90, especially compared to $150-$170 kits. [PR Newswire via Engadget]



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The Google App Marketplace: Doing It All in the Cloud [Google]

Posted by DesignShrineHost in Gadget News on March 10th, 2010

We just finished watching Google's live announcement of the launch of the Google App Marketplace. Keep reading for information on what they're offering users and developers. Oh, and know that the Marketplace is live today. Updating.

The event is called "Google Campfire One" and it's all about how easy it will be to create, set up, and install apps using Google's App Marketplace. It appears that the big focus is on how everything—apps and existing Google products—will work together seamlessly and allow for all your tools and data to sit in the cloud. Right now the appeal is for business applications, but the potential seems incredible.

The first portion of the announcement is about what developers will give and get in this whole deal. Google is offering them access to 25 million users and only asking for a one-time fee of $100 and 20% revenue in exchange—that's less than what access to Apple's App Store requires. Of course, Google is providing a solid system with apps being authenticated using OpenID, secured using oAuth, and made available through a universal Google Apps navigation system.

While there are already 50 partners right at launch, we're hearing that after new apps are submitted, they may take a few days to show up in the Marketplace—mind you, there's no word on what kind of approval process there is. But once an app is in the Marketplace, it's easy for users or buyers to add them to their Google accounts: They agree to some terms of service, grant access to data—such as Gmail or GCal, and enable the app. Tada! It'll show up in the new apps drop down.

Now apparently development of these apps is so simple that there are 40 developers who are on a bus traveling to an SXSW event and working on apps right now.

It looks like apps will be easy to integrate into existing Google products as seen by a demo of a payroll app by Intuit—information from it was embedded into Gmail or Google Docs.

Now remember how there have been some nice previews of YouTube videos in Gmail lately? Prepare to see more of that from these new apps because Google is offering developers the chance to set apps to be triggered by certain emails, events, or specific types of content.

What does all this mean right now? For business users, there are plenty of apps already available—ones for payroll, data entry, management, and an office suite—and they'll be able to run everything right from the cloud. For us plain Janes and Joes though, the Marketplace is full of potential at this moment. Think social media, data management, communication—all the things you already get from Google, just better.

Yes, my head's already in the cloud. Hopefully everything else will follow and I'll be able to work and play there.



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This Happens to Me Every F*cking Single Day [Cartoon]

Posted by DesignShrineHost in Gadget News on March 10th, 2010

Some days, it happens two or three times. I bet that you and most of your friends and family find themselves in the same situation too. [Loldwell]



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