Without trying to sound like they’re cutting me a check for saying so, I love JetBlue. Not only do they provide noticeable amounts of more leg room, but they also give you a personal TV screen with basic cable, and overall provide the best service of any airline I’ve ever used.
The reason for this shameless shilling is to get across the point that JetBlue really do have an eye on making drastic improvements to the flying experience. That is now evident more than ever, thanks to the recent Google sponsored contest asking people to come up with their own uses for the upcoming Google Glass device through the twitter hashtag campaign #ifihadglass. While some amazing concepts have already spawned from the contest (such as 911 liveview assistance), one of the more complete visions of the Google Glass future comes from JetBlue.
Essentially they are envisioning a world where you can stay on top of your flight, and the airport experience in general, without ever breaking stride thanks to using Glass to do everything from the expected but awesome (check live flight status, know when your baggage will arrive, get a cab fare estimate) to the “HOLY CRAP, REALLY?!?!?” ideas such as viewing the capacity of the nearest parking garage and a tracker for the nearest available electrical outlet in the terminal.
This is all of course just a concept, and a very early one at that, but it not only shows how much more pleasant the flying experience could be with Google Glass, but is also slowly showing the world exactly the type of things this device is truly capable of, and why its upcoming release is set to be the biggest gadget release since the iPhone.
There is nothing worse in the world than wet socks.
Well except for genocide, starvation, holocaust, nuclear warfare, poverty, orphaned children, animal abuse…
Actually, properly put into perspective, there are quite a few things worse than wet socks. But they’re still pretty horrible, and with slush season creeping up on the north (when it can still snow, but quickly melt creating an inhospitable mess), and water park and swimming trips on the horizon, the peak of wet sock fear is upon us.
While you can write this off as an inevitable nuisance of the season, if you truly dread the feeling of wet socks and want to proactively handle the issue, there do exist commercially available military grade waterproof socks, that not only prevent against leaks, and soaking up liquid, but can keep your feet comfortably warm in temperatures as low as -30 degrees Fahrenheit. This is achieved through a mix of nylon and lycra, along with additional layers of double velour fleece, that combine to create the toughest, most versatile socks available.
As with a lot of must have technology though, there is a catch and once again it’s the price. A pair of these socks will run you $54.95, which would buy you roughly a ton of otherwise perfectly good socks. Alas then, but these are going to have to go into my ever growing unreasonable wants wishlist, along with a 3D printer, and a fully decked out Alienware M18x laptop. But for serious outdoorsmen, or anyone consistently active in bad weather conditions, you might be able to write off the Superman of socks as an actual investment.
Oh and the filthy rich. The filthy rich will probably eat these up.
Because They’ve Got to Do Something With the Money Besides Money Fights
If you’re like me, the rare occasion you have to buy bar soap is met without much enthusiasm or an extended thought process. Usually it’s the first one you see that says soap or, in a moment of misunderstood hesitation, the one I relate with the most recent/most humorous commercial I saw.
There’s at least one soap out there though that wants to remove the image of femininity from hand soap and make it a more exciting buying process for the average man.
That soap is called Man Hands, and they have a variety of uniquely scented soap bars available aimed at the average red-blooded male, offering a testosterone influenced alternative from the coconut and ocean breeze flooded market. While some scents are just bewildering (Republican and Democrat? Cash? Urinal Mint?), some are potentially appealing to more markets (Cannabis, Buttered Popcorn, and Incense), some are indeed right on target (Muscle Rub, Cedar Log Cabin, Topsoil, Baseball Glove, and of course Bacon). Each bar retails for $6.95 and can be found here.
Is this just a really stupid idea? Probably, yeah. But it’s pretty obvious by the product, and their descriptions, that this is an idea having a lot of fun with itself and asking the same of its consumers. Plus, who knows? In the mix might just be one or two winning scents that beat the hell out of Lavender,and you can never be in short supply of novelty gift ideas, which might just be the best use of this product.
When I saw “Taxi Driver” for the first time, I was too young to fully comprehend, and appreciate, the incredible characters, biting social commentary, or tightly structured plot. What I did take away from Scorsese’s second best movie (first is “Goodfellas”, naturally) is the sheer coolness of those spring loaded, sleeve hidden gun launchers that main character Travis Bickle wielded.
Of course, like all great over the top movie inventions, someone will eventually find a way to incorporate them into our everyday lives. Those hidden gun launchers are no exception, but even still I found the manner in which inventor Showta Mori worked that technology into the real world to be…a bit odd, as he demonstrates in this gut bustlingly hilarious video.
Not only is that device that can shoot your phone, via forearm pressure, into your hands from your sleeve stupendously moronic, entirely superfluous, and even irresponsibly hazardous, it’s also completely awesome and on sale via the inventor’s Etsy shop, where it retails for about $80 and is compatible with the iPhone 4, 4S, and 5.
Before you completely dismiss the validity of this device, be sure to consider that in an increasingly pop culture obsessed world that is already way too in love with their smartphones, and value any device that will allow them to use them with minimal physical effort, this device could, against all odds, actually make a sale or two.
Of course, if you do buy one, you are required to occasionally pop your phone into your hands and answer it by saying, “Are you talking to me?”
With…well…every single bit of technology available to us, more than ever it is easier to stay in contact with one another, and know exactly what another person is up to. However, at times it’s a power that’s almost too great, as it feels like you can constantly be in touch with someone, and in their lives, to an intrusive degree, removing a great deal of charm from the entire idea.
Maybe that’s why I’m taken by an idea like the good night lamp. A new Kickstarter project, it’s a set of houses (big ones and small ones) that light up, and use WiFi connections to allow the user of the big house to turn their light on and off, causing the same action to the paired up smaller house. The idea is to provide a simple way for a user to alert a group of others as to their availability and location via the status of the light, and is marketed towards homesick family members, couples living apart, household members wanting a simple communication method for certain events (say dinner or bedtime), or really any situation where a people want an easy, fun way to keep in touch over any distance. There are even color coded housing options to know which of multiple users is making an interaction.
There are a million other ways to provide the same basic information that these houses do with tech most likely on your person right now. However, few of those devices are likely to do so with the personality of the good night lamp, and as Samuel L. Jackson mused in “Pulp Fiction”, personality goes a long way.
Though we Greatly Disagree on the Scenarios in Which to Eat a Pig
