We first featured the lotus Sanitizing System about 2 years ago. Since then, maker Tersano, has rolled out a few more products to complement and fill out the line. First up is a baby bottle attachment cleaner. Simple to use – put the kid’s bottles, pacifiers and small toys in and have them cleaned up by the power of ozonated water.

Next up is the battery powered lotus wet mop (pictured). Using 4 AA batteries (use rechargeables, plz) that last a year, the lotus wetmop with the lotus Sanitizer System cleans up your floors nicely without streaks, harsh chemicals or residue. Within 15 minutes, the ozonated water reverts to regular water and you’re left with just clean floors. Clean enough to put that baby and his clean toys on.

Last up is the Toothbrush Attachment, which allows you to get your toothbrushes (source of entirely too many germs) thoroughly cleaned. Remove the basket and you can even clean things like knives and combs.

Gimme!

Price: $19 to $40
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Perhaps you’re thinking that # should be higher, but then again, this
isn’t really surprising, is it? After all, 2012 is only a few years
away, and even in the country of the Internet’s birth (the US), uptake is less
than 75%.

Appropriately enough, the highest growth will be in high economic growth/’emerging’ countries like China, Russia, India and Brazil (BRIC).

Now if only we could get even 0.1% of those 1.8 billion people to come visit our sites.

In a somewhat surprising, yet not so surprising move, Nokia bought up the rest of Symbian that it didn’t already own and will open-source the cell phone OS platform. Why? This is the strategy du jour in this age of Linux vs Microsoft, and now Android (Linux basically) vs iPhone/Win Mobile/Blackberry.

It’s a $410 million gamble for Nokia, but not a bad risk. Open-sourcing products many times results in amazing contributions and improvements to the products which in turn fuel sales of hardware, software and services surrounding that product.

Time will tell how Nokia fares. This writer thinks this will certainly help to keep Nokia firmly in the top tiers of the cell phone handset industry.

I must agree with Morgan Webb – the Gizmodo venture down into the Lego vault that has every single Lego set ever made is truly amazing, and even though it’s only 2 minutes long, this video totally captures my childhood Lego memories.

What’s even more remarkable is how the author and myself almost have the same single memorable Lego kit – the Lego Space Galaxy Explorer (except mine was the kit with the attached space station – yay me ).

As an IT guy myself, I do find it rather telling when a prominent business partner of Microsoft’s, Intel, has decided that they’re not going to ‘upgrade’ to Windows Vista. I can’t say that I blame them. The change isn’t compelling and according to most reports, more of a pain than a benefit.

For those home users buying a new computer, Vista isn’t an absolutely terrible thing to stomach, but for those power users who are now fully acclimatized to XP, Vista doesn’t offer them true advantages.

Are you used to writing your To Dos straight onto the palm of your hand? If that just ‘works’ for you, then you should take a look at the To-Do Tattoo which lets you make a very nice, neat To Do list and applies it the palm of your hand with a skin-safe, washable ink gel pen.

$4 gets you 12 “To Do” forms plus the special pen. What are you waiting for? Either your wife/husband/mom/son/boss needs something done/had now! Don’t forget.

Gimme!

Price: $3.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Here’s another very useful gadget from Kensington, particularly if you’re a road warrior that spends any amount of time in hotels. How many times have you gone hunting around the hotel room for those precious few open power outlets to plug in your laptop, cell phone charger, iPod charger and your 4th must-have gadget?

I know I’ve done it enough times to get to the point where I’m seriously wondering if I should unplug the TV or a lamp. Sometimes, I’ve brought a power strip along just in case.

This portable power outlet from Kensington saves you (and takes up way less space than a power strip). It has 3 AC outlets on it as well as 2 USB outlets. So now you can power up your iPod and/or Bluetooth headset without having to plug them into your laptop. This little gem even has some surge protection built in.

Gimme!

More info from the manufacturer

Price: $24.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

It’s not all that often you come across a deal that is worthy of a second look, but today I found an 8GB flash drive for only $22.  That’s not bad.  I will admit, my current flash drive (I have lots but only use one most frequently) is only 2GBs and seems to be holding up just fine [on storage].  However, I wonder if life would be that much easier if I could easily store 8GBs when ever, where ever…

Dane-Electronics is offering up their zMate 8GB UFD for only $22 plus free shipping. If you have never used Google check-out you could drop that 8GB drive to $12. Now that aint bad for 8GBs of memory.

Grab the GetUSB Dealz now!

The company line:

Small, practical and high-performance, the zMate Pen lets you carry all sorts of computer files wherever you want (music, video, spreadsheets, texts, pdf, etc…). The Dane-Elec zMate Pen is certified High Speed USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 compatible. The Dane-Elec 8GB zMate Pen is your perfect companion either at work, at home or abroad.

Dane-Elec zMate 8GB Dealz page.

If you’re one of the, yes, many people who aren’t necessarily in love with either a Blackberry or an iPhone, and are considering other cool phones, take a look at the Nokia E61.

This is a business-oriented smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard and a huge 320×240 full-color screen. Apart from the touchscreen, this smartphone even has a mini joystick for navigation. No digital camera, but it has a miniSD memory card slot, a WiFi conn, not to mention UMTS, EDGE and Bluetooth support. Its browser even supports CSS and Javascript to make even the most broadband-centric website viewable.

Do yourself a favor and take a good look at this phone.

Gimme!

More info from the manufacturer
Price: $379.99 unlocked
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Although it’s just a concept, an idea, the Lilypad elicits a ‘wow’ when you see the artist-imagined images. The idea is relatively simple – a floating city that can hold about 50,000 people that is self-sustaining. Why? Well, what if the oceans do rise and we lose a lot of existing landmass, particularly with all of the coastal cities that we have around the world?

Read the rest of this entry »