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Every once in a while, someone invents something that he or she can only hope will catch on. This is the case of the Chill Stick, a cooler that thinks it’s a pool-cue holder.

The Chill Stick allows the user to store an entire six-pack of beer in its roll-shaped package. I’m sure the Chill Stick can store 12 ounce cans of other liquids, but I’m guessing beer will be the transported beverage of choice amongst Chill Stick owners. I mean, this product just screams: “if you could put all the beer that I’m going to drink tonight into one glass, it would be this tall”.

I’m also guessing that the primary use of the Chill Stick will be a method to smuggle booze into certain places, even though it is against the rules. Security officials will probably get wise to this form of beer transport.

Somehow this product can keep your canned goods cool, but I’m not certain how. After all, it doesn’t look like there’s Blue Ice in the neoprene skin. All I know is that you stack up the cans on top of each other in the Chill Stick, and zip them up to make it cool.

If this Chill Stick is something that floats your boat, you can get it at the appropriately named Things You Never Knew site for about $11.98.

Source

How much storage does one really need when they’re on the road? For some, the 2GB drive in an Asus Eee PC is plenty to get them by while traveling. However, others need to store massive files, be they audio, video or some other massive pieces of data. Those people will want to look towards the new Asus M70 for their mobile computing needs.

This massive 17-inch laptop is the first of its kind to sport a whopping 1 terabyte hard drive. That should hold a few PowerPoint presentations for you. Of course storage space isn’t the only thing this laptop has going for it. You can choose from a range of high-end Intel Core 2 Duo chips (T7500/T7700/T8100/T8300/T9300) an ATI Radeon HD3650 with 1GB of VRAM and Blu-ray support. What more could you want from a laptop?

The important details such as weight, battery life, pricing and availability haven’t yet been announced. You can probably bank on it being a heavy power-hungry laptop that will set you back a hefty sum.

Source: Gearlog

The In-Steering Wheel Navigation takes in-dash navigation to the next level, doing away with the need for a large display for obvious reasons but featuring a list of functions that might actually be crazy enough to be the next big thing. The In-Steering Wheel Navigation uses a computer that is connected to a central unit in your car, warming the driver of various potential hazards such as an opened door or low-tire pressure through the steering wheel. It is also compatible with the Navigon 7100 GPS navigation system, relaying important information to the 12 o’clock position on the steering wheel. In addition, the on-board sensors will enable the Navigon 7100 to gauge speed accurately, direction and the attitude of the vehicle. Which do you think is safer - glancing at the steering wheel or the dashboard?

Source: American Inventor Spot

What happens when there isn’t anyone in the vicinity to call the doctor when you’re experiencing a medical emergency? The uBOT-5 is here to help, featuring a couple of arms that can pick up tiny objects, knowledge of using a stethoscope and dialing 9-1-1. Sensors placed next to its video screen head also helps it detect if somebody has fallen down or not. It costs approximately $65,000 to build one of these in the lab, but a mass-produced version might cost a couple of thousand (an estimate only) compared to $1,500 one pays for a part-time, human in-home caregiver each week. uBOT-5 also reminds folks to take their medication, pick up packages as well as perform cleaning chores. I’m not too comfortable forking out a huge sum of money only to have a robot nag me to do housechores…

Strong work, Telus! First you guys are pretty much on the ball with your release of the blackberry 8330 Curve and the Motorola Q9c, and now you’ve become the first Canadian carrier to offer the LG Venus — and you’re clearly reveling in it, too, since you point out on your product page that this is actually LG’s first touchscreen phone in all of Canada. $99.99 CAD (about $100) of your customer’s hard-earned savings is going to net them a 2 megapixel camera, QVGA primary display, microSD slot, GPS, EV-DO, and stereo Bluetooth, so we’d say you’ve done good — for the moment, anyway. Keep up the strong work.
[Source]

MacRumors is reporting that Apple could, maybe, possibly, be releasing an aluminum MacBook with MultiTouch. The source? a .Mac site from a user with an @apple.com email address.

Speculation is, well, speculative and such it should be taken with giant blocks of salt. Nevertheless, this is the world of tech blogging and Apple is the primary lovechild of tech rumors. So what’s a week without another one?

At any rate, these sets are supposed to launch at WWDC, so we’ve got until June 10 to speculate wildly. Get started.

While the goal of most people who travel with their notebooks is to keep the weight and number of items they carry to a bare minimum, it often makes sense to bring along a mouse. Every notebook has some sort of mechanism for controlling the cursor but if you have to spend a lot of time pointing and clicking than it pays to lug a mouse around with you. The good news is that companies have been able to scale down their mice in order for just such a scenario.

There are currently a number of excellent portable mice on the market so it’s not immediately clear what Lenovo has to offer that isn’t already out there. That said, if you’re getting a ThinkPad, it might be pretty cool to get the matching mouse, especially if you believe in the design philosophy of the ThinkPad and would like your accessories to reflect that (or you just want to bundle your purchases together). Anyway you look at it, the ThinkPad Bluetooth Laser Mouse is designed to be a simple, effective, and highly portable mouse that is perfectly paired with any notebook.

The mouse has two very striking characteristics to it–it is small (about 3.5×2×1″) and it has no dongle. Being a Bluetooth product, no USB dongle is necessary because most notebooks have Bluetooth built in. This cuts down on the cost and means one less part to lose, something which is crucial when traveling. Plus, if you use a tiny device, it means you won’t have to have a large dongle sticking out of its side.

The mouse is a three button model with tilt wheel that allows for four-way scrolling. It is covered in a soft-touch material that is a similar to that found on the palm rest of the X300 but is small enough that you barely touch it when in use. The only other features on the mouse are the laser sensor, an on/off switch, a Bluetooth connection button, and a release for the battery compartment. The batteries (two standard AA) are stored inside the mouse and can be swapped in seconds. They are not rechargeable, but thanks to power management features the mouse should last about four months on a single pair.

Connecting the Bluetooth mouse to your notebook is no problem and if you have had any experience with Bluetooth devices you should have no problems with this. Lenovo includes a drivers CD to facilitate the process which we used before the setup and the notebooks we tested on all recognized the mouse in seconds. Once connected the mouse is ready to go. Performance is solid–the laser sensor has no problem with a variety of different surfaces, including wood grains and a glossy book cover. Lenovo does not say anything about the dpi setting, but it seems to be reasonably high as the mouse could get across a 1920×1200 display quickly. The buttons have very clean precise clicks to them and even the third button (the scroll wheel) works well in this respect. The side to side scrolling is present, but not particularly useful (just like normal) and the scrolling action is ratcheted and accurate enough to get by, but not the best out there.

Overall, the ThinkPad Bluetooth Laser Mouse does not revolutionize the input device market, but it’s a mouse that is easy to get from place to place and it does its job well. It, disappointingly, does not include a carrying case, but it is sturdy enough to be thrown in your travel bag along with everything else. The real beauty of this mouse is that it is designed for use on the road, which is why there is no dongle and why it uses AA batteries (which can be purchased almost anywhere). It currently sells for about $40-50 which means it isn’t the cheapest option out there, but it could be a good pick up given just how many devices now use Bluetooth.

Hantat unveiled one of the funnier looking USB flash drive designs to date - it comes in the form of a ripe banana and has been given the code name HK9-03. There is no flesh to eat inside, but the “skin” itself is made out of rubber in order to absorb shock whenever it drops onto the floor to protect the case as well as precious data within. There is no word on pricing, but this banana USB flash drive will come in varying capacities of up to 8GB.

Source: AVing

The Guardian is reporting that according to a study by the industry group British Music Rights, 95% of 18-24 years old engaged in what it calls “home copying” which refers to things such as making copies of CD’s and MP3 files. The study reported that 2/3rds of that group copied five CD’s a month for their friends.

Is this something new? Not really. Anyone who grew up in the 80’s probably has fond memories of making mix tapes with their double deck boom boxes, or by using their stereo systems to copy LP tracks onto cassette, and when the VCR came out, people eagerly copied and traded tapes of their favorite shows and music videos.  Is sharing bad for the music industry? The RIAA would have us all believe so, but others argue that it’s actually beneficial because it exposes people to music they otherwise may never have heard. The debate rages on.

This recent study was made as the UK government ponders the introduction of an exception to British copyright law that would allow citizens to legally copy music they have bought for private home use. However that turns out, it’s a sure bet that home copying is here to stay.

Read [The Guardian]

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HP has recently released their highly anticipated Mini-Note 2133, and in some good news, reports are now trickling in that they have begun to ship. When originally announced, HP offered potential customers a choice of either Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic or SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. Even with a decent amount of choice available, a good amount of users would have liked to have seen and been able to choose Windows XP, simply because, as proven by other low-cost ultra-portable laptops it will run much better than Vista.

Sadly it seems that those who ordered early and would have preferred XP are about to become a little upset. HP has confirmed that it will begin to offer Windows XP as an installation option when ordering. As of now they have confirmed that XP will become available in May, but have not announced any specific date or just what the pricing will be or what models it will be available with.

Hopefully HP will offer XP drivers on their website for those who ordered the Mini-Note with another operating system and plan on installing their own copy of XP once the ultra-portable arrives.

Via [Laptop]

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