Here’s the ultimate gift for the expectant mother. It’s a cross between an MP3 player and back massager. Place this gently over your stomach and the front facing speakers play your favorite MP3 directly to your baby to be – while three massagers work on your back. This looks to be a prototype but seems practical enough that we might see it for sale soon. Sun via Gizmodiva Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Each birthday is a new beginning, full of promise and opportunity and the chance to make dreams come true. Most of us enjoy birthdays over New Year’s Day because it serves as a unique marker in time that we all own to recall the “best of times and worse of times” we experience from year to year. Today April 17th marks a special day for all of us at GearDiary to celebrate a special occasion; and no, we’re not talking about the debut of Daffy Duck in 1937, but rather Judie’s birthday! While our geek oriented life can throw us challenges that try men’s souls: Mac or PC?, surf or turf, packing and Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m forever telling everyone who will listen that the worst part of owning a dog has to be the cleanup. There’s nothing that I can imagine worse than using a plastic bag placed over my hand to retrieve a dog’s waste. Of course the bigger the dog – the bigger the problem. Here’s a cute gift idea for the dog lover who needs a convenient bag dispenser. This fire hydrant shaped bag dispenser holds 30 clean-up bags (I’m betting you also have to buy them from the people who make the dispenser). Comes with two rolls of bags. At only $5.99 it’s not that crappy of a deal.. Nerd Approved Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The New York Times first reported that the founders of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, were meeting with potential investors in the hopes to buy back Skype from online auctioning behempoth eBay.  Now, it looks like eBay may be planning their own public offering for Skype. Zennstrom and Friis sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 Billion.  Since the purhase, Skype has registered over 405 million users who can conduct free calls with other Skype users — and pay pennies per minute to call non-Skype users.  Selling off Skype could be very beneficial for eBay, who could use the cash generated from a sale to fund… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This week Sony has taken a step in the direction of eliminating dependence on the UMD disk media by announcing that the upcoming Patapon 2 will be available only as a ‘Digital Download’ from the PSN Store in North America. As noted at TechTree, the game will be available on May 5th for $15 (other sources have $20, so we’ll have to wait and see). They quoted Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications at SCEA, as saying, “We’re considering a digital only format for the Patapon 2 release as a one time test case as we continue to explore consumer preferences for digital content.” Another article at Geek.com notes that “you will still be able to purchase a boxed-copy of the game from retail stores, but that box will not contain a UMD; instead it will carry a code to allows you access to the digital download”. The original Patapon was one of the most critically acclaimed games for the PSP in 2008 (actually, one of the few decent releases for the system last year, if we’re being honest). It combined rhythm-based gameplay and wonderful design in a family-friendly experience that had great replayability and left everyone who played [...]

Researchers from Ohio State University have found that Facebook users, in general, receive lower grades in college than non-users. Their research, to be presented today to the American Education Research Association, is by no means definitive – Facebook usage was a common factor, but not the only one. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone in college. When you’re updating your page during a lecture, you probably aren’t paying attention to the Deadweight Loss of Taxation. From personal experience, the 5-steps to academic downfall are: 1. Whilst in class, make plans to go out on Facebook; 2. Have a night out; 3. Get home and check out pictures on Facebook, videos on YouTube; 4… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the neat things about Gear Diary is that Judie has gathered a collection of writers who use a wide range of devices. While we all share a passion for gadgetry, the way we express that passion is quite different from one GD’er to the next. As I was working on a review of my new LiveScribe pen earlier today I wrote the sentence “With the exception of my various Apple devices this is by far my favorite gadget purchase in a long, long while…” It got me wondering what device (that is CURRENTLY IN OUR POSSESSION) we are each most excited about. I’ve always loved Mad-Libs and so I sent the following to everyone and asked them to fill it in. My favorite current gadget is ______. I’ve had it for _____ and love it because it ____ and ______. It is definitely something I would purchase again in _________. The result… the first “Gear Diary Gear-Libs”. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

From the ‘interesting idea turned into a product that costs too much and does too little’ department, Wired reports on a new product called ‘Drop Stop’ that … well, let’s just read what the site claims: Never Search Under Your Seats Again! Drop Stop® prevents keys, phones, change, jewelry, makeup, bottle caps, pens, gum, and more from falling down the car seat crack. * Easily fits between your car seat and console * Moves with the seat and is attached via the seat belt catch * Drop Stop® prevents anything from falling down the crack * One Size Fits All – Trucks And Cars! * One Time Installation * Drop Stop® is made using high grade neoprene Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Otterbox recently asked if we’d be interested in testing their BlackBerry Storm Defender Case. Since I don’t have the Storm, I had to assign to the task to my sister Lynn who is a proud (and happy) owner as well as an active marathoner and horse show enthusiast. If there ever was a candidate for testing a protective case for a phone – it’s Lynn. After using it for about three weeks here’s what she said.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

For some reason the selection of Twitter clients for BlackBerry devices is – to put it bluntly – awful. There’s Twitterberry, SocialScope (beta) and brute force text messaging. All three of these options leave out something from the Twitter experience when compared against the more robust clients available for the iPhone. Now there’s a new Twitter for BlackBerry beta – UberTwitter which builds on the above functionality and adds one of my most used features – the Twitter Trendline. This feature shows the topics that many people are talking about on Twitter and can be an early signal to breaking news. You can also use UberTwitter to update your GTalk status. Currently in open beta for devices running OS… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you were part of the ‘Nintendo Revolution’ that followed the great video game crash of the early 1980′s, you likely have very fond memories of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super NES. These consoles remain beloved by many, with loads of the classic games from the era already playable on the Wii Virtual Console. And while many of the console have long since stopped working, it is likely that many folks still have a box of old games sitting in a garage or closet or storage facility somewhere. Time to take them out – Buy.com is featuring the ‘Retro Duo’, a console system that can play both NES and SNES cartridges and… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Starting today, Gear Diary and 25 other websites are participating in a massive Matrix Pro smartphone giveaway. Each site will run their own competition with their own rules. You can enter as many of the giveaways at as many of the individual sites as you would like. Up for grabs is a brand new AT&T Pantech Matrix Pro smartphone and a $100 gift card that can be used towards your account or to purchase accessories from AT&T.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

photo added in by Judie during editing I am now on day 4 of using my redfly/epix combo as my exclusive personal computer, so I thought I’d put an update up of the good, the bad, and the ugly.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I just noticed that the Wall Street Journal has a free application out now in the App store that allows you to read what appears to be full versions of articles from the online newspaper, listen to WSJ radio and view WSJ news video on your iPhone. The app is displaying the same articles as are available to me online in my paid WSJ subscription. The time to load individual articles is remarkably fast with no annoying bugginess like that in the New York Times horribly bloated nasty applicaton. Many sections of the paper such as Technology, Opinion, Life & Style and All Things Digital are included. WSJ (iTunes Link)… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the benefits of writing for both Gear Diary and whatsoniphone.com is that when I find a truly outstanding product, one about which which I am totally enthusiastic, I’m able to share that enthusiasm with a larger audience of both iPhone AND general tech enthusiasts. That’s certainly the case with the Sound ID 300 Bluetooth headset I have been using since last week and the reason I am posting this review on both sites. Bluetooth headsets are commonplace these days. They come in all shapes, sizes and price ranges. When evaluating them there are, to my mind, four criteria by which we can assess them- comfort, sound appearance and value. As noted above, I’ve been using the new Sound ID 300 headset for a little less than a week. Let’s take a look at it from each of these four perspectives…… Continue reading on Gear Diary …