Gadgets designed by those who are aimed to make life easier and more interesting for disabled people, sometimes unveil new course for hi-tech industries. The most recent gadget that stands at origin of computing devices for disabled is a latest concept cursor manipulator. This light detector attached to one’s spectacles can act as good as a well-known computer mouse and was designed to substitute it completely. The Wink Technology which is in its core can also be, by the way, very handy to all computer users, probably even entice them all.

Jedlicka Institute for Disabled Children, Czech Republic, has become a domain for the gadget’s developers. To make a computer controllable for handicapped persons, researchers and students of this institute have placed a camera locked close to user’s eye. It is programmed to detect eye’s behavior – left, right, up and down movements, and moments when the eye is closed for calculated periods of time. This was the hardest thing to do as the involved students and other researchers say. The device can not only be eye-controlled, but can also perceive head movements. Data from the detector is sent to a control unit and generated into orders computer will understand. Overall cursor on the monitor receives all the commands and follows the way eyeball shows. Shortly closed eye is interpreted as a click, and prolonged eye closing means a double click for eye-controlled computer. Now gadget is completely useable, makes all the computer and Internet resources manageable and is compatible with any PC model. Device is synchronized via USB host.

Wink Technology is unfortunately not the cheapest one. This eye-controlled cursor manipulator will cost slightly more than 1500 Euros but it was said that government and charitable foundations are willing to cover at least a part of the price for disabled children, because it finally offers them Internet resources and computer experience, which means better education and profitable employment.

There was big fuzz in the Internet when the OLPC project started; idea of making a 100 dollar priced laptop to help children of Africa and other poor regions become closer to Internet and computer technologies was very innovative and interesting. Now it is time to announce some of its competitors. We already reviewed top 10 subnotebooks; you can read about them here, however, this one is a very different issue. It brings the low cost educational subnotebook to the UMPC side, making it even more portable. Let's look at the details.

It is currently only a concept, but it looks very promising. It is called Spark, and is maintained by Project Inkwell and Ideo designers. It can be called a UMPC rather than a laptop, all because of its very portable size - it is comparable to Sony PSP. Bright and wide color screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built-in, even full QWERTY keyboard and wireless mouse - all these will be parts of this device. Spark is a part of new educational project, and is made to help children younger then 12 learning. It wins in size and portability if compared to OLPC XO-1 - it can be carried in pocket easily.
Unfortunately this is only a concept for now. It is unknown, what technical parameters it will have, and how high the price will be. But if this gadget wants to be successful rival of the OLPC, it must be priced not higher than 100-150 dollars. It will most likely run on Linux or Linux-based OS to reduce cost of final device, taking in consideration its small size it may not be compatible with existing OLPC software. Time will tell how successful the ideas of Project Inkwell will be, but it is a good sign that computer manufacturers started to think about low cost educational computers.

[from gadgets-reviews]

Every smoker knows that lighters are limited by their gas charge. And when it runs out of gas you must throw your lighter away, or recharge it. If you smoke a lot, you will find it annoying to throw money away on lighters. What about a lighter that doesn't need gas at all?

This conceptual lighter named Kool is not a usual lighter that we use every day. It is flameless, needs no gas to work and is fully electric, using resistance coils to light cigarettes just like the car cigarette lighter. Battery is charged via USB port that is hiding at the bottom. We don't know how much time it'd be to fully charge that battery, but it seems that you will not depend on gas anymore. And the last but not least - it has a USB mass storage function, so this lighter can be a handy USB flash drive if needed.

It is amazing how the usual things can be refurbished with help of new technologies. This gadget is only a concept, but who knows, maybe in a few years this gadget will be widely spread amongst smokers. We only hope that battery in this lighter will be strong enough to last for a couple of days at least, if not it will be nothing but a useless toy.
[from gadgets-reviews]

When selecting a car to purchase, we always look for our favorite colors. Somebody likes red; somebody likes white or black... Some cars, like Ferrari, have their own recognizable color, I couldn’t imagine a pink or green Ferrari for example. Sometimes picking the right color for your car is not easy. But in nearest future this problem will be solved. How? You’ll be capable of changing color of your car with a single push of a button!

New technology called "paramagnetic" is a true revolution. Car is coated in a special way by iron (Ferrum) oxide while it is not painted yet. After that, it is processed with electricity in a certain way. This creates special crystals at the surface that can change their color.

It woks better when coated on metal because it needs asmall amount of electricity to maintain the needed color. When the ignition is off, the car becomes white as it was at the beginning.

This technology can create almost every color that human’s eye can distinguish, so it a real way to personalize your car’s color.

Changing colors is very fast – it takes about a second. You can change colors depending on your mood, on weather, or even on day of week. Streets will become much brighter and not so monotonous: green Ferraris or Cyan BMWs, pink Mercedeses – there will be no limits to the fantasy of car owners.

Nissan was already interested in this marvelous technology, so we can already expect color-changing automobiles in 2010.

The best way to change the color of your car is by playing racing video games. Most adult gamers love driving simulators. There are plenty of console and PC video games that cater to the race car driver in all of us.
[from gadgets-reviews]

CD and DVD recording is a very useful thing, not always legal of course. We remember the times, when CD recorders were very expensive, trashed blank CDs and recording took a long, long time. Nowadays CD or DVD writers are used by almost everybody- and burning a CD is a common and usual form of data exchange and backup. However, blank CDs are literally blank - they must be marked to know what is recorded on them. Using a CD marker is amateur, no matter how beautiful you write. Solution? Of course there is one gadget that can help you with that.

If you want to beautifully decorate newly written CD or DVD, use printable discs. But what if your printer can’t print on CDs? Then, you’ll probably need this gadget. DiscPainter printer, produced by DYMO, is especially designed for CD and DVD printing.

It is capable to print crisp and vivid images with 600 dpi and 1200 dpi resolution, which takes 1 to 3 minutes to finish. One of the good design moves is transparent window, with help of which you can watch closely how your CD is printed, from beginning to the end. This CD printer is using rotational method of printing, so it is very interesting to watch how your CD gradually becomes a work of art.

This interesting and useful device is sold for 279 dollars. Pretty expensive for a printer that can only print on CDs, while there are many usual printers that can print everything and have this function as well. However... If you like interesting gadgets, or think that every function must be made built into different device, this DiscPainter can be your choice.
[from gadgets-reviews]

If high speed photography is your thing, we have just the batch of pictures for you, which were "taken with a special flash unit that uses a high voltage arc in air as the light source."

A large gallery of objects frozen in motion with a 500-nanosecond flash, a visual cacophony of exploding eggs and firecrackers captured mid-pop.

[via Gizmodo]

Augmented reality hits the iPhone, with ARToolKit V4.4, "letting you create applications which sample real world imagery through the iPhone camera and embellish them with 3D digital objects." Video after the break. Click here for one more picture.

The software is also integrated with the iPhone's accelerometer, so it can automatically detect movements from the phone, and impose those movements on the 3D images instantaneously.

This software just shows you how amazing technology is today.