Turning-drawer wooden safe

I stumbled across this from MAKE: Blog: Turning-drawer wooden safe

My pal Alex Schlegel writes:

The 13 drawers of this band-saw box rotate rather than open outward. Objects for safekeeping are placed into the large, central drawer through a hole in the bottom of the box. Since the arrows on the front of each drawer point toward the drawer's open side, objects may be moved from one drawer to another by first lining up the arrows on the two drawers and then rotating the entire box so that the objects fall from the first drawer to the second.

The Band Saw Safe is great for storing all those loose gemstones you've got lying around.

It is a low tech gadget but looks cool. I suspect it would be a lot of fun to make and if you don't have a band saw lying around I guess you could always use a laser cutter.

Laptop Backpacks

BUILT has these cool looking laptop backpacks made from lightweight neoprene and mesh. While it looks like a wetsuit for computers, its probably not a great idea to go diving or surfing with them.

My latest mobile gadget: SonyEricsson P990i

I got a SonyEricsson P990i mobile from one of the MuzGadgets brothers when I visited them recently. It does pretty much all I need a pocket device to do:

• internet access including via wireless
• still/video camera (I must buy a bigger memory card)
• MP3/media player/radio (I really must buy a bigger memory card)
  
• ebook reader (the PDF viewer's interface is a bit annoying sometimes)
• contacts/calendar/tasks manager with synchronization to my PC
• emergency modem while waiting for the ADSL guys to connect us
• oh and it works as a phone too

I've installed fring on it too so I can Skype from the phone. I've tried it a couple of times - it didn't show the live Skype video and one of the MuzGadget sisters couldn't understand anything I was saying - might have been a low bandwidth issue.

It might be second-hand and not quite as cool as an iPhone, but I'm very happy with it. It is a lot more useful than my old monochrome voice & sms only Siemens A70.

Hot fridge

Adam Grosser and his sustainable fridge | Video on TED.com

This three and a half minute TED talk presents a solution for refrigeration without electricity of access to stored fuels (gas etc).

Fab Lab

Invention kits to build anything - Forbes.com- msnbc.com

A laser cutter, computer controlled router, minature drilling mill, powered by open source software and micro-controllers, makes up the Fab(rication) Lab(oratory). These kits can make almost anything and have the potential to even reproduce themselves by making parts. The goal is a 'Star Trek' style replicator where the labs can create 3D photocopies of just about anything.