Gadgets & Gear

Down in the south (Texas), seeing people with diamonds in their mouths is a normal thing. Southern rap artists have made owning a diamond encrusted grill a “cool” thing and teenagers down there save their money for their first set of grillz – not their first car.

I think Nelly and Paul Wall might want to take a little trip to India and meet up with optometrist, Chandrashekhar Chawan, who is the creator of the diamond contact lenses. Chawan’s company, Shekhar Eye Research, is offering the contact lenses in four different designs: gold, white gold, 18 diamonds on gold and 18 diamonds on white gold.

What you’re about to watch is a video of an iPad plummeting 100,000 feet – or roughly 18 miles – from the stratosphere, onto some rocks, and not taking so much as a scratch anywhere on the device. Yes, the iPad is encased in the iPad Extreme Edge case, by the same company that created the iPad Extreme Sleeve that Eddie wrote about a while back, but I’m still slightly dubious that the iPad could survive such a fall without damage. Either way, the footage itself is still incredibly cool.

The team – using an inexpensive helium balloon – sends the gear up far enough that the view may as well be from space. I love when people set up rigs like this, and from what I’ve read, it’s

Having a fireplace in a home has a way of bringing a warm and inviting environment that makes people feel comfortable. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s a wood-burning fireplace, gas, or a fake electric one. Hell, I even have a fireplace app for my phone to provide me with that warm, fuzzy feeling.

An electric fireplace seems to be a popular alternative these days and the new real estate developments seem to be embracing them. They can be pretty nice but I recently came across the Serafin Fireplace which really caught my attention. This is a liquid fuel fireplace that uses PureFuels which is a clean-burning, natural, ethanol based fuel used in vent-less fireplaces.

I’ve had my share of bad experiences with poor water quality when traveling. In Pakistan, I drank bottled Nestle water for a month and one of the bottles had a very different taste compared to the others. I wasn’t too sure about it and being a dumb ass – I drank it anyway. Sure enough, I had the runs for the next 36 hours or so. The bottle must have been tampered with and refilled.

Getting sick while traveling is part of the experience but I think most people would like to avoid it. One great way to avoid the incident I experienced is to invest a few dollars in the Portable Water and Surface Sanitizer. The device uses similar technology that is used to sanitize hospital instruments.

If you are someone who enjoys camping and do it often then you are probably familiar with the Coleman name. The company makes outdoor equipment from tents and sleeping bags to stoves/barbecues and 100’s of other items. We recently had an opportunity to use the Coleman 8 Person Instant Tent on one of our camping trips in British Columbia. Coleman claims that the tent can be set up in one minute, hence the ‘Instant Tent’ name. I was a bit skeptical but there was only one way to find out.

But before we get to the part about setting it up, the first thing that caught our attention was the size of the tent while in its carrying case. The carry case for the tent is 3’ 10” in length and the height is 11-inches. Unless you have a pickup truck, it will take up a lot of room in your vehicle. The entire thing weighs in at just over 37 pounds. This tent would be ideal for extended stays at a campsite and definitely a bad idea for a backpacking trip into the woods (and probably not even possible).

I’ve never listened to music on a Bose speaker, but have watched hundreds of commercials on TV for their small speaker that supposedly fills the room with rich sound that is as good as a full surround sound system (or close to it).  Maybe someday I’ll experience it firsthand but for now I’ll just go with what their press releases and commercials say.

They have a new speaker called the Bose Solo TV Sound System designed specifically for flat-screen TVs.  As televisions get slimmer and lighter, I’ve noticed their sound systems get worse and that’s where the new Bose speaker for TVs comes in and it makes perfect sense.