A bed fan to snuggle up to

With Earth Day 2008 just past (April 22), here's a gizmo to help you reduce your carbon footprint somewhat; the key word being "somewhat" since this still sucks power. However, for those of us in the humid tropics who can't do without air-conditioning, the Bed Fan (US$79.95) sounds like a decent proposal to give up your AC unit. That is if you don't mind a rack-like contraption poking its head between your sheets. Believe us, there are less desirable things snuggling under your Sheridan.

At least this one hits the hot spot with a cool breeze that "travels between your top sheet and bottom sheet and bathes sleepers in a stream of cool, comforting air". Airflow volume can be controlled via a separate speed-control dial that can be placed on your side table or under the pillow, letting you create your own microclimate. Better yet, with rising utilities costs raising temperatures in homes, the more energy-efficient Bed Fan could well stem that bleeding household budget nicely!

Via New Launches | Photo credit: Brooke Stone

Samsung M620, B200 and B110 debut at mobile roadshow

Out of the 11 phones that were unveiled at today's Samsung regional mobile roadshow, three are newly announced. From the Connected series comes the SGH-M620 which features a 1.9-inch LCD screen, microSD expansion card slot and onboard FM radio, while the SGH-B200 and SGH-B110 are entry-level models from the Essential series.

The B200 sports a function that allows users to track the phone when it is stolen or lost. Like the M620, the built-in FM radio on the B200 supports recording capabilities and tunes recorded over-the-air can be used as ringtones. These two phones are expected to be available in Asia from July and May, respectively.

Pictured from left to right: M620, B200 and B110

Searchme visual search engine

With searches, your results usually give you the name of Web sites and a short description. If you don't really know what you are looking for, prepare to click on dozens of links before finding it. Well, Searchme, a relative newcomer to the search business, has an interesting solution. Instead of giving you text results, it provides snapshots of the pages. If you did a search for "CNET Asia", you actually see our home page in its entirety, albeit in lower resolution. You can then scroll through the results like you do when viewing albums in Apple's iPod Cover Flow interface.

When you are typing in the search box, it even gives suggestions about narrowing your search within categories. Not a particularly useful feature because, honestly, even when searching in general with no category restrictions, the results we got weren't that great. To be fair, it does take time to index the Internet, so maybe Searchme's results will get better over time. After all, it's presently only in its public beta stage. As of now, it's just really cool to use and is a refreshing alternative to the regular text searches we have all become so used to.

Apple releases Aperture plug-in programming kit

Apple on Monday released its software developer kit to let programmers write plug-ins for Aperture, the company's high-end image editing and cataloging software.

OK, I recognize it's not the world-changing, paradigm-shifting, heart-stopping iPhone SDK, but it's still important for the "creative professional" market to which Apple has catered for years.

This tool is designed to let others extend the abilities of Aperture, a move that adds some spice to its competition with Adobe Systems' Photoshop Lightroom. Adobe has scads of third-party companies that create plug-ins for regular Photoshop, but Lightroom still lacks the equivalent for important editing functions. However, many have extended Lightroom's abilities with export functions, image-processing presets, and even a geotagging tool.

Among those creating plug-ins for Aperture are Tiffen, Digital Film Tools, Nik Software, Image Trends, and PictureCode, Apple said.

Programmers can download the SDK from the Apple Developer Connection Web site. Some plug-ins are available for download. Find more information at the Aperture Plugged-In Community site.

Via CNET News.com

Aerial photography with a kite

Craig Wilson loves to fly kites so much, he went all over the world just to test out his homemade creations. What was unexpected was that once when he tried to take a picture with a 35mm SLR in one hand and the kite in the other, he had what he described as "a light bulb moment".

One thing led to the next and soon he was flying a 20ft wing span kite with a remote-controlled camera over people's head and capturing a bird's eye view of different places. This went on for 20 years and now he had just released a picture book aptly titled "Hanging by a Thread, A Kite's View of Wisconsin".

Although there are no mentions of what camera he used to capture the shots or the process of it, we'd like to salute Wilson for his commitment and ingenuity. After all, his idea weighs much less than the Verhagen X2-Special 26Cam we reported earlier. If you are interested, this book is available on Amazon.com for US$23.

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