Inside-out umbrella keeps your house dry

The umbrella is a great invention that keeps us dry especially when year-end monsoon showers often pour without warning. It messes up only when the water rolls off after closing the brollie as you step inside the house. Argh.

The Inside Out Umbrella addresses this issue with a simple flap that pulls the dry, inner layer over the wet one and catches all that water from the outer piece. It's an elegant way to hold the brollie if you were in a shopping mall, though the idea is currently still a concept. Meanwhile you'll still have to rely on flimsy, see-through plastic holders, or invest in a proper cover if your umbrella doesn't already come with one.


Via Yanko Design

Lighting your way in the rain

There are countless umbrella inventions that aim to make your walk in the rain a little more bearable. From listening to music to catching a movie on the underside of your brollie to Korean designer Sang-Kyun Park's LightDrops creation that lights your way in the rain.

According to the writeup, the outside canopy that has a conductive membrane called PDVF. As rain hits it, the impact generates electrical energy that powers built-in LEDs on the umbrella. The harder the rain hits the brollie, the brighter the light. Now that's literally a brilliant idea, but the lights better be waterproofed, otherwise you'll end up as an electrifying light show.

Via Yanko Design

Jobo's new 7-inch photo frame includes a remote

You know it's bad when the most exciting thing about a product is that it comes with a remote control. However, to be fair to Jobo AG and its PDJ077 digital photo frame, most sub-US$100 7-inch displays don't include a remote. Or support for CF cards for that matter. The PDJ077 has both.

The LCD also features an 800 x 480 resolution with a contrast ratio of 400:1 and user-adjustable brightness. The frame has slots for CF, SD/SDHC, MMC, and MS cards as well as a full-size USB 2.0 port for use with external drives. Another USB port lets you run a cable from the frame to your computer so you can use the PDJ077 as a card reader.

Left out is internal memory, and file support is JPEG only (read: No video playback). But you do get that remote, which the company says controls everything. So that's something.

Via CNET Crave

A minuscule optical mouse

If clicking multiple buttons is too strenuous an activity, check this mouse out.

The Z Nano Optical Mouse, which bills itself as the "world's tiniest" optical mouse, is, at 1.65 inches by 0.83 inches by 0.69 inches, barely larger than a human finger tip. It plugs into any PC via a USB cable, and instead of right and left click buttons, the user needs only to roll a finger to the left or right instead. And in the case of scrolling, you click buttons on the mouse's side.

The Z Nano has clear plastic casing and is lit by multicolor LEDs on the inside. Under where the finger goes, there's also a place to insert a tiny image to personalize the device.

It costs US$60, and is available on FlipAlbum.com.

Via CNET Crave

No escaping Britney Spears: 2008's top searches

Maybe all our refined, enlightened interests are lost in the long tail, because Britney Spears once again was the most popular search subject in 2008 on Yahoo.

For Yahoo, Spears wasn't the only pop-culture icon in Yahoo's top 10 searches. Also on the list were Miley Cyrus at No. 4, Jessica Alba at No. 6, Lindsay Lohan at No. 7, and Angelina Jolie at No. 9.

Apparently, a lot of people are curious about World Wrestling Entertainment, because WWE was No. 2. The online game RuneScape was No. 5, anime series Naruto was No. 7, and American Idol finished in 10th place on Yahoo's list.
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