Those who have trouble with allergies (and deep pockets) might try just about anything to help alleviate their symptoms, and chances are Victorinox had these people in mind when they developed this Swiss Army Tech Vest with Air Purifier. The purifier itself is located in the left breast pocket, and it supposedly transfers purified air to the funnel collar of the jacket where it can be sucked into sensitive lungs . My guess is that this jacket is nothing more than a means of separating suffering suckers from their hard earned cash, but I’m not willing to spend the $500 to find out if it works. [Swiss Army via Wired]

Via [gizmodo]

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Everio GZ-HD6 is First Consumer HDD Camera to Output 1080p Using Chip Tricks, States JVC [Camcorder]

JVC has fired out a bunch of new HDD-recording camcorders recently, but the Everio GZ-HD6 offers something special: it outputs video at a cracking 1080/60p pace. A smaller successor to last year’s HD7, the HD6 has the same 3-CCD full HD sensor system, this time married to a 10x optical zoom lens. With a bigger 120GB hard drive, the new Everio can store about 10 hours of max-resolution video, as well as shooting to SDHC cards. And there’s something even more magical about the HD6: its conversion engine.

Despite recording in MPEG 2 1080i, the camera uses a conversion engine to fire out a 1080/60p signal through HDMI to your HDTV. This is, according to JVC, a world first. To find out whether this improves your video viewing quality, you’ll have to wait until mid-February to purchase it in Japan and spend ¥170,000 ($1,600) on the HD6 or ¥150,000 ($1,400) on its 60GB sibling, the HD5. [Impress AV Watch]

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Toast It Notes is a Pun-tastic Sticky Note Holder
Novelty Office Equipment, three words which should strike you with the same dread as Mickey Mouse Tie. In this case, though, outstanding pun-potential and sheer uselessness mean that Toasted Notes transcends the clutter of desk-crap and enters the realm of…

Novelty Office Equipment, three words which should strike you with the same dread as Mickey Mouse Tie. In this case, though, outstanding pun-potential and sheer uselessness mean that Toasted Notes transcends the clutter of desk-crap and enters the realm of the awesome.

The $7.50 post-it stand does nothing but sit between your desk and your stack of stickers, but what do you anticipate from the people who also make the Yellow Pages Booster Seat and the zen-like Spoon Rest ?

Product page [Shopfosters via OhGizmo!]

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I thought I got all the coolest LEGO sets in history, but a reader pointed out what’s probably the most shocking, darkest non-secret in its 50 years: a minifig wearing black tanga briefs. And when I state “briefs,” I mean brief. All I have the ability to ask is why? Why Mr. Kirk? Why all this painful detail? And is that David Hasselhoff, per chance? [LEGO - Thanks Esteban]

Via [gizmodo]

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New DirecTV Satellite Capable of 150 HD and 1,500 Local Channels [Home Entertainment]

The latest DirecTV 11 satellite just built by Boeing has the capacity to up the total capacity of their programming network to 150 national HD channels and 1,500 local channels. So get ready to fire up those HDTVs—the satellite is expected to launch in March. [Boeing]

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Chris, Adrian and I went to Tahoe to snowboard and test some winter gadgets for an upcoming story. When it comes to the great outdoors and winter gear, tiny pieces of electronics have nothing on old fashioned tech like solid AWD, dedicated winter tires and gore tex outerwear. Driving up, we ran into a bit of trouble.

At about 2am on our late Thursday drive, I glanced up from my radar detector and GPS didn’t see him in my rearview mirror for a minute longer than I should have. When I turned around, I found Chris and Adrian at the side of the road looking at the fender of their automobile. He’d a bit of bad luck, hit some ice a tiny too fast and pinballing around a tight corner on rt 89 near Homewood. Even with AWD, the all season tires on his Subie and slightly-too-fast speed didn’t keep him on the road. We were only 2 miles from the cabin, too. Even superior than winter tires would have been those Qtires with retractable ice pins. Reminds me of The Animal, that toy truck with claws that pop out of the wheels. You know what I’m talking about. Trying to push the automobile out of the drift after banging out his severely dented and scraping wheel well made me think I needed more emergency supplies in my own car. Could have done with a few more bottles of water, a lighter, to go along with the weather radio and hand crank cellphone charger. (Rest in Peace, James Kim.)

The next day, we went for a short ride, and luck didn’t improve. Since the snow was so thick, Lisa and Chris, really both better-than-decent at skiing and snowboarding, convinced me to traverse to the steepest slope at Homewood and take a dive. Meanwhile, I flopped my way down, avoiding snow wedgies only by virtue of some 3 layer gore tex high top pants. Chris bombed the hill, not noticing that there was a snow covered lake at the bottom, which he ended up having to hike out of. Later, we think it was his blue goggles that kept him from seeing well in the cloudy conditions. Gear matters, but not always the kind we write about on a daily basis. It’s a pretty good story, though, you’ve to admit.

One last thing: If you guys have a moment, I’m not too ashamed to ask for some votes over at the bloggies for Gizmodo. We’re nominated in a few places, but I don’t advocate you vote on us for Design. Kotaku and Jezebel are there, too, as is Consumerist. I’ll probably put up a proper beg post tomorrow, but for now, the few of you who made it to the bottom of this rather pointless post could make this editor pretty happy with a few good clicks. [Bloggies]

Via [gizmodo]

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Sony’s New Subnotebooks Prove It Gets The MacBook Air
The new Vaio TZ has a beautiful, subtly etched case offered in flocked champagne or charcoal finishes. One example has classic Victorian geometric swirls. Another looks like wallpaper from the 1960s. A third looks like an insane laser-wielding spirograph machine…

The new Vaio TZ has a beautiful, subtly etched case offered in flocked champagne or charcoal finishes. One example has classic Victorian geometric swirls. Another looks like wallpaper from the 1960s. A third looks like an insane laser-wielding spirograph machine has gone awry on it, and a fourth offers a profusion of leafy designs spiraling toward the logo.

Some people understand the MacBook Air. If your analysis of it spends more than a few moments noodling on features like cellular modems, processor speed and the cross platform compatibility of its external optical drive, you’re not one of them. Sony, by swiftly putting fashion design at the forefront of its TZ subnotebooks, knows exactly what Apple is up to.

Sony, however, is also an institution of inaction in the face of necessity. These are out soon in Japan: wither the West?

CPU Upgrade and New skin available for the Vaio T [Akibahara News]

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IPhone and iPod Touch v1.1.3 Jailbroken
Call it what you’ll – Jailbroked, Jailbreakened, Jailbricked – it’s been done to the latest revisions of both iPhone and iPod Touch. There are a few ways to do it, all of which seems to use a similar method…

Call it what you will – Jailbroked, Jailbreakened, Jailbricked – it’s been done to the latest revisions of both iPhone and iPod Touch. There are a few ways to do it, all of which seems to use a similar method and/or the same set of code. One is from developer Nate True, one from the iPhone Dev team, and one from Ben, co-13-year-old developer. There are methods to jailbreak the firmware on both OS X and Windows.

Over the weekend, I tried out the iPod touch hack from Ben, called iJailBreak. It got scary at times, but in the end it worked fine. I even have the $20 application bundle on there, including the new jiggly icons and the WiFi psuedo-GPS thingy for Google Maps (note: it works great, but you’ll need to actually be connected to a WiFi network for the maps to actually load).

IJailBreak is an application. Fire it up and plug in the iPod Touch, then follow the instructions. Mostly you’ll be clicking a few buttons in dialog boxes and waiting (the application downloads the 1.1.3 firmware from Apple’s servers, which can take a while).

The install hung for me, but following the instructions, I left it alone for 15 minutes and then forced a reboot. Everything works fine, even though you’ll need to reinstall any third party applications you had before. Good luck!

Project page [iJailBreak]

Guide: How to use the 1.1.3 jailbreak on any iPhone (Mac/Windows) [iPhone Atlas]

iPhone Dev Team Release Instructions to JailBreak iPhone Firmware v1.1.3 [iPhone Hacks]

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It seems the first iPhone 1.1.3 jailbreak by Nate True we all rushed to install is throwing a handful of problems, some of which are fixable and some of which leave us wishing we had waited a little bit. Here’s what we know so far from personal experience and what we’ve read on the web.

• Google Maps Faux GPS has problems working unless you install Navizon.

• Can’t change EDGE Settings. Jesus’s EDGE is now nonfunctional because he can’t enter in the custom settings for his provider. This is not a huge deal for people actually on AT&T or one of the three official providers in Europe, but for people who’ve SIM unlocked and are wandering about on other networks, it’s a massive deal.

• The jailbreak may break official third party apps from the SDK? We don’t know if this will be the case, but iPhone Atlas claims that the method Nate used to jailbreak disables “Nikita,” which is a component in the iPhone that installs signed software. Signed software, in the iPhone’s case, would be official third party apps that are signed by Apple to make sure they don’t corrupt or kill your device. If this is broken and unfixable, then jailbreakers may be unable to get in on the SDK action in February.

The official iPhone Dev Team jailbreak was released yesterday, but we haven’t had any experience with this yet.

What have you heard? Drop a note in the comments detailing the problems you’ve had with the jailbreak or just 1.1.3 in general.

Via [gizmodo]

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Sony Reader Goes Total Stereotype for Valentine’s Day [Love]

If you’re looking for that extra special gift for a woman in your life this Valentine’s Day (and the lingerie store has burned to the ground, emitting whatever toxins pleather releases into the air when melted), remember that old fallbacks (which the unenlightened might call stereotypes) are key: pink and Harlequin Romance novels. Luckily, Sony is offering both in a special $299 V-Day Sony Reader Bundle. Coming with a pink “Cross Your Heart” Reader skin and a coupon for 14 Harlequin Special Releases…let’s just say that we’d never date anyone who accepted this gift in earnest.

For those interested in what a real lady (my wife) considers the Sony Reader, hit up her impressions here. For the record, she’s still reading with it nonstop.

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