Unbreakable Umbrella

The Unbreakable Umbrella is a peculiar mix of genteel elegance and chilling weaponry..

Looking like an unassuming weapon from Oddjob's arsenal, the Unbreakable Umbrella is the weapon of choice for well-heeled bowler-hatted gentlemen cum ninja assassins everywhere. It's also a good buy for anyone who has some cash to splash on a nifty umbrella that not only keeps the rain off but can carve up a watermelon with one well-placed chop.

Aside from making jam of unsuspecting fruit, these umbrellas can also withstand the weight of an adult man and are hand-crafted in Europe from high quality materials in limited quantities. Buyers can choose from a handle-crook or straight knob and all are supplied with a fabric sheath. Not only can this umbrella render a man unconscious, it can also withstand rain and severe wind as you'd hope to expect from any umbrella costing US$189.95.

The Unbreakable Umbrella comes from the slightly alarming Real Self Defense where they suggest that the ideal self defense weapons are “those that are legal to carry everywhere, do not attract attention, are simple to use and do not require practice”. We at Gizmag do not advocate going out and putting the kibosh on anyone, but with a “whack as strong as a steel pipe and weighing less than 2lbs” you could really give any would-be attacker something to cry about.

Perhaps Real Self Defense were inspired by Edward William Barton-Wright's lethal martial art Bartitsu, based on stick-work but applied in the modern day using umbrellas. Or perhaps they were inspired by George Borrow's quote from Wild Wales: “The respectable man sees you have an umbrella, and concludes that you do not intend to rob him, and with justice, for robbers never carry umbrellas... amongst the very best friends of man must be reckoned an umbrella.” Either way they are a peculiar mix of genteel elegance and chilling weaponry.

World`s first GPS goggle

Zeal/Recon have unveiled the world's first goggles with GPS and head mounted display

A coming together of sports lens developer Zeal Optics and display innovator Recon Instruments has managed to successfully squeeze both GPS technology and head-mounted display into a set of ski goggles named Transcend. A tiny computer gathers information from a number of onboard sensors and provides location, speed, altitude and temperature information to the wearer via a micro-LCD display inside the goggles. The image from the display is then virtually projected so that it appears out in front of the user.

In addition to being touted by Recon and Zeal as the world's first GPS-enabled skiing goggles, the Transcend eyewear also provides the wearer with live performance information and details of the surrounding environment. A head mounted micro-LCD display inside the goggles shows real-time speed, altitude, vertical odometer, distance, location and temperature as well as keeping track of the time and having a stopwatch and chronometer mode.

The optical system designed by Recon Instruments has been likened to the dashboard of a sports car and made to appear as though it hangs about six feet in front of the user. Your first thought might be that the last thing you need mid-boost are performance stats blocking out your landing, but the designers say that the "optics are completely non-obtrusive for front and peripheral vision."

Recon has produced a promo giving an overview of the kind of things on offer, which is worth a watch:

To the side of the Transcend goggles are a threesome of nice, big, glove-friendly buttons to control the kind of information shown. There's also a USB port to enable users to download trip stats to a computer or laptop and to charge the Li-ion battery, which is said to give seven hours between charges. The goggles weigh 257 grams (9 ounces) and come shipped with a protective hard case, lens cleaning bag and a charger with European and North American adapters.

Showing off an epic journey to friends is given a more impressive twist with the ability to overlay Google Maps onto stats and highlights courtesy of Recon HQ software. Any particularly impressive snippets can be uploaded to Recon's new online portal and shared with the world – or at the very least, family and friends.

There will be two Recon/Zeal Optics Transcend lens options available at limited release launch on October 10. The option with an SPPX polarized and photochromic lens – which auto adjusts to changing light conditions – carries a retail price of US$499. Said to reduce glare by 99 per cent, coming with built-in anti-fog technology and benefiting from a wide vision frame, the goggles featuring an SPX polarized lens are priced at US$399.

Rumor has it that there's also an open API app development and download community in the pipeline, details will appear on the above link.

Seagate outs industry's first 12TB Storage

Seagate has managed to squeeze a whopping 12TB of storage into a new 4-bay network attached storage unit (NAS) that's about the same size as the subwoofer on my surround sound system. The BlackArmor NAS 440 small business solution can support up to 50 workstations, offers data encryption, is both Windows and Mac compatible and sports a foursome of USB ports for extra connectivity.

As more and more businesses go digital, the need for storage space increases. For small concerns with less than 50 employees, Seagate has unveiled what it claims to be the industry's first 12TB, four-bay NAS. Initially, the BlackArmor NAS 440 network storage server will come shipped with four hot-swappable 3TB drives which can be RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or JBOD configured and will be available exclusively from Seagate and selected retailers for a suggested retail price of US$1,899.99.

The BlackArmor NAS 440 server comes with support for Microsoft Active Directory that enables user and group population, hardware-based encryption, included online access and ftp functionality and is DNLA compliant. Full system backup and recovery is offered courtesy of SafetyDrill+ software and there's email event notification too. The status of the servers can also be viewed on the unit's onboard LCD screen. Other features include Access Control List support, multi-volume management capability and volume level encryption.

The 8.15 x 6.3 x 10.59-inch (207 x 160 x 269mm) NAS is said to offer easy configuration and setup, is both Windows and Mac compatible and sports four USB ports for extra connectivity, a 1.2GHz processor, 256MB of memory and two Ethernet ports for local network connection.

source By Paul Ridden