Friday, December 31

Go Gadgets Dec 2010

Seasonal musings on wintery gadgets and possible pressies.

Go Gadgets, Sat., Dec 4
Featuring a heated snow scraper for your car, a powered snowboard capable of 30kph and a snowball thrower that can fling one 50 metres.


Go Gadgets, Sat., Dec 11
Carry your skis simply, Garmin's heartbeat monitor watch and an eat'n tool for eat'n.



Go Gadgets, Sat., Dec 18
With the tough-talking JCB mobile, an 8 tool multi-tool the size of a house key and the ski/snowboard helmet with built-in soundz.



Go Gadgets Christmas Eve
Stuff perhaps you mightn't want to find in your stocking. The performance stilleto, wearable sleeping bags and signals for cyclists.

Tuesday, November 30

Go Gadgets Nov 2010

November's Go Gadgets at a click.


Go Gadgets: Nov 6, 2010
mini luggage scales, flights on the fly & weatherproofing the kids

Go Gadgets: Nov 13, 2010
ski saturday - emergency digouts, magnetic ski chairs & googles with altitude 

Go Gadgets: Nov 20, 2010
superlatives in destinations: tallest climbing wall, fastest rollercoaster, biggest indoor skiing (allegedly)

Go Gadgets: Nov 27, 2010
New thinking in down jackets, crampons for everyday & warming your tootsies

You'll find images of everything here on Flickr.

Sunday, October 31

Go Gadgets, Oct 2010

Five Saturdays of techie travelology in this month's Irish Times, starting on Oct 2 with the ultimate carry-on, a very packable mat and the minimalist's dream bike bottle mount.

Oct 9 looked at the gear for an Everest Base Camp Expedition being undertaken for the Hope Foundation charity. Silva Head Lamp. Cascada Trousers. Mammut Boots and Jacket.




Oct 16 had foldable luggage, nuking your shoes and the perfect personal perfumer atomiser.

Revolutionary gloves for touch screens, micro projection and playing your vinyl on the go in Oct 23's Go Gadgets.

And on the fifth weekend, flip-flops that foldaway, hi tech breathability and backpacks for dogs.

Lots of images here on Flickr.

Thursday, September 30

Go Gadgets, Sept 2010

September's haul of tech, toys and gizmos for the journey ahead.

It's a backpack. It's car seat. Clever BoostApak. Scratch my map. Hot vests from Quiksilver. All in Sept 4.

Poolmate. Wavebox. Wavetooth. It's like a puzzle where you have to connect the words in Sept 11.

A eureka moment in camera-carrying. What do you get when you cross a skateboard, snowboard and casterboard? The dawning of a digital address code for Ireland. From Sept 18.

And finally this month, the take-apart kayak; scuba googles with a camera; and looking the part for an Ironman in Sept 25.

Lots of pix from Go Gadgets and other stuff that happens Between Ideas here.

Monday, August 30

Go Gadgets Aug 2010

Go Gadgets x 4 from August's Irish Times.

Aug 7: SealLine bags, SPOT tracking and cranking your own light.

Aug 14: The reborn Kindle, 3d print your own iPod jewellery and the built-in filtering Bobble.

Aug 21: The inflatable mattress full of holes, energy-saving slow-cooking and shades for reading.

Aug 28: mini speakers with big soundz, build your own bag and the crib you can bring with you.

Pod a Porter
All the pix are on Flickr.

Friday, August 20

Go Chairless in Public















Vitra are hosting a UGC  gallery of the Chairless: send in a shot of you un-chaired, so to speak and you can win a Chairless for a mate. I think.

"Once your photo of Chairless is uploaded - preferably in landscape format - and approved, you'll become #108 of the Chairless Community. And because that makes you one of the first Chairless People, you can give someone a free Chairless!"

Saturday, July 31

Go Gadgets for July 17, 24 & 31


Here's a quick catch-up of Saturday's Irish Times Go Gadgets columns for July.
 
July 17's Go Gadgets featured the GoPro Helmet Hero HD camera - for all action hero, POV filming of your own acts of daring-do; Burley's Travoy Urban Trailer - which gives your bike haulage power; and Clean Bottle which, well, is a bottle that's easy to clean. And that's harder than you might think. (Bit concerned about their advertsing strapline tho'.)

 
In the July 24 Go column, I looked at Chairless, a chair that's not a chair (and it works!); Satmap's excellent Active 10 handheld sat nav which Mountain Rescue here in Ireland have endorsed; and the Pocket Portable Shower.


And finally. July's last Go Gadgets on Sat, 31 had the daft or gift Teva Illum light-up flip-flops; an app so uv ur UVs sorted; and the ultimate discreet grooming Pocket Mirror, for use after your Pocket Shower no doubt.

More Go Gadgets pix here on Flickr.

Saturday, July 17

Go Gadgets Gets All Organised, July 10

If you're essentially an unreconstructed back-of-an-envelope free-style organiser then you may feel TripIt's intuitive rigour is a file too far. But those who like to get all their ducks in a row - and that would be me - will really appreciate how it so-easily pulls together all your travel elements in one place and joins up the dots.

Oh, and the penknife gets a laser and a fingerprint-secured, encrypted USB flash drive. And you thought it was just for whittling the night away. Read all about it in July 10th's Go Gadgets in the Irish Times.

Retro Reimaginings from Alex Varanese

Preemptive retro here. Take four pieces of contemporary everyday technology, jump in your time machine (duh, like you don't have one of those?) and redesign with a strictly Seventies aesthetic: for ALT/1977, the latest project from West Coast designer/re-visionary, Alex Varanese. He then creates spot-on press ads for these retro reimaginings.

Thursday, July 8

Go Gadgets from Saturday, July 3

Keeping the car occupants' collective sanity on the long haul family journey is this weekend's theme. I look at a couple of ideas from travel-gadget gurus, Griffin - MyPhone cool headphones for younger kids and a dual USB 12V adapter - and let Sith Lord, Darth Vader engage the hyderdrive for TomTom as featured in a previous post.

Now do as I tell you and proceed to the next link on the right: Go Gadgets.

Star Wars more for TomTom Yoda does

After the Dark Side had its day for TomTom, Jedi Master Yoda steps up to the mic (sort of).

Wednesday, June 30

Go Festivals: Toys for Happy Camping

Last Saturday's Go Gadgets looked beyond the extra loo roll as a home comfort for festival camping - with Glastonbury just over and Oxegen coming up fast, the season is hitting its stride.

















The Joby Gorillatorch is probably the pick of the toy box this week, with its new, geekier, even more practical brother, the Flare swinging along behind. Also look at Bruton Coffee to go and the Notebook foldable BBQ.




May the Force be with, next turn on the left

I came across this when putting together the Go Gadgets column for next weekend's Irish Times and it warmed my inner geek. Sat nav makers TomTom, who don't seem to favour that descriptor, apparently preferring instead phrases like Portable GPS Navigation Systems (you can't fight the tide, guys) have added the Star Wars line-up to their premium voices roster.

Check out this recording session with Sith Lord, Darth Vader in the booth.

Thursday, June 24

More Gadgets to Go


The second weekend in June saw 67 teams do the Focus Ireland Four Peaks Challenge - the tallest peak in each province over a weekend - including a group of us, let’s say, more mature walkers. That our team(s) was called Midlife Crisis (1, 2 & 3 to be precise) will tell you plenty. This week's Go Gadgets featured a few tools that we should have brought along: Camelbak's Flowmeter, Steripen and Powermonkey Xplorer.

Browse Go Gadgets images on Flickr.

Or feast your eyes on Midlife Crisis in full, well, crisis.

Go Gadgets column for The Irish Times

In all honesty, I actually don't need an incentive to trawl through technology magazines, gadget catalogues and outdoorsy activity stores. Let me say it loud and say it proud: I am a geek. But just recently, I have been given a most excellent excuse to browse with reckless abandon by starting a weekly technology column for the Go travel supplement of The Irish Times. (Thanks Orna.)

I'm going to cover all manner of travel-related gadgetry from holiday toys to road warrior kit to stuff (technical term) for the sublime outdoors. And I'm a guy who does like the odd hill. The odder the better.

The first week's trio of techno fripperies includes the Pogoplug, the Pango and the Playsport. Afraid you'll have to read June 12's Go Gadgets to get the spec-down on the three Ps.

Wednesday, June 23

Squaring the Circle: Creating U2360º documentary released

I'm not sure about the protocol here, and it may be perceived as bad form to start your blog with a plug, but here goes anyway. While the pause button is still engaged on U2's 360º Tour, you can always check out Squaring the Circle:Creating U2360º, a documentary on the show's conception and realisation which I directed. It's on the bonus disc of U2's new live at the Rose Bowl dvd released earlier this month.

It documents the whole thinking behind the extraordinary 360º production from Bono's initial architectural modelling with forks through to opening night in Camp Nou, Barcelona in June '09 - and the band's reaction to the Tour at the end of the first leg.

The bonus material also includes a pretty cool timelapse sequence (even if I say so myself) of the U2360º spaceship coming to land in Berlin's Olympiastadion (and a little bit of Barca). Both were produced by Ned O'Hanlon.