Digital Trends
Pushing aside the logistics of securing power and Internet connectivity for your travelling circus of electronics, keeping them safe from accidents, evildoers and the forces of nature can also present a challenge. With water, gravity and greed all conspiring to take away the gadgets you love dearly, you’ll need to invest in the right equipment to keep them safe. Here are a few essentials:
Bags and Cases
If the idea of an underwater camera gets your juices flowing, the Olympus Stylus 550-WP might be for you. It uses interior rubber gaskets and O-rings to seal the camera so you can go ten feet under water and still capture the watery world below depths. There’s even a scene mode for underwater photos, applying the correct lighting filters.
The 4.5-ounce device felt light and portable in a quick test drive. A face detection system worked well for up to three faces—the camera automatically focuses on the humans in the picture (detected by skin tone).
Millions of road warriors have finally traded the folded gas station map in the glove compartment for a handy global positioning system (GPS) unit.
You know, those small doohickeys that communicate with satellites hovering above the Earth to pinpoint your location on the planet. With built-in maps for the entire U.S. (and usually, most of North America), GPS navigation units can help you reach to your destination with turn-by-turn visual and audio instructions.
American Water announced a first in water retention technology, a program that uses acoustic information from an automatic meter reading (AMR) system to find and water leaks. Traditionally difficult to detect, leaky water pipes cost both companies and consumers millions of dollars every year. Most aren’t even aware that leaks exist.
The AMR program, which is being piloted in Connellsville PA, is hooked in through water meters, and uses a sensor developed by Flow Metrix to record sound vibrations over a period of 4 hours a night. The information is analyzed and if a leak is discovered, the device will also rate the severity.
It’s virtually wet. It’s virtually wild. It’s the announcement from Atari that the first expansion pack of their popular RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, titled “Soaked!â€, will be washing into store shelves on June 21. This $29.99 add-on will allow theme park tycoons to create and control their own water parks.
“Soaked!â€, according to an Atari press release, offers players more than 50 new rides and coasters, many of which are built around a water park theme, including swimming pool complexes, water slides, wave pools and interactivity with water, including stirring up swimming pools, firing water cannons at park guests and a brand new interactive water-based coaster called The Roller Soaker! New Swimming Pool and Waterfall Designers will enable players to add hundreds of enhancements and the RCT3 MixMaster has been expanded to allow players to customize laser light, firework and water shows using the player’s own music library.
Quote from the article:
“For our water cooling case mod (coming soon), we wanted to put all our water components in the case. That created a need to hide the water pump power cord for a cleaner install. This can be accommodated by using commercially available niche products, by routing the pump power cable outside the case and plugging it into an extension cord, or coming up with a compact solution using common household items. We also wanted the I/O switch on the back of the PSU to control the power to the pump. Since our power supply was already taken apart for the PSU fan mod (coming soon), we heated up the trusty soldering iron after we returned from a trip to Wal-Mart.”
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