Toys

Seeing Greater Things for New FishEyes Smarter Rod and Reel with Underwater Video Camera

I have to admit that many items I review do not receive much thought after I post their story, but after spending a short time with this new FishEyes Rod and Reel With Underwater Video Camera I realized here was an item with much broader usage. Sure, this is a unique product that every father needs to bring along on a fishing trip with the kids to enhance their experience while you do your best Bill Dance or Jimmy Houston impression, but I began seeing other opportunities for FishEyes. While it really only looks in one direction (down) as I…

Reviews

Useful Things: The Glow-in-the-Dark Playing Cards Review

July is a month for camping trips and summer camps, and I’ve found an item that you might want to consider packing the next time you send the young ones off — a set of Glow-in-the-Dark Playing Cards from Useful Things. Think about the uses that your kids will find for a set of playing cards that are both glow-in-the-dark, and waterproof. Imagine your child playing cards with his or her cabin mates well after lights-out, and you’ll begin to see the usefulness of such an item; you’re providing a means for them to bond with their fellow campers! Or…

Reviews

Review:Swann Flying High with New RC Indoor Helicopter Line

With Father’s Day right around the corner and fuel prices causing many to think perhaps of a “staycation” this summer, those looking for a different sort of gift should check out Swann and their new line of RC Indoor Helicopters. Many ask themselves, “Aren’t remote control helicopters difficult to fly?” Yes they are, or were. Swann, a company mostly dedicated to security devices, offers a break from the routine with this new line of rechargeable RC Indoor Helicopters. Within minutes of making my tester “flight ready” I was buzzing around the den and terrorizing the cat. Fun is had in…

News & Features

Nanodots Adds Even More Fun to the Cool Magnetic Dots of Fun

Nanodots are fun all by themselves. I love playing with these. It’s almost relaxing. It’s hard to believe that they have figured out yet another way to make them fun with a new product that makes it more fun to build with Nanodots. The Nanopad with FeWeave technology is a nice pad to use when you are building with Nanodots that also let’s you play a game with your Nanodots. Available in 16 inch for $19.99 and 26 inch for $29.99. For more on the Nanopad, head over to the product page on thenanodots.com. They are expected to show up…

News & Features

Your Favorite Geek May Be a “Geeks of the Week” Trading Card

Oh, this is so totally cool! Think Geek is now offering the first of 52 “Geek of the Week” trading cards! The cards are broken into sets of eight — I guess because doing sets of seven didn’t look symmetrical enough(?), but anyway! Seriously! How can you resist Veronica Belmont dressed as a warrior princess? In 2010, illustrator Len Peralta set upon a challenge: interview 52 members of the geek-elite, and use that newfound familiarity to create likenesses of them. Each geek would be depicted in iconic representations that best reflected their style and personality. His medium of choice: trading…

News & Features

Arctic Releases Land Rider 300 RC Racing Car Series

Arctic has developed into a company who primarily made cooling solutions for computers to a company who releases high quality products of everything from speakers and keyboards to now hobby items. I have reviewed many items from Arctic and have yet to find something that was not high quality while staying affordable. Their newest line of RC toys. As you can see in a post here, the first offerings were all service related vehicles. They are now announcing a new line of Land Riders for those with faster tastes. Take a look at the full release and product line. These…

Reviews

Review: GlowCrazy Glow-In-The-Dark Fun

Despite being a gear geek, I still want my kids to have activities for inside that are not on a television or video game system. In their life, most of what they know come either of those ways. We do play with Lego toys, slot car tracks and board games, but those get old to the boys. What we need is something unique that seems magic. Enter GlowCrazy which happens to be both unique and does seem like magic. The good folks at GlowCrazy sent me and my boys a sample for review. My boys play hard and are self…

News & Features

Random Cool Stuff: If You Are 30, These Are the Toys You Grew Up With

Over at Milo.com’s Daily Bark, they are featuring a subjective list of the ‘best gifts ever’! It is interesting because it is focused on someone who would have been born in 1980, therefore turning 30 this year. The infograph looks back at what the hot gifts would have been for boys and girls over time. Personally I am too old and my kids are too young to have wanted the kid-centric stuff, but the later stuff … well, who said you ever really had to grow up?!? As I look back over time it is hard for me to peg…

News & Features

The WowWee Roboscooper Wants Wall-E’s Job

Show me a person who could watch the Pixar movie Wall-E without getting a little bit misty, and I’ll show you a person with a heart of stone. The premise was that Earth, long inhabited by wasteful humans was eventually rendered unusable, and there was a mass exodus to a fleet of spaceships provided for by the Buy N Large corporation, which the company that had sold the products which helped contribute to all of the waste on Earth in the first place. Are you with me? So Buy N Large tells the Earthlings that they will only be on the…

Reviews

EFO’s Solar Toys are Fun and Educational

Solar power has been a promise since I was my son’s age. In the future. we were all supposed to have roofs covered in solar cells and not having to use ugly power lines to power our lives. We were barely able to get to the point of powering calculators. Fast forward 20 years and while there have been advances, we still don’t drive solar cars and we still have to have power lines run to our homes. Thankfully, there are more things run by solar cells than back when I was 11 and some of them are fun too….

Reviews

Nanodots are Addicting Dots of Magnetic Fun

Magnetic spheres must be really becoming popular. There are at least three brands of them out on the market with Buckyballs, Neocube and Nanodots. I was received a set of Nanodots to play with. Nanodots look a lot like ball bearings. However, each of the 236 balls are very magnetic. I actually took one dot and had it hold up a piece of paper on the metal side of my cubical; they are that strong. Because of this, you do need to be very careful when playing with these as you could pinch your skin, and these are definitely not…

News & Features

Fun with magnetism: Nanodots

Back when I was my son’s age, I was a science nut. I loved learning all about our universe, electronics, magnetism and the world we live in. My favorite catalog from then was Edmund Scientifics. They had and still have science products and lots of toys similar to what Nano Magnetics Inc are announcing today in the form of Nanodots. Nanodots are little tiny magnetic spheres that you can build things out of. It’s also been suggested when you stock them all together in a big ball that you can use them as a stress ball. They will not come…

News & Features

Zibits Minature Robots Will Keep You Entertained

Just what’s needed to brighten up a dreary cubicle and provide entertainment when your warden supervisor isn’t looking — Zibits, a new series of miniature remote controlled robots that are about 2″ tall, move in “several directions including a full 360º rotation”, and that are equipped with “robotic lights and sounds”. Zibits will show up at Toys ‘R Us in mid-March for less than $10. Zibits Miniature Robots

Reviews

MyDeskFriend Pingo Review

I have a confession to make. I like penguins. Part of this is I am a Linux user and Tux, the Linux mascot, is a penguin. The other part is they are so darn cute. That’s why I decided to take a look when Arimaz offered to send a sample of MyDeskFriend AKA Pingo. Part Tamagotchi, part Facebook app, part Tux Droid and all cute. That about sums up this tiny robot that fits in your hand. MyDeskFriend comes with a little USB docking station, Pingo the Penguin and a little rubber visor that Pingo wears.

Reviews

Tuxdroid the Open Source Robot Review

I have often wanted to buy one of those Ambient Devices Judie blogged about a few weeks ago. I’ve also wanted a Nabaztag as well, since they are cute and can do some really cool stuff like play mp3 files or provide e-mail alerts. I don’t want either anymore, thanks to kysoh.com who sent me a Tuxdroid that is not only very cute, but is also based on open source software.

Reviews

Plantraco Micro Butterfly Review

When I got this airplane in the mail, I was shocked that this little tiny thing can actually fly. I am happy to say that this little airplane not only flew, but flew very well even outside where I tested it. Let’s go over all the pieces of this plane. The plane itself is constructed mainly of a carbon fiber wire for it’s fuselage and durobatic foam for it’s wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers. It doesn’t sound like much, but the plane is very durable even though it looks like you could and can crush it. In normal use, it…

Reviews

SphereXYZ Review

Next year the Rubix Cube turns 30, so the fact that I was working part-time in a retail department store to support school / books / music / games / friends/ etc when it came out means a couple of things. First it means that there is a certain nostalgia attached to the Cube. OK, so it also says I’m old! Anyway, when I had the opportunity to try out the SphereXYZ, a challenging puzzle that invokes the spirit of the classic Cube, I jumped! So let’s find out of the game lives up to the classic and if it…

Reviews

The WowWee Alive Lion Cub Review

When I was a child, I absolutely loved stuffed animals; I had such a massive collection residing on my bed that they threatened to push me off should I stretch out or roll over in the middle of the night. One of my fondest wishes at that time was that some of my favorite stuffed animals could be more life-like and animated. Granted, this was in the 70s, and the closest things we had to robotic toys back then were those obnoxious stuffed dogs that came with a wired battery pack so that they could walk a few steps, bark,…

Reviews

The Stereo Mini Portable Sound Box from USB Fever REVIEW

A couple of months back, I asked my LEGO friends Beetle and Maynard with their girlfriends Sunshine and Faith to check out the new Fingertip Mini Cube Speaker that Thomas at USB Fever sent from overseas. (see the review: Make Some Music) Sunshine: “We were looking for an upgrade to a dual speaker setup. It was then that Judie from GearDiary told us about the Stereo Mini Portable Sound Box from USB Fever. That Judie girl ROCKS, because it as exactly what we were looking for!” (L to R) Beetle, Maynard, Faith and Sunshine with the Stereo Mini Portable Sound…

Reviews

The Ugobe Pleo Robotic Dinosaur Review

When I was a kid, my parents bought me my first robot. Except this was in the early 70s, so it wasn’t a real robot – it was a fuzzy effigy, a mechanized kitten thing. The kitten was tethered by co-joined wires to a long battery box which also served as a remote control. It could walk forward…stop…walk forward…stop; it might have even meowed, too – but I honestly don’t remember. Anyway you get the idea; the kitten wasn’t very exciting, and it certainly didn’t replicate the fun of owning a real cat. In other words, the kitten reacted but…

Reviews

Make some music: The Fingertip Mini Cube Speaker REVIEW

Good things do come in small packages. I asked my LEGO friends Beetle and Maynard with their girlfriends Sunshine and Faith to check out the new Fingertip Mini Cube Speaker that Thomas at USB Fever sent from overseas. Beetle: “As sound technicians for the Best Little LEGO Band from Nashville, we got frustrated with the round speakers that came with our Apple Shuffle.” Sunshine: “Then Kerry and Judie from GearDiary told us about these speakers from USB Fever.” Maynard: “It was awesome! They carry all of these cool USB items that work for our lifestyle. And for only $2.99, they…

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