Posted on: Tuesday, January 29, 2002
A sneak peek at innovative gadgets
By Ric Manning
Louisville, (Ky.) Courier-Journal
Not everything on display at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas played music or videos.
Part of the fun of exploring the nearly 2,000 exhibits is the chance of finding gadgets that you've never seen before — and some that you'll never see again. Inventors often bring new products to the show hoping to find investors or distributors, and not all of them go home happy.
Here are my nominees for the five most unusual products at this year's show.
The Guy's Keyboard
Women can type; men can't. That's what architect Daryl Fazekas said he concluded after years of hunting and pecking on a standard QWERTY keyboard. So Fazekas created his own keyboard layout, one that he says is more logical, especially for two-finger typists.
His keyboard puts vowels and other most-used letters and numbers in the center, where they're easier for clumsy fingers to reach. The 0 and 1 keys are in the middle of the number row, while Z, Q and X are on the fringes of the keyboard.
Fazekas said men get comfortable with his keyboard after about two weeks of use.
Fazekas sells the keyboards for $40 from his Web site: guyskeyboard.com. Holy Quran Digital Book
Digital Bibles have been available on portable devices for several years. Seoul, South Korea-based PenMan Corp. decided that the world's Muslims should also be able to carry their sacred book in their pockets.
The Holy Quran Digital Book displays Arabic text on a large liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. Passages can be bookmarked and saved when the unit is shut off.
The book also has an audio track that follows the text with recitations recorded by two Muslim clerics. Users can hear the words through earphones or use the book's built-in speaker.
PenMan representatives at the show said the device is not yet available in the United States.
Advanced Taser
You know about Tasers. They're hand-held weapons that can temporarily disable someone by administering a jolt of electricity.
With the original Taser, you had to get close enough to an attacker to press the business end of the device against his body. The new Advanced Taser can be aimed and fired like a pistol.
The weapon launches a pair of probes from a distance of up to 21 feet from a replaceable cartridge, and the probes are connected to the weapon by a pair of thin wires.
Taser International Inc. (www.airtaser.com) has been selling the gun for about a year through stores that cater to security businesses.
The guns cost about $120 to $600.
Cash Tester
If someone handed you one of the new Euro banknotes that started circulating this month, would you know if it was the real thing? Could you spot fake American money? Miami-based Computip said its Cash Tester portable scanner can tell real bills from funny money on both continents.
The Cash Tester (cash-tester.com) is about the size of a small cellular phone. Slide a bill across the scanning surface. A green light means the real thing; a red light means call the feds.
The P5 Glove
In 1989, Mattel made a splash at CES with a glove designed to control video games. Players could move their on-screen characters by making karate chops in the air.
The glove idea returned this year with a new design from a company called Essential Reality (essentialreality.com).
ER's glove is lighter and more responsive than the Power Glove. It lets players move or shoot by tilting their hand or flexing their fingers. The company plans to have the glove on the market in March retailing for about $129.
