The Conserve Socket is a part of Belkin’s eco-friendly product line aimed to reduce energy consumption. How? Well with an easy to set timer, it completely shuts off whatever device is plugged into it once the preset time expires. This durable product can be used throughout the house for multiple devices.

In my experience with the product, which Belkin was kind enough to send over, I’ve found it to be ideal for cell phone chargers, most consumer electronics, space heaters, coffee makers and irons. Clearly labeled buttons, simple packaging and reasonable pricing make it a no brainer for your average technophile.

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The Robolancers Hard at Work

For a long time, science fiction has provided a plethora of famous robots. Cylons, R2D2, and Bender, just to a name a few that I got on this Sporcle quiz before I gave up. Sorry, C3PO.

But what about real-life robots? What’s going on in the world of today? Well, the Robolancers from Central High School hope to tell you all about that in 1st Annual Philly Robotics Expo at Drexel University. The event, taking place on Thursday, April 28th of Philly Tech Week, invites you to “have a blast playing with real robots and learning from the Philadelphia businesspeople, engineers and students who are transforming science fiction into science reality!”

Did you hear that? You get to play with real live robots. AND IT’S FREE. Why are you not already lined up outside of the Drexel Recreation Center? Proceeds from the event get put back into local robotic and engineering programs in Philadelphia, with the goal of one day building a Robo-Mayor Nutter, who uses social networks at high efficiency and legislates with an iron-alloy fist.

Philly Robotics Expo
April 28 2pm – 8pm
Drexel Recreation Center, 3301 Market Street
Free Admission

This post brought to you by OgilvyInteractive. All opinions are 100% mine.

Ah, digital magazines. Seems like a lot of companies are trying to jump into the appzine market, and few are doing it right. I mean, with an application like Flipboard that delivers a magazine-esque experience, why even bother?

Well, in comes The Collection, a new appazine delivering a monthly, pay-per-issue digital mag, brought to you by Ringier, a Swiss-media company founded in the early 1800′s. You heard me. The 1800′s, a fact that astonishes me.

What are they doing different? They’ve put together a unique content management system especially made for The Collection, that lets you experience the content in an entirely new, intuitive way. Photos, videos, text… all delivered interactively.

The app aims to stay up to date with current events in our ever changing media landscape, which is an impressive statement to say the least, considering how quickly news breaks all over the Internet. But if a media company founded in the 1800′s can still continue to move with the times, I think its safe to assume they’ll achieve this goal.

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Recently,  I had the distinct pleasure of visiting our friends over at Hive 76 for a demonstration and class on 3D printing.

If you are unaware, Hive 76 is a community/space here in Philadelphia for making, creating, hacking, re-purposing. They do a better job of defining themselves here. More on them later.

3D printing is as cool and futuristic as it sounds. In the same way that an inkjet printer runs a cartridge full of printing material (ink) over a surface (paper) repeatedly until an image is produced, a 3D printer “prints” layers and layers of thermoplastics until a physical object is produced. I myself had been a casual observer of the development 3D printing as chronicled over at BoingBoing, and I thought I knew a fair amount about it, but seeing a drawing on paper become a tangible thing in under an hour came pretty close to blowing my mind.

Hive 76′s Makerbot in action

Hive 76 has two 3D printers. The first is a Makerbot, which was the first widely available option. Prior to Makerbot, 3D printing was the realm of large R&D facilities or extremely dedicated (and wealthy) hobbyists. People at Hive 76 have printed some rather notable things (in the realm of 3D printing) on their Makerbot, including the Ban Hammer and what is probably the first ever printed engagement ring.

The coolest thing being printed at Hive76, however, is their second 3D printer. One of the driving forces behind 3D printing (and Hive76, for that matter) is putting creation and creativity in the hands of everyone. Copyright and digital rights management are dirty words, while open source, Linux, and creative commons are all the rage. The Mendel is a 3D printer designed to be self replicating. All of the non-metal, non-electronic parts are printable themselves, so any replacements or upgrades can be printed right at the Hive.

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Last week, I hopped a train to New York City to hang out with Chevrolet and Engadget. Turns out Chevy is rolling out a new in-car entertainment system that harnesses the appeal of smartphone tech, but with a slick and simple interface that appeals to geeks and soccer moms alike. The company announced the development live at Thursday night’s Engadget show at SIR Stage in New York.

We got a chance to get up close and personal with the cars at a media event in the morning, plus a ride in the futuristic prototype vehicle EN-V — like a Segway meets a helicopter cockpit meets a SmartCar. The best part: we scored some snazzy gear to give away. Read on to find out how.

Chevy MyLink is a clear response to connected entertainment systems already on the market, like Ford Sync, Toyota Entune, or even the simplified BMW Mini Connect app for the Mini Cooper. With both the increasing demand for connectivity and a trend in app-based systems, Chevy decided to pull existing applications and combined them into one smooth interface.

Check it out, geeks.

A touchscreen on the dash keeps everything together in a neat homescreen, just like your phone. Flip through apps and functions by touching the screen or from the steering wheel.

• Smartphone integration: MyLink connects with a slew of smartphones, like your iPhone, iPod, Android phone or Blackberry. Stream music wirelessly, make or answer calls, and juice up with the built-in PowerMat charging system.
• Apps, apps, apps: Thumbs up for Pandora! Listen to your favorite streams and vote songs up or down just like online. Use Stitcher to stream your favorite radio shows, news or podcasts. Your songs and playlists (and corresponding album art) will be downloaded, organized and displayed on the touchscreen library thanks to Gracenote.
• Voice recognition: Interact with the car without taking your hands off the wheel using advanced voice recognition provided by Nuance. Make calls, sort through hundreds of albums or get directions with voice commands. If you get really lost, the folks at OnStar can help — they’ve been with GM for 15 years now.

Consumers can scope the hyper-connected “infotainment suite” (their words, not ours) on the 2012 Volt and Equinox in early fall, plus additional models in the coming year, according Mickey Bly, GM’s executive director of vehicle engineering.

Now. Time for the swag. Leave a comment below with your suggestion for the best in-car entertainment system. We’ll pick a winner at random to receive a PowerMat system and a Pandora shirt!

Disclosure: Geekadelphia was not paid for this post and all opinions are our own. However, our blogger did receive free transportation.

Writing for sometimes 12 hours a day only to spend another few in Azeroth or taking it to the Covenant has put my wrists through the ringer. (Oh, the joys of being a freelancer.) My right wrist now has a weird crack in it that I can make happen at will and it’s already tough to make a fist without writhing in pain. Yes, I’m a 23-year-old writer and carpal t

unnel is already setting in. Well, the gamer in me doesn’t help either. After trying gelled mouse pads, good posture and all that other nonsense, California-based Dyna Flex contacted us about its Powerball. My new, inanimate best friend.

The Dyna Flex Powerball is essentially a plastic ball with a spinning rotor inside. But when you start it up with the included dock, it sparks to life and creates up to 40 pounds of gyro torque at 15 thousand RPMs. While the company says it has been used by NASA in its training programs and is university-tested, I’m just here to tell you that the thing works.

Admittedly, it took a good hour of fooling around to get used to the motions required to keep the gyroscope inside going in my hands. But once you learn the right wrist movements, you can keep the Powerball moving forever. Though, I definitely wouldn’t recommend that. But what I would recommend is taking five minutes with this device daily if you suffer from wrist pain or feel the frightening oncoming of carpal tunnel like myself.

While the Powerball does come with a timer and special functions for competitive play, just giving a spin for a moment is enough for me. After taking a break and twirling this thing around for a few minutes, my wrists just feel better after being in motion. While it is pricey at $69.95, it’s worth a shot instead of the hundreds of dollars you’ll spend in rehabilitation sessions. If this is what’s going to keep me working (and playing), I’d definitely recommend giving it a spin.

If you leave us a comment describing your most gripping (literally) gaming, work or music-playing experience, we’ll give one of you at random a Dyna Flex Powerball. You have one week from today to leave us an interesting story (keep it clean!), so put those wrists to typing.

The map you see above is of our beloved city of Philly. However, the red and blue dots tell an interesting story.

Eric Fischer did a geotagging study where he took photo information and applied a simple formula to deduce whether they were locals (blue) or tourists (red), and mapped that information for 50 cities.

It’s interesting to see where the tourists are in the city.

Center City is of course the main hot spot for both locals and tourists, but the usual suspects come up as very heavy tourist spots. Places like Independence Mall, City Hall, and Eastern State Penitentiary, and the Ben Franklin Parkway are very bright red. What is interesting is the nice mix of both tourists and locals at places like Rittenhouse Square.

On the south side of City Hall, you have South Street, the Italian Market, and Pat’s & Geno’s as havens for tourists.

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Photo Lovingly Stolen from GPTMC

85,500 bulbs, 300 amps, 47,680 watts of power and over 520 hours of preparation.

That’s what it took to power Franklin Square for the 2010 holiday season. It was hard to miss Franklin Square over the holidays, what with its plethora of festive lights that illuminated the Center City skyline.

Franklin Square is one of the original William Penn Squares and continued the global lighting tradition in Philadelphia. I had the opportunity to sit down with John Wilson, manager of Franklin Square who gave me an inside tour of this historic landmark and waxed nostalgic about some of his favorite technology and gadgets.

John, a former Six Flags event planner has played an integral role in maintaining the sustainability of Franklin Square. Beginning in 2008, John and Historic Philadelphia, Inc. brought the tradition of holiday lights back to the charming downtown space by receiving funding from the city of Philadelphia and with support of the local community. “We’ve been attracting all sorts of people,” John clamored. “Our neighbors from Chinatown come down and practice tai-chi in the springtime.”

There is a certain element about the Square that evokes a nostalgic feeling. The variety of colored lights, simple cuisine in the warm weather, and the holiday atmosphere had me quickly feeling like a kid again.

During our chat, John was seemingly tethered to his iPhone. Keeping with the nostalgic feeling, I asked the Franklin Square manager what some of his favorite gadgets and technology were growing up. “My Atari 2600 without question!” John exclaimed. “I might be dating myself here but I was incredibly addicted to Pong and Space Invaders growing up. Now all I really need is my iPhone, though. It definitely helps me stay connected, I couldn’t live without it!” he added.

Franklin Square will reopen April 1st for the spring, summer and fall. Also, be sure to keep an eye out for seasonal events coming up at the Square!

Franklin Square Park [ visitphilly.com ]

The Glif is an iPhone 4 tripod mount and stand. As Gizmodo said, “the Glif is one impressive little piece of plastic… just a small piece of injection-molded plastic that’s shaped like a bottle opener.” Honestly, I wish it did have a bottle opener function, that’d give it even more utility.

The Glif gained Internet-wide attention last fall when it completely demolished its original Kickstarter goal of $10,000. The project achieved over 5,000 backers and $137,417 of funding by its goal date of November 2nd. I, like many others pledged, at least $20 to snag one of these accessories as soon as they were manufactured.

From initial uses, this thing is damned useful. It quickly dawned on me that I should really get a good tripod now (woops). Let’s face it the iPhone 4 has a fantastic camera, with particular usefulness because you’re unlikely to leave it at home. The Glif just makes it better and it’s great to enjoy hands-free FaceTime, watching videos, using your iPhone as an alarm clock (unless you’re greeted with the most epic fail-glitch of the New Year.)

The Glif is now available to anyone and everyone, check it out: www.theglif.com (Beware of backorders!)

Spoiler Alert: None of these are on the list

Over the last ten years, we all have become vastly dependant upon technologies that are still considerably in their infancy. For some of you, staying “plugged in” to new technology is necessary to operate your businesses, communicate with friends and family or make your daily routine more convenient.

Could you fathom not being able to browse the web from the palm of your hand? What about relying on cassette tapes or CD walkmans for your portable music needs? Would you still use a VCR to record your favorite television programs?

Take a moment and imagine your life without things like MP3 players, DVR’s and smart phones. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there once was a time without these gadgets. Now that we are more than half way into 2010, I’m taking the time to take a look back at some of the gadgets that defined my decade.

Apple iPod (2001)

Released back in October 2001, Apple’s iPod revolutionized how the world would listen to music for the next decade. With it’s posh white casing, scrolling wheel and simple interface, it was a must have during the 2001 holiday season. Sure there were MP3 players on the market before the iPod but none were as easy to use or hip enough to carry around.

The iPod grabbed everyone’s attention and the age of the MP3 was upon us. Apple capitalized on this success monetizing it in the form of the iTunes Music Store. With extensive mobile functionality, prominent product placement and advertising, Apple had successfully redefined portable music for this generation and for years to come.

TiVo (2002)

It seemed like overnight that a little box known as TiVo made all of our VCR’s and television video recording devices obsolete.

TiVo’s first digital video recording (DVR) device was released in 1999 but really started gaining steam in 2002 with the release of the Series2 unit. It provided a way to allow a viewer to record television programming for viewing on demand. These programs were stored on a hard drive located inside the device and featured a user-friendly interface with reasonable pricing that appealed to the masses.

TiVo also pioneered a way to suggest television programming based on the viewing habits of its viewer. Satellite and cable providers have now jumped onto the DVR bandwagon and offer similar features with their monthly subscription based packages. However, we tend to forget that it all started with a little, charming device named TiVo.

More Below!

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This post brought to you by TiVo. All opinions are 100% mine.

Ah, TiVo.

You are, at the same time, a handy device for at home entertainment, and a lifesaving defensive mechanism during the horrors of war… as proven to us all by the Oscar nominated film Tropic Thunder. And might I add I love that I can say ‘Oscar nominated’ about Tropic Thunder, without being sarcastic.

Well, that TiVo we witnessed in Tropic Thunder, so bravely thrown into the air by Matthew McConaughey, probably could have done even more in battle (and in entertaining Ben Stiller) had it been a TiVo Premiere.

Stepping things up from their regular service, TiVo Premiere connects to your existing cable subscription AND your Internet service… which means you can do instant streaming from Netflix, play your Amazon Video-On-Demand downloads, watch YouTube videos, rock out to Pandora… all that good stuff you wish you could do on your television, using a single device that isn’t your laptop haphazardly connected to it.

That’s my usual shtick, awkwardly connecting my MacBook to my television via a series of cords. One box that does everything? Sold.

Currently, TiVo is offering up a special holiday deal, dishing out the TiVo Premiere for only $99, when you sign up for a one-year service plan of $19.99 a month at Best Buy.

Learn more about TiVo Premiere here, and make sure you watch TiVo saving Ben Stiller and company below.

Note: All proceeds from this sponsored post are going towards Philadelphia’s first all-ages, non-profit literacy journal, The Apiary.

This post brought to you by NAVTEQ. All opinions are 100% mine.

NAVTEQ, the folks whose tech and maps handle most of the in-car navigation systems and GPS devices around the United States, want you to check out their map update. But why? Why now?

Well, a GPS map update wouldn’t make such a bad holiday gift. Especially if your family lives a ways away, like the Geekadelphia crew. The co-founder Tim and I, our family reside back in the exotic lands of New Jersey. Not that we need help navigating… but the old folks at home… yeah. They most definitely do.

Great thing about something like this, an in-dash map update… is that it doesn’t need to be a proper size, color, etc. Note, these updates aren’t for GPS devices (ie: Garmins, TomToms, etc), but for those in-dash car ones. Built in.

So pay a visit to Navteq’s website to scope out the updates, and consider dishing out a map update as a gift… or hell, buy one for yourself, so you can navigate your way back home safely for the holidays.

Note: All proceeds from this sponsored post are going towards Philadelphia’s first all-ages, non-profit literacy journal, The Apiary.