REVIEW >> This Little Mermaid can explore your intestinal tract

What you are seeing here is the Mermaid. Yes, it is a little one, but not the one from the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.


No, this one is an endoscopy device designed by a team of researchers from Ryukoku University and the Osaka Medical Collage, both in Japan. This two-inch long, half-inch in diameter device can be programmed to take photographs of the stomach or colon.

It can be controlled by a joystick, and can snap two photos per second. I would imagine that doctors can figure out what your digestive pain is. Just don’t ask how you get it inside of you. Let’s just say that if the doctor gives you a choice, then swallow it.

You know what this reminds me of? Fantastic Voyage, an adaptation of a classic science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov. That, or comparable eighties film with Dennis Quaid and Martin Short known as InnerSpace. In both films, a submarine-like vehicle was shrank to microscopic size and then placed inside someone. I saw an episode of Phineas and Ferb which explored this idea yet again.

Hey, if you don’t have a shrinking machine, then you might as well do the same thing by remote control.


http://gizmodo.com/5814740/this-mermaid-swims-through-your-digestive-tract

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REVIEW >> Maggie Pro 3-inch LCD Magnifier

I suppose that this next product is targeted at the elderly, or anyone else whose sight is depleting.

The Maggie is a handheld electronic magnifier that can magnify print or digital content up to 4x, 6x, 8x, and 11x. It is small enough to fit in a pocket with a 3-inch LCD screen, and there is a brightness control for varying lighting conditions for indoors and out.

Maggie is powered by a lithium-ion battery which can be charged via USB or wall-socket charger for about 3.5 hours of use.

Here’s the good news: I got to try out the Maggie-Pro 3, and I found that it worked well to magnify whatever print that I put in front of it. It was simple to use, and I would imagine that your grandparents wouldn’t have a problem with it if they remembered to charge it.

Okay, now here is the bad news. After looking at the functions of the Maggie, I couldn’t help but wonder if “there’s an App for that”. I checked the Android Market, and I found IDEAL Magnifier for Free, and it pretty much did the same thing.

That’s bad because the Maggie-Pro 3-inch LCD Magnifier costs about $215.00 on the X-treme Geek site. Yes, that is pretty up there, but I will have to say that Maggie is much clearer than an App. If you are truly vision-impaired, I would highly suggest trying both of them out and “seeing” what works best.

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