Do you need a new keyboard? How about a $700 super heavy duty keyboard? If so, you’re in luck, because Stealth has made just that. This keyboard is cased in stainless steel, and has an optical trackball included. Cool, but why is it $700, other than the stainless steel? Well, this keyboard is freaking tough! You can douse it in water and it will still work. And that steel case insures that it won’t be easily destroyed. It also has some neat backlighting too. I wonder how many of these they’ll sell? I can’t imagine too many. But you gotta give them credit for being original.

Source: Stealth

Retina display, eat your heart out. The University of Michigan has made a super tiny display. How small? 12×9 microns (1/6 the width of a human hair). We all know the Retina display is neat because it has smaller pixels, but this small display developed by UMich has pixels that are eight times smaller than that of Apple’s iPhone 4. Wow. Imagine a large display made of up a bunch of these small displays. The link below goes into much greater detail about the process of how this display works.

Source: University of Michigan

In an effort to draw in more customers, Starbucks is offering free unlimited Wi-Fi starting in July. Not all stores will have it, just the ones considered “company-operated.” So, before you toodle on down to your local Starbucks thinking you’ve got a free day of Wi-fi coming, you might want to just double check its availability.

Nokia and Opera, a cell phone producer and internet browser company, respectively, have publicly stated support for Adobe’s Flash software. Adobe and Flash have gotten into a heated spat through the media concerning Adobe’s Flash software. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called the program a buggy battery hog while Adobe has lashed out at Apple over its refusal to support Flash on the iPhone and iPad. The reason this is such an issue is that a lot of casual gaming on the internet uses Flash for its gameplay.  Second, since people like to have these mobile devices for casual gaming in addition to other functions, they can’t play on the internet because of Apple’s lack of support. This to me seems real simple. If Jobs is correct that the software is buggy and sucks a lot of energy from the battery, prove it. Put your results where your mouth is. Find a way to test the battery drain from using the Flash software. To say something without proof to back it up is unethical and is sometimes a diversion from a larger problem. On the other hand, Adobe can stamp its foot in the ground and pout all it wants to, but Apple has the right to support or not support various software for their devices.

Before I start, I just want to say that I love the technological age we have going right now. All the great devices and services for connecting to people and information is wonderful. That being said, I do have think that people need to remember that it’s ok to be away from the internet for a while. The reason I mention is because of an abandoned idea from Microsoft’s UK branch. They called it the iLoo. It’s a public restroom with internet capabilities. Why was this considered a bad idea? Let’s look at it from a sanitation standpoint. Public restrooms get notoriously abused. People do more than just the business for which these are designed. Second, there is a chance for microscopic bacteria to get onto the installed computer. Microsoft claimed to have a vacuum suction technology to prevent this, but is thing something you really want to take a chance on? I don’t know about you, but if my computer is going to get bacteria on it, its going to be from me only.

The big issue for me is that we need to remember there is a reality that we need to interact with just as much as the virtual one. As a global culture, we spend more time on the internet than doing almost anything else. Like I said earlier, I love all the information I have access to, but I don’t need it every waking minute of the day. When I’m in the restroom, I should really be able to survive without the internet for the time it takes me to do my business.

Amazon plans to line the pockets of chiropractors and opthamologists by releasing a version of it popular Kindle e-reader for the Android operating system. That’s right, you can now hunch over your Android smart phone and squint as you try to read a few chapters in your current book. Then, when you get home, you can continue where you left off on you regular sized Kindle reader. This is not really a smart idea. I have enough trouble looking at my wife’s iPhone when I want to watch a YouTube clip in the car. I cannot even begin to imagine what trying to read on that size screen would be like. My eyes and posture is bad enough without Amazon helping.

Some genius over at MSNBC decided to publicly list the best iPad apps for babies and toddlers. Are you NUTS? You’re going to spend $500 on an iPad and then give the thing to your flipping kid? Let me be brutally honest here. Kids do not take of their toys. They just don’t have the maturity or experience to understand what happens if you neglect your toys. When I was a kid, my He-Man action figure had a run in with the ground, 50 feet away from where I launched him into orbit. One of the plastic legs snapped off at the shin. Mom and I taped his foot back on and we went on our way. When I started in band, I got a cheap instrument when there are instruments worth $5,000. Why didn’t I get the best horn possible? Because I was a kid who was going to bang this thing around! It’s what kids do. My niece decided to determine the buoyancy of my wife’s iPhone by dropping it on the concrete patio. The result has been a battery that only holds a charge for one day before needing to be plugged into recharge. I don’t care how many iPads you can buy, don’t give your kids one of these gadgets.

Depending on your outlook of the world and the current state of technology, you may look at this story as either the glass being haf full or half empty. A decade long study on the connection between cell phone use and brain tumors has proven to be inconclusive. Part of the problem lies in the method for collecting data. Participants were asked to try and remember how much time they had spent using their cell phone. I’ll be quite honest, if someone were to ask me the same question, I would be unable to give an accurate number. The other problem lies in the study subjects. Some of these people probably already thought they had a problem and may have exaggerated their answers. One thing I’ve learned is that the thoughts we have follow a general trend. If we think we are sick all the time, then invariably we end up being sick. If we think we are healthy, generally we are healthier. That doesn’t mean that you can do all the things that are bad for you and expect to live to be 95 just by thinkinh you’re healthy. Mindset, however, does affect your body and its longevity.

I’m finding more tablet computers that are on par with the iPad from a spec sheet point of view, and in some key ways, are actually better. Like this one. This Eken M001 has an SD memory card in addition to USB ports. It can also hold 32 GB of info. I think it might even be lighter than the iPad. I can’t remember what the iPad weighs, but this thing clocks in at 0.77 pounds, so it should be easy to carry. Here’s the best part; you can own this piece of technology for only $140. The deal breaker is that you can only buy it if you live in China. Hopefully we’ll see this or something similar to it in the near future.

If you’ve ever wanted to share with your friends the book you are currently reading, now you can do so instantly with the help of Amazon’s e-reader. They just released an update that will allow users to access Twitter and Facebook. Again, I still want to make sure I can highlight passage for later reference before I buy one of these things.