Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

One for all, all-in-one

People at the helm of Apple, like Jony Ives and the late Steve Jobs, tend to get all of the credit for the company’s constant innovation. Startups like the Nest Learning Thermostat and Flipboard, which were both founded by Apple alums, proved though that Cupertino’s talent pool is incredibly deep and certainly capable of innovating [...]

Ditch your eye baggage

You work your ass off to get ahead in everything. You rise early and go to bed late. You eat well, exercise, and spend time with those you love. And everyone can tell you live life to the fullest, not from the pep in your step, or the smile on your face, but from the [...]

Forget one-size-fits-all

Typically, buying a set of custom molded earbuds from brands like Ultimate Ears (now a subsidiary of Logitech) or Etymotic can take months. That’s because consumers must first visit the Audiologist to have inner-ear molds made, which are then shipped to the headphone company for production. Sonomax’s Sculpture Eers Custom Molded Headphones ($199+) ship with [...]

Fanning the flames? There's an app for that.

The Escea DX15000 pushes the snowball of fire-controlling skills kicked off by our ancestors to the next logical platform — the smartphone. Besides being the first-ever contained gas fireplace available with a 60-inch wide flame, the Escea DX1500 features a Smart Heat intelligent control system that allows users to manipulate the fire via a smartphone [...]

Visual effects, sometimes referred to more broadly as CGI, have always been a cornerstone of “movie magic” since their initial development in the late 1960s. While action blockbusters have deservedly gained notoriety for pushing this technology to extremes, the truth is that almost every big budget film project uses them liberally — and in far [...]

Minimal Magnetism

Simple, elegant, purposeful — those adjectives are just as applicable to the iPad 2, as they are to the Magnus iPad 2 stand ($50) by Ten One Design. The pure aluminum base is machine-crafted and equipped with customized magnets to hold Apple’s latest tablet firmly in place. While thicker cases won’t work with the stand, [...]

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

Some companies wilt in the face of technical evolution and changes in consumer behavior. We love you Kodak — but you’re a classic b-school case study on this. Famed MPC maker (which, FYI, stands for music production center) could have followed a similar path in the face of exploding new device categories like tablets. Their [...]

Keep your creature comforts

Plenty of brands sell solar panels to help adventurers keep their gadgets charged no matter how far they wander off the trail. The HiLight (~$257) from Swedish company HiNation provides the same charging convenience for USB or Micro USB devices, while also serving as an LED lantern. Ten hours of sunlight charging can power the [...]

Break up the monotony of your solid coats, sweaters, and pants with a touch of pattern. True to Saturdays’ surfing roots, the Crosby Checked shirt’s casual air looks great as is. Those who trudge in the office every day, though, should also strike wardrobe gold pairing it with a thin tie, cardigan, or blazer — [...]

Shot Class

For some strange reason, bar tools have consistently remained the lone torch carrier for Art Deco styling, long after the movement’s influences faded from architecture, cars, and graphic design. The 18/8 stainless steel Bullet Cocktail Shaker by Metrokane ($20) epitomizes this trend better than most and should up the caliber of your next home soiree, [...]

Monitor your movements, compete against the world

Nike has finally decided to compete directly with startups like Fitbit to help consumers keep track of how much energy they’re burning throughout the day. To do it, the sports leviathan first had to develop a consistent measuring stick for comparing various activities (and people) head to head. So-called NikeFuel is the metric they came [...]

Peer into the future, without the crystal ball

We kicked off 2012 by visiting not-so-beautiful Las Vegas to attend CES, with the hope of getting a head start on the exciting new products that will launch over the coming year. While we’ll continue to highlight gadgets revealed there on a regular basis, one of the best parts about being on the ground at [...]

Cutting-edge indeed

So-called “cloud services” hope to make transferring digital data via physical devices akin to cave painting in the near future. That hasn’t stopped pocket-tool legend Victorinox from evolving the classic Swiss Army Knife to house the latest SSDs and transfer protocols. Their new solid state drive line features a special single connector that’s compatible with [...]

Two of the best get better

Samsung’s flagship TVs are always contenders for top honors in terms of picture quality and features each year. While their remarkable OLED TV garnered the lion’s share of the spotlight at this year’s CES, the company’s latest premier LED and plasma are still nothing to scoff at. The UNES8000 3D (shown above) is the new [...]

What down side?

The next time you think Mother Nature has lost her edge to science, consider this fact. Despite all of the advanced synthetic insulators on the market today, no material boasts a better warmth to weight ratio than down. The trouble is that down’s got a serious achilles heel. As most outdoor enthusiasts know, its thermal [...]