You may never need your computer to have a tough outer shell capable of withstanding the great outdoors but for search and rescue personnel, fire and emergency crews or military personnel stationed in out of the way places, it’s a necessity.

Motorola has stepped up to the likes of the Diamond SwitchBack offering two new PCs designed for such jobs, the ML910 Rugged Notebook and MW810 Mobile Workstation. Both systems are wireless-enabled and made to work in different extremes of climate, with the ML910 having a hard drive heater (!) just in case you snap open this baby in a place where it’s below freezing, as well as having diagnostic software that monitors the internal temperature, working to prevent any lock-ups or power outages as a result of high heat or sub-zero cold.

Powered by a Intel Core Duo 1.66 …

Due to popular demand, Kestrel, a company that’s been delivering portable weather instruments for years, has finally come out with a portable weather measuring gadget that can measure both the wind speed and direction using a built in digital compass, along with some other cool and somewhat geeky features.

The Kestrel 4500 weather meter fits into a 2″ x 6″ pouch, weighs less than 8 ounces and records 20 different types of measurements while storing up to 2000 of them which can then be downloaded to a computer and charted. Measurements can be recorded manually or automatically, and can even be set to automatically record when the device is powered off.

Among the many weather measurements that the Kestrel 4500 can record, graph and trend, some of the more notable are crosswind and headwind/tailwind based on a user-defined target, maximum and average wind speeds, wind chill, …

If you’re thinking of taking a vacation to someplace with warm water, your traditional digital camera won’t work when it gets wet. Instead of leaving your camera on the beach and missing out on some fun photos, Vivitar offers you the option of buying their new ViviCam 6200W and diving under the waves with it.

The camera is waterproof to a depth of 30 feet/10 meters, and honestly, if you plan on diving any deeper than that you should be thinking of an oxygen tank instead of snapping photos. The 6200W has 4X zoom, SD card support, 16 MB of built-in memory, a nice 2-inch LCD display that you can show to your friends underwater and a tough rubber-armored exterior perfect for holding in an aquatic environment.

Vivitar just debuted the 6200W at the PMA 2007 happening in Las Vegas, so no pricing has …

That’s right, this is a second generation iPod shuffle that is waterproof! This waterproof Shuffle does not require a case, but has the waterproofing applied on the inside allowing normal use of the device at its original size.

This Shuffle is water resistant for depths up to 10 feet which makes it safe for showering, bathing or swimming as long as you keep it relatively shallow. SwimMan, the originator of the modified waterproof Shuffle, also has waterproof headphones to go along with it for your underwater listening enjoyment.

The iPod Shuffle with applied waterproofing is available now, and $250 gets you the 1GB Shuffle, the waterproofing technology and a set of waterproof headphones along with a limited warranty (Apple’s warranty is most likely void with this).

SwimMan via Engadget

Traveling can sometimes make it difficult to keep gadgets charged up, especially when hiking or spending time in remote areas. This backpack from Voltaic Systems has three durable, waterproof solar panels across the back of it which generate up to 4 watts of power, which is plenty to charge up your things.

Inside the backpack there are channels that run throughout the pack and shoulder straps to run wires through which can power and charge various items. A 2,200mAh Li-Ion battery and eleven adapters also come with the Voltaic Backpack to hook up to a wide variety of gadgets and run them temporarily with no power source. The battery has three different voltage settings available to store the solar power.

When riding in the car or indoors, the solar backpack also contains adapters to charge your gadgets and it’s battery through a standard …

There are probably a number of places that would be available to view via webcam if only it didn’t need a computer and power in close proximity. DigitalXTractions has a solution to this problem by offering a webcam that runs on solar power and sends it’s images directly to an internet site through wireless phone lines.

The webcam has a 1.3 megapixel sensor that can capture either video or still pictures and send them to a site to be viewed through a wireless GPRS/EDGE cellular modem.

The actual camera is 7×4x3 inches and weighs about 5 pounds so it might not be real easy to hide, if that is your plan. Also, there is a solar power option (additional cost) and a back up batter that can take up some additional room wherever you mount it.

The real cool part about this solar webcam …

The Stewart Golf X3 Remote Trolley is the ultimate cart for carrying your clubs. Not only is this trolley motorized, but it is designed to be controlled by a remote control to allow you to direct it from up to 50 meters away.

The remote control allows you to run it forward and backward at 4 different speeds, as well as turn right and left. You can define the speeds yourself ahead of time and they are remembered the next time you use the cart. With the remote you can send the cart away after you get your clubs and bring it back when you are ready.

The X3M is a trolley built with the same frame but without the remote control. The functionality is pretty much the same, but you have to do it from the cart. You can however send the …

It’s nice to be able to take your music with you when you are outdoors, but it is not nice when your iPod or any DAP gets wet or banged up from the elements and your “extreme sport” activities. Snow sports such as skiing and snowboarding are great examples of when you would like your tunes with you and not have to worry about ruining your iPod while you’re checking your hang time.

The SportCommand from Belkin is a rugged remote control that can strap on to the outside of your jacket and control your iPod wirelessly while it’s in an inside jacket pocket or in your backpack. The SportCommand is waterproof and has big buttons to run the basic functionality of your iPod so you don’t have to take your gloves off and pull out the player to mess with …

Solio is a handy universal power charger that is powerful enough to charge all of your handheld electronic products from smart phones and MP3 players, to digital cameras, game players, and GPS devices.

Solio can take a charge from either the wall socket or the Sun and store this energy within the Solio’s internal battery. The internal battery takes 8-10 hours of direct sunlight to fully charge and can store enough power to charge a typical cell phone or an iPod Nano at least two times. The fan-blade design allows it to achieve maximum surface area for sunlight, yet fold up to conserve space when packed.

Solio lets you travel light and limit your need to carry around multiple chargers for all of your gadgets. The Solio power charger is environmentally friendly and a real lifesaver when you find yourself in those tight situations where you …

If you happen to be looking for a great golf gadget for the coming holiday season or an occasion, you will want to check out the Sureshot GPS. This small GPS enabled device come loaded with a large number of convenient features that can potentially be used on any golf course around the world.

For it’s simplest use, the Sureshot GPS can be used to measure your distance to the hole at the pin position for the day, along with distances to the center, front and back of the green from your current position. You can load up to 10 different courses into the device at a time with up to 33 recorded points for each hole identifying items such as hazards and the green.

As you are golfing you can also record statistical information about your play such as strokes, putts, elapsed playing time, …

The Bushnell Instant Replay Binoculars allow you to use them as you would regular binoculars, watching outdoor wildlife, football games or whatever. What makes this a pretty cool gadget is that you can take 3.2 megapixel digital photos through the binoculars, and you can actually record motion video through them as well.

The Instant Replay Binoculars are just like it sounds. You can be recording events as they happen and as you see them through the binoculars, and then save them and reply them or the photos on the 1.5″ pop-up LCD screen mounted on top.

The binoculars have 32MB of internal memory for storing video and pictures, and it has a compact flash slot for adding additional memory. The binoculars themselves have 8x magnification and a 32mm lens, and is powered by 2 AA batteries. Some additional stats on the Instant Replay Binoculars …

It’s not too often that we see many fishing gadgets, but if you are looking for a gift for the fisherman that has everything, they might not have the Humminbird SmartCast Watch Fishfinder.

This wireless fishfinder utilize a transducer called a Remote Sonar Sensor (which adds a new definition to RSS). The sensor weighs only about one ounce and is cast into the water with your normal rod and real as if it were a regular lure or bobber attached to your line. The small Hummingbird fishfinder sends and receives sonar signals to find the water depth, the presence of fish and any underwater structures, and then uses a wireless link to transmit that data to the display on your wristwatch.

The floating fishfinder can transmit up to 75 feet from the watch, and can read accurately to depths …

“Is that a knife in your pocket…?”

Wenger must have the kitchen sink in there somewhere with their V1.0 of the Giant Collector’s Swiss Army knife. This knife contains all 85 tools currently offered by Wenger in their different Swiss Army knives which together constitute over 100 different functions.

These different tools include various types of blades, pliers, screwdrivers, saws and wrenches among other more unique tools such as a rivet setter for bicycle chains, a whistle, cigar cutter, laser pointer, tire tread gauge, and of course the toothpick, tweaser and keyring cannot be overlooked.

However impractical this particular knife might be due to shear size, this is a real offering from Wenger, and has the same quality that goes into all of their Swiss Army knife and other products, and comes with a lifetime warranty at a price of $1,200 USD.

Full List …

No more swatting bugs and leaving a smashed mess when you are using the Electric Bug Swatter. Yes, it is just like it sounds. Similar to the blue bug “zappers” on your uncles porch years ago, you now can carry that power in your own hand.

When using the Electric Bug Swatter, you simply turn on the switch to charge the electric current and heat up your racket. Two AA batteries send approximately 1400 volts at a low amperage coursing through the grid of bug death and zap insects dead in mid air. Hold the racket still and you can let the bugs come to you, unwittingly flying straight into inescapable doom.

This swatter gave us hours of unintended uses and enjoyment, but please note that this is not a toy, which Quagmire can vouch for as you do not want to let someone …

Have you ever wondered just how out of control crazy you went with the last jump, or just how much hang time your buddy actually had when he took a huge jump going to fast when no one was looking?

Enter Silva “air time pod” to put these stories into some measurable reality via gadgetry. This gadget designed for use when skiing or snowboarding can actually measure your air time or “hang time” when worn while making the jump.

It shows the date, your hang time and the temperature when you did it. The air time pod from Silva will show your last 15 jumps’ air time, and some additional stats including air time by day, total combined air time for the year, temp, time, date and has an alarm.
This is one of a few items that Silva has come out with this year …