scuba

Inventors Hall of Fame inducts tech types

If you play video games, use a GPS in your car, or go scuba diving, you can thank some of the people inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame this year.

To honor those whose inventions and discoveries have changed the world for the better, the National Inventors Hall of Fame inducts key scientists and inventors into its ranks each year. Announced at Wednesday's induction ceremony in Washington, D.C., some of this year's honorees designed or paved the way for several of the technologies we use today.

As an early pioneer in video games, Ralph Baer invented … Read more

iRiver's scuba-friendly MP3 player

Waterproof MP3 players aren't novel anymore, but this iRiver iFP-380T system caught our eye not just for its rather unusual design but because it can go scuba diving with you. This device lets you take your music not just into water, but up to 200 feet deep in it.

The full kit comes with the player as well as its waterproof case and headset. A removable clip helps keep the single headphone securely fastened to the strap of the scuba mask. It's a pity that this can store only about 30 songs with its limited 128MB storage, but … Read more

Send a text message while deep-sea diving

Ever want to send an underwater text message? Laugh if you will, but on your next scuba-diving vacation you'll wish you had one of these gadgets if your air tank runs unexpectedly low.

In fact, this "Underwater Digital Interface" from Underwater Technologies Center can reportedly keep up to 56 divers networked with ships or land bases up to 1,000 yards away. And fortunately for them, the designers kept the product's functions simple--because the last thing you'd need in this situation is a complicated keyboard. (We wouldn't want to take a chance on a … Read more

Digital diving mask lets you play Navy Seal

Many of us at Crave aren't exactly the outdoorsy types, but we do our best to help exercise-enabled individuals in the interest of trying to be a full-service gadget blog. Recently, for example, we featured a tent that can keep your electronic equipment powered even while deep in the woods. And today we offer one for the seagoing geeks among us: the "DataMask HUD."

This underwater headgear, which is supposedly used by military special forces personnel, is equipped with a miniature LCD inside the mask, which provides such detailed diving info as "current depth, elapsed dive … Read more

Crave likes cats

I'm never going to convince anyone that I'm not a crazy cat lady if I don't stop talking about cats all the livelong day. Luckily, Ariel is here to try to bring me back from my cat psychosis. Here are the links for today's show! His home is a shrine to the Mac Charge up your cell phone while you ride a bike Gucci does BlackBerry 'Ghostbusters' Ecto 1 up for auction Video time: wet cat gadgets Enough with the spy bots already I don't want to laugh at that cat in the scuba suit, … Read more

Video time: wet cat gadgets

A few months ago, we showcased a YouTube trend of videos that feature cats on treadmills. Well, apparently, treadmills just aren't good enough. The latest cat-gadget videos involve getting the little fellas wet.

Check out this one, for example, of a guy with way too much time on his hands who BUILT A SCUBA SUIT FOR HIS CAT. I am not kidding. On an unrelated note, that is the fattest cat I've ever seen:

And, in the "is this funny or sad?" department, here is the link to a video from a pet store that installed … Read more

'Aquascooter'--the manly way to dive

Some people apparently think the "Scuba-Doo" is for sissies. So for these macho readers, we point to the "Aquascooter" selling for $900 on ExtremeToysForBoys.com. (Our masculinity isn't threatened. Really.)

It's touted as the "world's only totally portable, submersible, gasoline-powered personal water craft." We don't suspect there was a whole lot of competition for the title, but that's beside the point. The Aquascooter can travel 5 mph for more than 10 miles without refueling, according to Red Ferret, "which kind of blows away all the electric alternatives"… Read more

Scuba-Doo, we need you

It's only January, but we may have already found our favorite item for all of 2007: The "Scuba-Doo." The name alone is reason enough to like it, but there are actually practical reasons to want one as well.

Just look at the picture. Who wouldn't crave a motorized scuba bike? No mask, no mouthpiece--just a clear dome filled with air pumped in from an on-board tank. You can travel up to 2.5 knots or just remain stationary while enjoying the spectacle of underwater life, according to Neatorama, with about 1.5 hours of battery power. (… Read more