Hasta La Ideas

We’ve always admired brick floors. They have an air of age, warmth and general quality about them. Our brick floor plans have never gotten off the ground, however, since we’ve never had a place where we could get away with a floor that’s four inches thick. Now, we discover, there actually exists a new kind of brick floor that can be put into ordinary rooms wherever you can put in tiles. Enter the thin brick floor, only 15 mm (0,6 inches) thick. It is the company Isholtsten in Laholm, Sweden, who has developed a method to make floor bricks suitably thin. The clay comes from Hedemora, Sweden. The prick tiles are set in fix rather than ordinary mortar, and the bricks are finally treated with linseed oil. The floor is SEK 950:- per square meter (that’s about USD 140:-) or USD 13:- per square foot if we have not miscalculated. One of these days…brbr

Regular readers may remember our post on the amazing lighted battery-free lighted bike pedal from Pedalite. The Pedalite pedal had no other drawbacks than being rather expensive. It was about USD 98:- at the time (now on sale for GBP 39:95 (about USD 78:-) a pair on Pedalite’s own web shop. The drop in price is perhaps due to the fact that there is a competitor on the market. A similar LED lighted battery free bike pedal is available from Bikemania and it is a little cheaper at USD 29:99 a piece which makes it USD 60:- for two. Via Book of Joe.brbr

We have previously posted on the Charge2Go, a device that can suck the power out of an ordinary AA battery to inject it into your starving cellphone. We’ve also posted on the hand cranked chargers from Dino and the one from Freeplay. Not to mention the Cellboost, that looks like a small extra battery. Now here’s another take on the emergency power issue. The Reload bag of cellphone juice for emergencies when your phone is dying and you have an important call to make. It comes with adapters for a bunch of models from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericson, LG, and Siemens. Available from Infoferenda for SEK 49:- (approx USD 7:-) and from Elkparts (with a SAAB logo) for GBP 9:99 (approx. USD 20:-) or USD 17:25. That is one expensive SAAB logo…brbr

Last year we did a reader poll to find the smartest gadget, invention or idea on the site for 2005. The Swedish firm Brighthandle won the poll and is now the owners of the Smart Stuff Readers Choice Award for 2005. Now we’re ready to go again. Which of all the gadgets and inventions we have posted during 2006 (and december of 2005) do you think is the smartest? Who will win the Smart Stuff Readers Choice Award for 2006? That’s in your hands, now. Yours and all other readers of Smart Stuff. So take your time and browse through our pages for 2006 and cast your vote for the smartest of them all. Mail us with your vote here, no later than December 31, 2006. We will announce the winner in January 2007 and if you vote you have the chance to be one of two winners of a very nice prize indeed! Remember you’re only allowed to vote once.brbr