Village/Vanguard of Japan has created a bicycle that’s the ultimate in convenience and portability.  With a single motion, the bike folds to a quarter of its operating size.  Besides an incredible design, the bike comes in a rainbow of 8 different colors.  The bike has 20-inch wheels and is suitable for most children and adults.  It’s available on the Village/Vanguard website for a reported $150, but unfortunately the website is in Japanese.  Hopefully it will be easily available outside of Japan soon. 

If you’d rather share a bike than buy one, see this blog post about a new kind of bike sharing program.

For several months, the San Francisco / Oakland Bay Bridge has been in the midst of a major renovation and seismic upgrade.  The $7 billion dollar project has included building the world’s largest self-anchored suspension bridge, which was done without interrupting the daily traffic flow of more than 250,000 cars per day.  Now the project is finally winding to a close.

Several amazing construction feats took place during the course of the project, not the least of which was moving out a section of the bridge over a holiday weekend to allow a bypass to be installed so that construction could continue without closing the bridge.  See video of the bypass here.

The Bay Bridge is located in one of the most active earthquake regions in the world.  The new bridge is designed to withstand major quakes and is reported to have an expected lifetime of 150 years.  Take a look inside the new Bay Bridge in this video at the Wired Gadget Lab and find complete details at the official Bay Bridge Info site.

If you live in a warm climate, then you’ve probably encountered a water mister at an outdoor café.  The idea behind the mister is based on the fact that water on your skin cools you as the moisture evaporates and takes heat with it.  A mister system can reduce your body temperature on a hot day.  Now you can install your own portable mister system on any patio cover, umbrella, fence or boat railing.  Just attaché the system to a water source and then sit back and enjoy the cooling mist.

The Cool Patio 30 Outdoor Misting System provides 30 feet of mist, enough to cool the ambient temperature by up to 30 degrees.  At $29.99, it’s a real bargain.  Read more about it at Costco.com.

Solar chargers for gadgets are getting better all the time.  The Solar Gorilla produces up to 10W of power in direct sunlight.  Two photovoltaic cells make this small solar charger powerful enough to charge a laptop.  It makes a great travel charger, allowing you to power up while on the go.  It can also be used in any home or office.  Besides laptops, it can be use to charge iPods, mobile phones, GPS devices and just about any small gadget.

TakaraTorny, a Japanese toy company, has announced development of a dog collar that interprets a dog’s barks.  The Bowlingual Voice dog collar includes a microphone and digital reader.  Barks are translated into one of six emotional states – sad, happy, needy, frustrated, aggressive or threatening.  Many animal experts and dog lovers are skeptical about the science behind the color.  View this YouTube video and judge for yourself.

“The World’s Most Famous Car” will be going on the auction block in October.  The 1964 Aston Martin DB5 is one of two original cars driven by Sean Connery in Thunderball and Goldfinger.  The car is still equipped with all of James Bond’s gadgets, including machine guns, tire slashers, a revolving license plate and a rear oil sprayer.  The car was bought by in 1969 from Aston Martin by an American broadcaster named Jerry Lee for $12,000.  It’s expected to bring at least $5 million when is goes up for bids in London.

See the gadget-equipped Austin Martin CB5 driven by James Bond in this YouTube video:

The Chobi Mini Digital Camera is ultra-compact, but don’t be fooled by its small size. It can take high resolution pictures (2048 x 1536 pixels) and record high resolution video. Yet it measures only about 2 inches by 1 inch. Instead of using a battery for power, it recharges from a USB port. The Chobi Mini retails for about $150 and is currently only available in Asia and online. Check it out at GeekStuff4U.com.

The QWERTY keyboard was designed to make typing easier, but only if you learn how to touch type. This poses a real problem for “hunt and peck” typists, many of whom spend an inordinate amount of time looking for a key on the keyboard. Now there’s the Fast Finger Keyboard, providing a solution for the typing challenged. The keys on this keyboard are arranged in alphabetical ABC order. If someone else wants to use the keyboard for QWERTY typing, a flip of the switch changes the mode.

Another handy feature is that the function keys along the top of the keyboard can be put into a mode where the provide shortcuts for popular IM acronyms – LOL, IMO, TTYL, etc. Amazing that no one thought of that until now!

The Fast Finger Keyboard is available for $29.95. It was developed by two women in Pennsylvania and can be purchased on the Fast Finger Keyboard website.

Apple’s new iPad supports the touch screen technology that has made the iTouch and iPhone so popular. We doubt if Apple tested the iPad on any non-human users, but here’s a YouTube video that shows the appeal of the iPad for a cat named Iggy.

Do you think its claws scratched the screen?

The Vue is a personal video network that provides wireless access to video camera output. Small Vue cameras can be easily installed in your home or business using a patented peel-and -tick magnet system. The output from the camera can be remotely viewed from any web browser or iPhone.

Avaak provides each user with a secure account at VueZone.com where video clips can be stored and viewed later. Videos can also be uploaded to Flickr and YouTube. Although Avaak plays up the fun aspects of sharing Vue videos, the most obvious use of this system is as a personal security system and for keeping tabs on what’s going on when you’re not there. The basic system with 2 cameras sells for $299 on Amazon. Additional cameras cost $99 each.