Science Week. What gadget do you want to buy next

It is day three of Science Week Ireland. With everyone gunning for a Wii.

So todays question is what gadget do you want to buy next.

To tell you the truth I am not much of a gadget person. To me science is about understanding the world, understanding how stuff works. That is what I get my kick from not from actually owning a mobile phone that can double as credit card or whatever. But that is just me but in interests of a wii. Which is one gadget I of course would like to have. Indeed it is actually quiet interesting seeing that it has for instance gyroscopes in its remotes . But for this I will pretend I don't have a key fob to get into my office and go on about it.

Key fobs are like so wicked cool awesome they like let you into buildings. Ya go key fobs.

Actually they are quiet interesting. Most of them I have used use radio frequency chips. You know how you go to some metro's around the world. You get a ticket that is a card. and instead of reading into the machine you just kind of massage it against a panel. That uses RF chips. Basically what they are is a chip that stores you entry data on it. I.e the data that the computer needs to see to let you in. When you place the thing on the receiver it sends a signal to the receiver telling it that you are you and the computer lets you in. The really cool thing in my mind is that the chip is powered not by a battery but by the receiver itself. How cool is that

No trust me it is cool

The signal from the receiver induces a current to flow in the circuitry just enough to power the chip to do its thing. It is similar to the old crystal radios where the power of the radio signal powered the radio.

I know some of you might be going what key fobs, how lame is that. How about a new iPOD to listen to the latest Frames ( Cat strangling ) CD. But that is just a device that leads to more cat death, the Science behind that is what is interesting.