Shiny gadget, icky name: iPad jokes fly on Web

SAN JOSE, Calif. – You have to wonder whether there were any women in the room when the marketing geniuses at Apple decided to call the company's new gadget the "iPad." Because the jokes about feminine hygiene products are flying.

"Will women send their husbands to the Apple store to buy iPads?" went one joke on Twitter. And a "MadTV" comedy sketch from several years ago about an electronic sanitary napkin called the iPad went viral on YouTube.

So how did the company come up with the product name? And how could Apple have set itself up for such obvious punch lines?

Apple, a company notoriously secret about its product development process, declined to comment about the name or how many women were involved in the launch. Three Apple execs — all men — introduced the iPad at its unveiling in San Francisco.

But brand experts said the name's not so bad.

"It fits with what Apple's been doing consistently. They take literal words that exist and stick an 'i' in front of it. And it works for them. It's not offensive despite the silly jokes," said Tye Heckler, a vice president at Seattle-based Hecker Associates, which is responsible for the store names Cinnabon, Panera and Starbucks.

Ira Kalb, associate director of the Center for Global Innovation at the University of Southern California's business school, said: "Unless you've been under a rock, you know this is an Apple product just by the 'i' in front, and you know what it does by what `pad' connotes."

Kalb said the jokes are probably good for Apple — more buzz — and will eventually pass.

He said other names floated for the product — iTab, iSlate or iTablet — would have been far worse. ITablet has too many syllables. ISlate is too ancient. ITab is too confusing.

"Apple is all about innovation and ease of use. Those names just don't go with that," he said.

According to the Patent and Trademark Office database, more than 20 people or companies have tried to trademark "ipad," "ipads" or "ipads.com" over the years, for such things as vaccines, stationery, makeup remover, bra padding and a host of electronics.

If the iPad sells, it won't be the first time a company has been mocked for its name, only to have the product fly off the shelves.

Coke Can Camera makes spying easier

With the growing crime rates, the technology is also growing. You must have never thought that even a person standing beside you with a can of coke might be spying you. These Coke cans have a tiny camera and DVR built inside it which will record every move of yours. This camera also has as a fake bottom that can be removed to reveal a USB port.

The bottom of the can also has the on-off switch. This camera is can also be operated with a remote control. Spying could not have been easier without such cams.

A bouncy, anti-gravity workout with the new AlterG treadmill

When I finished my first half-marathon last month, I experienced what it felt like to run on the ground for two hours. But what is it like to run in a gravity-reduced vacuum? When AlterG offered me the chance to demo their new "anti-gravity" treadmill, I couldn't resist. I jumped in my car and headed over to the gym at UCSF, down in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco.

A physical therapist named Chris gave me a rubber tube to wear over my running clothes. It looked like a cross between a wetsuit, a tire, and a tutu, and it had a giant zipper going across the top. He told me to step up onto the ramp and then zipped me into the giant rubber veil that covered what otherwise looked like a pretty ordinary treadmill.

The AlterG is no ordinary treadmill, though. It is a super fancy, super-expensive treadmill that isolates the lower body in a vacuum and literally takes off percentages of your body weight using technology developed by NASA. It's meant to help disabled, overweight, and injured people get a solid cardio workout without putting a strain on their limbs, but at this particular gym anybody can sign up to buy time on the machine in 30-minute increments. The AlterG uses air pressure to create the sensation of lost weight — the machine can reduce your body weight by up to 80%, making you feel like you're floating, flying, or bouncing on clouds.
By pushing arrow buttons on the treadmill screen, I was able to change my body weight percentage — air would blow into the vacuum that surrounded my legs, and the tutu-wetsuit became tighter, essentially lifting my body off the ground and making my legs float backwards into a naturally wider gait. It gave me a wedgie, and I could feel my thighs sweating from the tight seal, but none of that mattered. This was so much more fun than normal running! I ran on the AlterG for about fifteen minutes, happily romping through the clouds at a 7.5 min/mile, a near-impossible feat for the ordinary me. I felt like a gazelle.

I didn't realize just how much fun I was having in 20% gravity until my time was up. Chris deflated the air around my legs, unzipped me from the machine, and asked me to step down. As I lugged my now-impossibly heavy legs down from the treadmill ramp, I realized just how heavy I really was. My legs felt like elephants, and my spirits sunk so low that I wondered if I was suffering from a temporary depression.

So why can't all of us work out like this all the time if it's better for our bodies and more fun than real running? Maybe because the thing costs $24,500. And before the new version, the M300, was introduced last Monday, its predecessor cost $75,000. The New York Knicks and J-Lo have been known to work out on the AlterG, but it's unlikely to end up in my fitness room (what fitness room?) anytime soon. Let's not forget, our basic Bowflex costs about a grand, and we can all run for free outdoors.