Pepper Spray Case, Paper Keyboard Invented for iPhone

GLOBAL – Spraytect has created a pepper spray case for the iPhone 4/4S, while a student at Goldsmiths, University of London, has devised a system, Vibrative, that turns a table top into a iPhone keyboard.

Being concerned about the safety of his daughter, Scott McPherson was unable to find an easy-to-carry – or socially acceptable – equipment that could protect his college-going-kid against an attacker. After a thoughtful process, he came up with a pepper-spraying case for iPhone 4/4S as an optimum solution to his problem, since most of the college students always carry their smartphone anywhere they go.

A detachable canister of habareno, a very hot pepper, is fixed at the back of the casing. In case of an attack, all a user has to do is remove safety clip, rotate the top lever down and turn case into horizontal position to fire the spray that lasts for about half a second. McPherson, now the founder of Spraytect, is selling his product for $ 39.95 for the case, one spray cartridge and one test cartridge. The pepper refill cartridge can be bought for $17.95. The pepper spray case, together with a matching cartridge, are available in black, pink, aqua blue and white.

In another iPhone invention, Florian Kraeutli, a student at Goldsmiths, has designed a system called Vibrative, which uses the three-dimensional accelerometer in the Apple smartphone. The system calculates data, such as strength and frequency, of each tap on table, and correlates them to training data to work out the appropriate location of the key on a virtual keyboard. At present, the system needs to learn the pattern for each surface it is used on, and picks about 80% of the words correctly, but is still under improvement process. Kraeutli says Vibrative could easily be converted for other smartphones too.