LAST EDITED ON Feb-19-20 AT 07:39 PM (EST)
Earlier today, while poking around looking at something else (about which you may hear more later), I ran across the most ridiculous product I've seen in a long time.That is the website for a product called The ABDO®, which is described as a portable gun safe and bills itself as "the future of concealed carry". It is a plastic box, molded in Tactical Black and styled in imitation of fancy flight cases, which you wear on your belt and put a tiny handgun inside. In your Hour of Need, theoretically, you activate a biometric lock with your thumbprint, instantly produce your tiny handgun, and Save the Day with its overwhelming—and completely unexpected!—firepower.
Now, leaving apart for a moment the absurdity of trusting your life and/or the lives of others to a consumer-grade biometric sensor (which anyone who has ever unlocked a smartphone of the last two or three generations should find risible enough in its own right), this is hilariously unlike the way it's described. The website claims it "looks like a cell phone", immediately below a series of photographs of a man who appears to have a "tacticool" version of a traditional Japanese lunchbox strapped to his belt. This thing is a mall ninja bento. If the Sega Game Gear had come with an optional belt holster, it would probably have looked something like The ABDO®. (And yet, it can only contain the very smallest of firearms.)
Even funnier, they also sell an Internet of Shit™ version of it, creatively called SMART ABDO®, which, and I quote, "brings concealed carry into the 'Smart' age by taking features that are traditionally found in devices such as a cell phone or laptop and integrating them into a portable concealed carry firearm safe. Keeping all of the features that make the basic ABDO® such an innovative carry device, the SMART version takes it a step further by adding functionality that includes GPS tracking, remote locking/unlocking, self aware alarm system to automatically lock when removed from the belt without authorization and much more."
That's right, it's a version of an already ridiculous product which adds the functionality, security, and peace of mind of being controlled by a smartphone app to the mix.
Picture needing the contents of that in a hurry. Swipe! "The SMART ABDO® App needs to be updated before you can access your weapon. New permissions required: SMART ABDO® now needs access to: body sensors, make & receive calls, camera, files & documents."
It's rare to run across something that so perfectly combines "near-paralytically amusing" with "probably going to get someone killed someday". As few as five years ago, I would have been absolutely certain this was a fake product page created as a joke. We truly do live in a world where it has become impossible to distinguish reality from satire.
--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
>Now, leaving apart for a moment the absurdity of trusting your life
>and/or the lives of others to a consumer-grade biometric sensor (which
>anyone who has ever unlocked a smartphone of the last two or three
>generations should find risible enough in its own right),
>Most of those end up being openable by a distressingly wide variety of things like "chewing gum on the sensor"
>Even funnier, they also sell an Internet of Shit™ version of it,
Oh no.
Your hypothetical is all too benign. Waaaay too benign.
>The mascot in the background of the page, which I can only describe as
>a "drunken frilled lizard" does nothing to convince me that this
>product is a good idea. However, it does give insight into the people
>who thought this was a good idea. Ha, wow. I hadn't even noticed that.
--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.