5 top gadgets for February

The biggest lie I tell each year is the one I tell my dentist: “Yes, I’ve been flossing.” Leaving his leather chair with a bag of new toothpicks and the best of intentions, I get home and realise there’s no part of my daily routine into which flossing quite fits.

Flossing while watching TV? Rank. At my desk? Weird. Airfloss, however, sits on a charging station next to my electric toothbrush, so I just use it after brushing.

It squirts high pressured blasts of water or mouthwash between my teeth to remove plaque and improve my gum health and is oddly fun to use. I’ll be telling my dentist.

This Dutch company’s claim to have built the “world’s smallest drone” is almost certainly true: the Pico is just over 2cm wide and weighs only 7g, complete with LED lights.

Yet it’s powerful enough to hit the ceiling in under a second when all blades are spinning and—like any decent quadrocopter—with a bit of practice on the remote control you can get it diving around your garden and even doing a loop-the-loop.

There are drawbacks to its novelty size, though: it quickly becomes too hot to touch, gets caught under or behind furniture and, of course, there’s no room for an onboard camera.

Some of the most prolific writers of our age—including Danielle Steel, P J O’ Rourke and Woody Allen—continue to bash out their works on old-fashioned typewriters.

Why? There’s an undeniable satisfaction to the tactile act of typing, which gets a bit lost in all our modern brushed-aluminium keyboards.

The Qwerkywriter is a metal-cladded, wireless keyboard with clicky, clunky typewriter-style keys and even a sliding chrome carriage.

It’s compatible with your computer and also has a little groove in which to place your tablet.

Fed up of typing the same things over and over again into text messages? With Slash, you programme your own “slashes”: lines of text you insert into messages by typing  “/” and selecting the shortcut you wish to use.

For example, when you write “/home” it pastes in your entire home address, so you needn’t write out the whole thing. It also makes adding web links and map locations a cinch.

This neat photo-editing app originates in the Far East and, like many Chinese smartphones on the market, makes special features available for free.

The basic stuff is well-covered: a series of simple swipes and pinches are all it takes to crop, adjust or overlay your image. But the fun filters are the star attraction: edit your snaps so they look like they’re in neon lights or even on a Western-style “Wanted” poster.

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Feature image via TRNDlabs Skeye Pico Drone