Gear + Gadgets

The long and short of it

CordCruncher Headphones

By Judi Dash

Special to The Miami Herald

Talk about reinventing the wheel — or in this case, the headphone. CordCrunchers are earbud headphones made tangle-free by an ingenious elastic latex rubber storage sleeve. What you at first see are the two earbuds and a bit of their cords extending from the 16-inch-long sleeve. Grab the earbuds with one hand, and the opposite end of the sleeve (which has the 3.5 mm headphone jack) with the other hand, and pull. Out of the sleeve comes more and more cord — up to 3.5 feet of cord, ready for use with your electronic device. For storage, pull the two ends of the rubber sleeve away from each other. As the sleeve stretches, the extended headphone cords retract back into the sleeve, for tangle-free storage. You can wear the CordCruncher wrapped around your neck or wrist, ready for use. Just wrap and then insert the jack into the earbud opening. CordCrunchers come in bright orange, blue or black.

CordCruncher Headphones in orange, black or blue, are $24.99 at www.cordcruncher.com.

Read more Just In! | Travel News stories from the Miami Herald

Gear + Gadgets

Got your backpack

Always improving its lines of luggage for the adventurous, Eagle Creek has fine-tuned its new Afar Backpack to be all business and a pleasure. About the dimensions of a standard wheel-aboard bag (12.5 inches by 20.5 inches by 8.5 inches deep), the Afar weighs in at a mere 1 pound, 11 ounces. It is equipped with a slew of great features: well-padded contoured shoulder straps, a tuck away padded hip belt, adjustable sternum straps, external compression straps and a sturdy top grab handle. A padded breathable mesh back panel makes for comfy cushioning. The back panel cleverly incorporates a zippered padded compartment for a laptop (up to 17 inches) that doesn’t broadcast your precious cargo to would-be thieves. The spacious main zippered compartment is blessedly unstructured, three roomy external mesh pouches are great for jackets, water bottles, snacks and maps, and a very well-designed zippered front organizer pocket has pouches and elastic slots for a cell phone, camera, sunglasses, pens and other essentials. Double-lock zippers, hidden slip pockets for documents, and reflective accents for nighttime visibility are smart security elements. Available in a dreamy slate blue, sunny ochre and basic black.
Viking Cruises

Company known for river trips announces ocean ship

Viking Cruises, a company known for offering river cruises, on Friday announced that it was launching a new cruise line for ocean-going trips.
Wisconsin: Taliesin tours daily

Take the tour

Get the 5-Minute Herald
VIA EMAIL

Get the Miami Herald's Travel offers
VIA EMAIL

Join the
Discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

The Miami Herald uses Facebook's commenting system. You need to log in with a Facebook account in order to comment. If you have questions about commenting with your Facebook account, click here.

Have a news tip? You can send it anonymously. Click here to send us your tip - or - consider joining the Public Insight Network and become a source for The Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.