The Eyeclops Bionic Eye magnifyer is a pretty amazing little toy. I first ran across one on a display table at Toys R Us in Arden Mall.

It is the size and shape of a softball, with a short pistol grip, and a single wire which was plugged into the front of a small television set. The box extolled me to point it at coins, my skin, hair and insect wings, so I did, and I was impressed! The image was awesome, well-lit and super magnified. I tried a penny, a key, my teeth and everything else I had in my pockets. The price was $50, too much for an impulse buy, but Christmas was coming.

Four weeks later, I found one under the tree! The ball shape holds a fat camera, surrounded by three bright white LED bulbs.

I was eager to show it off, so I plugged the Eyeclops into the TV and started pointing it at things. The first things we looked at were pictures in magazines and $10 bills. Before long we were scouring the house for tiny detailed objects, getting a super-magnified look at our skin and hair, leaves, mold, tools and dust.

Getting things into focus takes a bit of patience. At such great magnification, in focus and out of focus (depth of field) is a matter of a tenth of a millimeter. Luckily the image is a live video feed, so it is easy to zero in on the right distance from the target. The eyeclops magnifier is equiped with a white translucent shell, which can be minutely adjusted for quick focus-finding.

Without further introduction, here are some images. These are actual photos of the Eyeclops-created image on our television. The Eyeclops magnifies objects 200 times their actual size (depending on the size of your television). The magnification level is not adjustable, so everything you see in these TV pictures is at a consistant level of magnification. This is a look at the hair on my head... or it might have been my arm. It looked like a bunch of black reeds piled up on top of one another. If I used softsilk hair moisturizer, these hairs would all be wrapped in a protective shell of blue and purple ribbons.

One of the things we found out rather quickly is that there are strange fibers all over the place. You probably don't think that you have any little fibers on your hand right now, but you probably do. You can't spot them, but the folks down at the crime lab can, and the eyeclops can. Here is a red one, stuck to one of my eyebrow lashes. I realize it looks like a curious little worm, inching his way towards unibrow canyon, but it isn't moving. Boy, that would have been creepy. It is just a dead little fiber, stuck to a single lash.

Printed material, as I will show later, turns out to be kind of boring on a microscopic scale. It all just looks like colored dots. Fabrics, on the other hand, are amazing! Mike examined the tag on his shirt.

Here is one of the zeros in "100% cotton", made from 10 teeny blue stitches. As you can see, the bottom of the image is a little closer to the camera, and is out of focus.

Here is a close look at some plain slacks. The pants are made from smooth grey fabric, but with super-magnification, it looks like a thick, two-tone cargo net.

Maybe the eyeclops would be a great tool for selling makeup. "Sure, you are beautiful, but take a look at th......Oh my god! Up close, your skin looks like rusty sandpaper!"

Behold, a plate, after my french fry and cupcake dinner. All that remained were candy sprinkles and table salt.

These tiny candy sprinkles are small, yet they seem to be perfect little balls. Let's take a closer look!

Uh, yeah, they are still perfect little balls. Wow. How do they do that?

Also visible are square little blocks of salt. Here is a grain of salt balanced upon two candy sprinkles.

More salt crystals. I count 21 grains in this photo. This is twice the recommended daily allowance for salt intake.

One of the oldest smallest manufactured products are printed magazines. Here is another look at how incredible power of the Eyeclops bionic eye. Shown here is a one-page article from Newsweek.

A detail from the center photo. I took this photo with my Canon PowerShot on its MACRO setting.

And here is the same image, magnified onto our television using the eyeclops. This is Theresa Gonzalez's right eye.

Almost all printed material looks the same up close at 200X magnification: Lots of tiny dots. Except for money. Money is not lots of dots. It is different, printed by impression from an engraved metal plate.

Here is a close look at the tiny pyramid eye (the Eye of Providence) on the back of a one dollar bill. Look at that detail! No wonder it is hard to make phony money. That eye is only as wide as nine grains of salt. Which are you going to have nightmares about, the red fiber worm from my lash, or this eyeball?