I like MP3 players … a lot, so much in fact I’m always on the look out for the bizarre and obscure. I also used to like Rubik’s cubes, yes I was a geek :) So I when I spotted this MP3 player from designer Hee Yong I almost bought it!
Yes, unbelievably you twist the cube to play your sounds, although quite which layers of the cube control which mp3 functions is not obvious so there’s probably a bit of a learning curve involved. Although I’m guessing the central square on top in the image is the pause button!
I do like the neon blue display too - across three squares - although the text looks a wee bit small or are my eyes failing me after all those days in my youth staring a rubik’s cube? Who knows. Anyway I do like Hee Yong’s style, so I checked out his other products and they’re pretty snazzy too. Another couple of my favs that caught my eye were the toaster that changes colour as it toasts and modular radiators in different colours to suit the room’s decor. If you like things a bit more funky and styly check out his site.
I’m all in favour of toys like this one from Reware. Grab an old heavy duty beach bag and slap on a set of solar panels, add a car charger socket and you’re fully powered up at the beach. You have to have a car charger adapter for your phone or iPod but if you do then away go! Relax at the beach with no fear of your phone dieing on you or your music player running out of juice just as it starts playing your favourite sounds.
According to the specs it’ll charge up just about anything from phones, mp3 players, PDAs, digital cameras and camcorders in about 2 to 4 hours. The bag’s a spacious 480×380x280 mm so plenty of room for all your beach accessories and is made from a biodegradable canvas to make it even more planet friendly. The bag’s not cheap at US$250 but you are saving the planet whilst catching those rays.
One of my favourite features of the setup is that the solar panel is removal so it can be used as a charger for your gizmos even when you’re not chilling at the beach. Reware do sell a pocket solar panel at US$150 with similar power stats but you won’t look as cool as all the cats the beach with their Juice Bags! So go ahead chill, tan and charge!
Almost on time, WildCharge have announced their first adapter for use with their WildCharger pad. The adapter is for the Motorola RAZR phone, so replace the back-cover of your RAZR with this little sucker, place on the pad and a-charging you will go.
WildCharge will be selling the pad and RAZR adapter as a bundle for US$89.99 - the adapter is available separately at US$34.99 but in theory no-one has the pad yet as this is the first adapter available. The next gizmo up for wildcharging is the Apple iPod Nano (in August), with its adapter priced the same as the RAZR’s but no bundle currently available. You can buy the pad separately at US$59.99, so if the pricing for the adpaters stays at around US$34.99 then for a pad with three adapters you’re looking at an outlay of around US$165 to get rid of a couple of trailing power leads.
If anyone out there has purchased or used one of these pads, share your thoughts with us all.
One way to avoid the format wars involving HD DVD and Blu-ray is to opt for the Samsung BD-UP5000, a dual format player. Samsung have just announced that the ‘neutral’ player will be available in October this year and will cost around 550 Euros (US$750), not a bad price to have the best of both worlds. According to the blurb from Samsung back in April
Samsung’s Duo HD player (BD-UP5000) will fully support both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats and their interactive technologies, HDi and BD-Java. With the Duo HD consumers can enjoy additional studio content such as trailers, director’s comments, more elaborate interactive menus and behind the scene footage. The new Duo HD joins Samsung’s next generation DVD line-up which includes Samsung’s second generation Blu-ray player available at retail this month. Together, these two models offer the consumer a strong line of High-Definition players to match Samsung’s award winning, and best selling, line of HDTVs.
The price stacks up well against the competition with the LG BH1000 rocking in at US$1200. So for all the people who enjoy sitting on the fence this could just be the player you’ve been waiting for.
If the coolness of ads were directly linked to sales of the product (and some people in marketing think it is) then Blu-ray would be wiping the floor with HD DVD after this Sony ad. With imagery of warriors, wolves and sports cars and with its blue laser effects no-one can help it but watch the ad the whole way through. I wasn’t too convinced by the falling sports cars myself, a metaphor of who knows what but I’m a sucker for piano background music and I was expecting to hear Amy Lee’s beautiful haunting vocals start up at any time.
However most consumers are not swayed by bright lights and smoke and are more concerned about the bottom line, so until Blu-ray players drop in price to match the equivalent HD-DVD players then expect more of these funky ads!
These Fun Slides look super cool and a great way to pass a rainy day at home or even a Friday afternoon in the office ;)
They are made by the same firm who manufacture slide pads for your furniture but I bet they sell more of these! The bottom of the fun slide is made of a friction resistant plastic base for great carpet slides and they have an adjustable foot loop so all shapes and sizes of feet can enjoy the thrill of sliding down the hallway. Just in case you’re still thinking they’re pretty lame, check out this video of some guys giving the fun slides a thorough testing, although I suggest you don’t use your mum’s best coffee table for practice.
Good to see the guys testing them out on the stairs too, some of those landings must have hurt! US$20 will get you a pair of these funky items - enjoy!
I prefer to talk about gadgets and gizmos you can actually get your mits on but I’ve decided to make an exception for the HTC Omni. The second I saw the pictures of this sucker I realised that the Omni just oozes sexiness with its sleek black display unit and hopefully silver keyboard section - the pictures are a bit fuzzy. According to an HTC roadmap obtained by Unwired View, the Omni will be launched in October this year and appears to have all the bells and whistles as well as the looks
* GSM/GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA connectivity
* WVGA 4″ 800×480 px display with external subdisplay
* Windows Mobile 6.0 OS over a 400MHz Samsung SC244X
* 256 ROM, 128 RAM and microSD memory card slot
* TV and VGA out
* Dimensions: 130 x 81 x16 mm
* Wi-Fi b/g, USB and Bluetooth connectivity
I must admit it does appear have all the bases covered and with a QWERTY keyboard it’s bridging that gap between mobile and laptop where so few have dared to tread. I’m looking forward to checking out some video reviews of this puppy later in the year.
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I’m all in favour of toys like this one from 
