This simply must have Bill Gates skipping in the street. Sony’s PlayStation 2, you know the system introduced almost six years ago outsold the XBox 360 by 11,000 units for a total of 231,000 sold last month. It is projected that it will continue to be the top seller until the PlayStation 3 makes its long awaited and expensive debut later this year. Then the true console war can begin. [via]
At first glance this might look like a standard torch, but it’s actually an iPod mini boom box. All that remains of the EverReady torch is the casing. The bulb has been replaced by a speaker and the iPod is controlled by remote (Airclick). The iPod, amp and Airclick are all carried inside the device. The owner even included very brief assembly instructions.
I wonder what sort of sound comes out of such a thing. Shouldn’t expect too much from 9v, yet the idea is brill. I would love to try to build myself something similar using my old 5GB iPod. Might give it a new lease of life.
Hmm… if this is developed any further, we might see it going mainstream. “Your perfect solution, to those dark silent nights”. Might actually catch on.
It’s not the first time those geeks in Switzerland integrated electronic devices with their pocket knifes. I’m sure many of you have seen the Swiss Memory USB.
Now Victorinox is back! This time they’ve integrated an mp3 player with one of their knifes (rather, they got an mp3 player and stuck a folding knife, nail file and scissors to it). Nicknamed the S.Beat (Swiss beat), it comes in 1Gb, stores up to 250 songs, has FM radio support, a microphone to record yourself and has a display to ease navigation. The really cool innovation is that it has 2 earphone jacks so you can share your music with out the need of a splitter. Even in this day and age, Victorinox wants to squeeze in as many features as possible into their knifes. In my opinion the mp3 integration is more Victorinox’s style, as you can take an mp3 player on camping trips. A USB drive is pretty useless outdoors.
Now if this doesn’t end up becoming the iPod shuffle killer, I’m sure it can give it a good scratching!
On July 7th Citizen is to release a new bluetooth watch called the i:VIRT. Apparently it can store up to 1000 contacts and records a list of the last 10 calls you received. All this information is downloaded after synching it with your bluetooth enabled phone. But that’s not all! If you happen to own a mobile phone which has bluetooth, but no vibration or doesn’t ring, this watch also alerts you when you have incoming calls by vibrating and flashing. If you happen to think that all this watch could do was this… well then you’d be right.
Projected to cost around $140, this appears to be pretty useless and unappealing, even for a gadget geek like me. Hopefully at the launch they’ll reveal more features, some of which might sound useful. At the very least the watch should sync its time with the phone, something most of us do manually twice a year due to daylight savings time. With the current specs, would any of you even consider this? What other features would you like to see on a watch with bluetooth?
Fiiiiiish. Plooop. Puffff. Shooo. That’s how long it takes to open up this tent from Firebox.com. If you’re a lazy or high tech camper or hiker, then this for you. No fiddling with poles, sheets or what not. You’ve still got to peg it down obviously. It only weighs 3.8kg. When packed the 2 person tent is only 50cm x 68cm but pops open to 2.4m(L) x 1m(W) x 0.94m(H). And it only costs £99.95 (€145.60 or US$184.20)! Brilliant!
The tent’s sorted, now for a camping site…
Just as the first couple of matches have ended, the climax of the World Cup has just started. As time goes by, teams get knocked out, the tension mounts and matches get more important, the excitment of the tournament builds. (Learn how to watch the matches streamed live here.)
And as expected, some people invest on the shear patriotism (and stupidity?) of the fans by selling them over priced merchandise bearing their country’s logo. Gadgets are shown no mercy either.
Here we have the ‘Worst Five World Cup gadgets’:
The list consists of several interesting items, including USB drives, iPod speakers, shapely beer coolers (pictured) which play the English National Anthem as well as a vibrator with swapable tips, all bearing the cross of St.George. The latter, called the Victory Vibe promises “more pleasure than a penalty shoot out win against the Germans.”
A World Cup vibrator? Wouldn’t want to see that going off-side.
Erm…. just a flag for me please!
As of today, a new category will feature machines, contraptions and devices promising to make our lives easier, cooler or funnier. Appropriately called ‘Gadgets’, in this category we’ll analyse if these goals are reached and whether they deserve a second look. It will also feature upcoming information on future releases, infrequent nostalgic look backs, reviews, and other news which is hitting the blogging community on the subject.
You can filter the UES news to view Gadget related articles, or other categories, by clicking on the appropriate title on the left hand side of the page.
Enjoy!
