By David Ponce

The above image is a creation of a street artist friend of mine (click image for higher-res version). It was made entirely by hand, with pencils (remember those?) and felt tip pens. The only digital manipulation was in removing the paper creases that were visible after the scanning process. In case you can’t read it, it’s “OhGizmo”. Each letter is doubled. If you still can’t read it, well, we’re sorry.

After he gave this to me, I told him I’d show it to our readers. So here it is. What do y’all think?

By the way, if any of you are looking for something like this, he can be hired. And his rates are more than reasonable. Just use the contact form, and I’ll get you in touch.

By Andrew Liszewski

Now that I think of it, I haven’t had a juice box in years, but if I were to find one on a store shelf that was packaged like these, how could I pass it up? Created by Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa, the juice box’s packaging is supposed to be more appealing to the eye by imitating the actual fruit they contain. As Naoto puts it; “I imagined that if the surface of the package imitated the colour and texture of the fruit skin, then the object would reproduce the feeling of the real skin.” If anything, the novelty factor is through the roof, and on a side note, is there anything more refreshing than a box of banana juice? I don’t think so.

[ Toxel.com - Fruit Juice Packaging by Naoto Fukasawa ] VIA [ Cribcandy ]

By Shane McGlaun

Spring has sprung and in many parts of the country and before you know it the heat will be sweltering and many of us will be heading to the pool to hand out and have fun. One key ingredient of a pool party is music (and babes in bikinis), the catch is that water and most electronic devices don’t get along.

Grace Digital Audio has announced a new floating wireless speaker called the Aqua sounders retailing for $149.99. The speaker floats around the pool or hot tub and has a pair of mood lights integrated for nighttime fun.

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by Shane McGlaun

The economy is bad; you have to have been living in a cave or in a coma to not know about that. So poor is the global economy that retail chains once rolling in the profits have been forced entirely out of business. Circuit City was one of the most recent chains to close up shop.

Nationwide camera retailer Ritz Camera filed for bankruptcy recently and has now announced that it will be closing 300 of its locations around the country. Despite boarding up 300 stores around the country, the chain will still have about 400 locations in operation nationwide. That is assuming it doesn’t come back in a week and close the remainder like Circuit City.

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By Andrew Liszewski

A bakery in Shoreditch, London called Albion Cafe is now able to let their loyal customers know what’s fresh out of the oven thanks to the ever-growing social oddity known as Twitter. (@AlbionsOven) The BakerTweet is an Arduino-based box equipped with wifi that allows someone at the cafe to turn the dial to what’s cooking, and then simply hit a button to send a tweet to those following. The BakerTweet was actually developed by Poke, a “digital creative agency” who just happens to be located across the street from the Albion Cafe. Coincidence? Obviously not, but getting fresh baked goods first is as good a use for Twitter as I can think of.

[ BakerTweet ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Even if ironing was as easy as just pointing my finger at a pile of clothes, and they’d magically become unwrinkled, I still wouldn’t do it. But for those who want to look neat, without the hassle of dragging out the ironing board and iron, Miele might entice you with this bad boy. The B890E Rotary Iron features a wide roller that’s not unlike using a stationary steam roller to iron your clothing. The roller’s speed is controlled via a foot pedal, which pretty much requires you to sit while operating it, but its unique design can handle everything from shirts to table cloths.

It’s also not much bigger than an ironing board when in use, and it folds down to a compact unit that Miele claims is easy to stash in a closet. Not surprisingly though, you can expect to fork out almost $2,200 for such a convenience. Otherwise, I’ve found that a $2 Sharpie pen is just as effective at making convincing crease marks on your Dockers.

[ Miele B890E Rotary Iron ] VIA [ Apartment Therapy ]

By Evan Ackerman

When we posted about the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag on April 1, a couple of you mentioned that April Fool’s joke product or not, you’d really, really like one. Turns out you aren’t alone, and ThinkGeek is taking notice:

ATTN Tauntaun Fanatics! Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have decided to TRY and bring this to life. We have no clue if the suits at Lucasfilms will grant little ThinkGeek a license, nor do we know how much it would ultimately retail for. But if you are interested in ever owning one of these, click the link below and we’ll try!

There’s certainly some precedent for this; last year, after pranking everyone with a personal sound track shirt on April 1, ThinkGeek ended up producing them. You can sign up here to be notified if the Tauntaun sleeping bag ever comes to pass, but you’ll better believe you’ll see it right here if it happens.

[ ThinkGeek ] VIA [ Consumerist ]

By Chris Scott Barr

We’ve mentioned MonoPrice before, and their wonderfully cheap Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter. Of course when we mentioned it, it was in the future tense. Last we heard they were going to be available sometime around the middle of March. Well in case you didn’t notice all of those pranks going around the other day, it’s April. Yes, it seems that the mid-March estimate was off just a bit. Not to worry though, they’re finally up for sale.

Apple still hasn’t managed to make a comparable adapter, and if they did it would probably cost a bit more than $14.25. Heck, their Mini DisplayPort to DVI and to VGA sell for $29, while you can get them from MonoPrice for just $15.20 and $18.85 apiece.

[ MonoPrice ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Chris Scott barr

Not long ago there was a mod floating around the interweb where a guy had turned the Apple logo on his MacBook into an LCD screen. It was definitely an original mod, one that left a person wondering just how they could do this to their own laptop. Well Eddie Zarick (the guy that did the original mod) has been gracious enough to post full instructions on how to do this. It shouldn’t be too hard, so if you’re itching to tear open your MacBook and don’t mind turning a few heads, check it out.

[ EdsJunk ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]