Waking up to a rooster’s crow in the morning is a bit too stereotypical for my tastes, but the tweeting of a small bird is the perfect alternative to morning show radio banter. This LED alarm clock from habitat features an electronic bird perched on top that not only moves, but also sings you out of your restful slumber. Get it from habitat.co.uk for about $30.
Remember the Keyport key fob? We first wrote about it back in October of 2007 and though it was a little expensive, we thought it wasn’t a terrible idea. Basically you sent the company a check for $300 along with 6 different keys, and they would send you a custom-made key fob-like device that used a sliding mechanism to house and protect your keys when not needed. Well Larry Greenberg from Gear Diary thought it was a good idea too, so he actually ordered one. Unfortunately though that was back in April of 2007, and it’s now May of 2009 and he’s yet to receive his Keyport key fob.
After several emails and phone calls where he was assured they were still working on fine tuning their manufacturing process (uh-huh) they eventually refunded his $300 saying that when his Keyport was finally completed he’d only be asked to pay what he thought was appropriate. But given the Keyport website is now nothing more than a contact page, it’s pretty much a given that their product will never actually see the light of day. And for the record, Larry is still out 6 keys that Keyport seems to have no intentions of returning.
Ugh, kids! What’s the deal with them? They always seem to want attention, or affection or to be simply acknowledged. Don’t they realize we’re only in it for the baby shower gifts, and possibly the tax breaks? Thankfully someone has come up with another way to keep a baby from crying without actually having to interact with them. Thank goodness!
The Lolaloo is a tube-like device that can be attached to a stroller with a set of velcro straps. Inside there’s a weight that slides back and forth which creates a gentle rocking motion, hopefully distracting and quieting a crying child. The intensity of the rocking can be adjusted as needed, and the Lolaloo will run from anywhere between 2 to 4 hours before needing to be recharged. At the moment you can only get it in Germany for about $174, though I can see this being popular with parents all over the world.
MSI has been introducing notebooks at a fast pace over the last few months. It seems the firm is trying to take advantage of its newfound name recognition thanks to its popular line of Wind netbooks. Most of the new notebooks that MSI has been unveiling recently sport discreet NVIDIA GPUs, as does its latest notebook announcement.
The new MSI GX723 has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 graphics card with 512MB of RAM. The machine can be optioned with up to 4GB of RAM and 320GB or 500GB HDDs; Bluetooth is optional and Wi-Fi is integrated. The notebook has a 17-inch screen with a resolution of 1680 x 1050.
I will admit that other than the PS3 I am not a fan of Sony products. I especially loathe Sony cameras, not because they aren’t cool and don’t work well, but because you have to use Sony proprietary memory card formats that cost much more than the good ‘ol SD cards other cams can use.
If you don’t mind Sony’s proprietary nature, the company has announced three new DSLR cameras including the a380, a330, and a230. The a230 and a330 cameras are both 10.2-megapixel joints with adjustable LCDs and more goodies. The a230 is hailed as the most compact and light DSLR available at only 15.9-ounces.
Nothing is more jarring in the morning than that terrible buzzing sound emitted by the cheapest of cheap alarm clocks. So even though this Infallibly Polite Speaking Alarm Clock from Hammacher Schlemmer comes with a steep $99.95 price tag, it’s totally worth the cost since it plays one of 126 different wake-up messages in the calming voice of Reginald Jeeves, played by Stephen Fry in the series Jeeves and Wooster.
It’s almost impossible to wake up in a bad mood when you’ve been cajoled out of bed with phrases like “Excuse me sir, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but it appears to be morning… Very inconvenient, I agree… I believe it is the rotation of the Earth that is to blame, sir.” And if you still don’t feel like getting up, hitting the clock’s rosette acts like a snooze button which also triggers one of 10 additional replies including “Sir has a firm touch, but fair.” It’s like having your very own English butler, except that you’ll have to make your own breakfast once you’re up.
Everybody knows that girls are attracted to guys with dogs. This is why, if you’re desperate, you can rent dogs by the hour. But what kind of dog is most effective at picking up chicks? This is the burning question that the Puppy Pulling Power experiment was designed to answer. Five different breeds of dogs (a Border Collie, a Pug, a Samoyed, a Staffy, and a Yorkie) were outfitted with a Sony Ericsson C510 camera phone (with smile detection software) on their collars, and whenever the dog lifted up its head to receive the attentions of an adoring female, the phone would snap a picture when (or if) she smiled. As you might expect, the dogs had a rather, uh, advantageous angle, so I’m going to go ahead and call the following trailer slightly NSFW due to cleavageness.
Yeah, it seems pretty fake to me too (they were sponsored by Sony Ericsson), but I don’t think that necessarily invalidates the results. Have a look at those after the jump (including some of the pics that you really want to see), but here’s a spoiler: the Samoyed wins by a cute widdle nose. Read the rest of this entry »
And speaking of the newest iPod Shuffle, it looks like Scosche Industries will be one of the first accessory makers to sell a headphone adapter for Apple’s tiniest player to date. The IRM35 tapLINE Control Adapter lets you use any pair of headphones with the 3rd generation iPod Shuffle, while still being able to control playback, adjust volume and activate the VoiceOver feature. Unfortunately the adapter also means the inline controls are situated just a few inches from the Shuffle itself, limiting where you can stash it, and at $29.99 it makes the cheapest iPod on the market a bit less so.
The latest version of the iPod Shuffle isn’t all bad, but the fact that it’s completely dependent on the less than stellar headphones that Apple includes is a deal breaker in my opinion. That and the price of course. So if you’re looking for a compact MP3 player that’s also big on storage, the $16 kawauMicro is so cheap it’s almost disposable.
Now the player is so affordable because a) the rechargeable lithium-ion battery is only good for a paltry 2 hours (after a 30 minute charge) and b) it doesn’t actually come with any storage. That’s supplied by the user in the form of a microSD or microSDHC card, which will run you about $10 for 4GB if you’d like to match the iPod Shuffle. But since it supports microSDHC cards, you can in theory cram as much as 32GB in there one day, if you’re willing to pay for it. The kawauMicro also features support for WMAs as well as MP3s, and an included pair of crappy headphones that you might be able to strip for the wire before you throw them out.
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