By Andrew Liszewski

While it’s not officially listed as a ‘Game Boy’ homage, it’s pretty hard to mistake where the Monochrome iPhone skin, available from Infectious, got its inspiration.

For just $14.99 you get a set of 3 stickers that includes a full piece of ‘Game Boy’ art for the back of your iPhone, complete with a simulated monochrome green and gray display, hence the name, as well as a small front piece designed to cover the iPhone’s Home button that looks like another set of buttons and a 4-way controller. It also comes with an Infectious logo decal, which you can just stick in the drawer along with the stack of Apple logo stickers you’ve accumulated over the years.

[ Infectious - Monochrome ] VIA [ Kotaku ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The only thing worse than having to carry an umbrella on a rainy day is having to carry one around when it doesn’t end up raining. But you’ll feel less upset about the situation if you carry this Off The Course Umbrella designed by Sebastian Errazuriz. He originally came up with the idea while living in Scotland where he often found himself having to carry his golf clubs and an umbrella at the same time. So to make life easier, he simply combined the two.

The Off The Course Umbrella is made of steel, fiberglass, polyester and rubber, and according to the MoMA Store website it’s more umbrella than golf club and shouldn’t actually be used to play golf. But I’d like to see them try and stop me the next time I’m waiting for the tram and decide to practice my chip shot with a pine cone or a soda can. $65 at the aforementioned MoMA Store.

[ Off The Course Umbrella ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Seriously though, what are we up to like Halo 8 or something? Why has it taken this long for someone to come out with an RC version of the Warthog, a vehicle that I have to assume most gamers would run out and buy in real life, even with a $100k+ price tag. Thankfully at $23.99 from the BigBadToyStore.com this remote control scale version from NKOK is considerably more affordable… and safer.

You can also get yourself a mini RC version of the Mongoose for $23.99, but the highlight has to be the RC Hornet which actually flies, though it will set you back $38.99. All 3 of the vehicles are based on the original CG models Bungie created for the Halo games, and they’ll be available from BigBadToyStore.com sometime in August of this year.

[ BigBadToyStore.com - Halo RC Vehicles ] VIA [ Kotaku ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Remember the NoPoPo? It was the water-powered battery from Japan that went out of its way to advertise the fact that it could also be ‘recharged’ using urine. Well the Japan Trend Shop is now selling a compact LED flashlight/lantern that includes one of those NoPoPo batteries.

Since the batteries are only rated at 500mAh and can only be recharged 4 times, the flashlight is better suited for an emergency kit as the NoPoPos will hold a charge for up to 10 years. And if for some reason both water and urine are in scarce supply, the batteries can also be topped off using other liquids like beer or soda. It’s $39, which isn’t exactly a steal, but the NoPoPos are AA sized so when it reaches the end of its lifespan you can always just swap it out with a standard AA battery.

[ Japan Trend Shop - NoPoPo Water-Powered Flashlight Set ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Remember that cool Mindflex game that Mattel showed off at this year’s CES? It was a spiffy game that measured your brainwave activity and used it to control a small foam ball. Well it seems that Amazon is finally takig pre-orders for the game. It’s going to set you back $99.99 and will ship out to you on October 1st. Hopefully they’ll start taking pre-orders for the similar Force Trainer soon as well.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ i4u ]

By Chris Scott Barr

With Apple’s WWDC coming up quick, there are plenty of rumors swirling around the interwebs. I don’t think anyone really doubts that there will be a new iPhone announced, but my favorite rumor is of the Apple Tablet. This is one of those rumors that just won’t die, mostly because so many people are wishing that it would be real. As often as these rumors crop up, I’m actually surprised that Apple has yet to show any real interest in such a product. In case you weren’t sure where all of this was going, there’s a rumor about a new Apple tablet floating around.

This time someone has nailed down Wintek as the supplier for this seemingly imaginary product. Essentially they are supposed to be providing an “e-book form factor netbook product.” The main uses for the touchscreen tablet will be internet browsing, and VoIP, which strikes me as a bit odd. Sure, I’d browse the net on a 10-inch tablet, but don’t you think I’d look a bit silly with that thing up against my head? Yes, a headset would seem the more likely solution, but it still seems like a strange application for an oversized iPod Touch. The rumor pegs the device as launching sometime in 2010, which means that we may or may not hear about this at the WWDC next month (provided that it’s true in the first place).

[ Digitimes ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

If you work for a company that makes USB 3.5″ floppy disk drives, like Daniel Olson does, you probably find yourself with a lot of down time. In an effort to make 3.5″ floppies relevant again, Daniel made himself a RAID array out of 5 drives and a USB hub. The array has a usable capacity of about 4 mb, and is able to fill itself in just over 30 seconds. That’s like, uh, 0.13 mbps! Wow!

For his next project, Daniel plans to make a 125 disk array with a capacity of something like 256 mb. I guess he’s keeping ‘em out of a landfill, so that’s a good thing.

VIA [ Every Joe ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Hey look, it’s more USB LEGO fun from Etsy seller 123smile! Last time we checked in they had crammed a 4 port USB hub into a LEGO DUPLO brick, and this time they’ve merged a 1GB USB flash drive with a transparent 1×2 LEGO plate. Made in West Germany with “professional equipment” the drives support pretty much every OS you’d need them to, have an LED busy light that’s visible through the transparent plastic and even include a protective cap and a keyring plate made from other LEGO pieces.

The drives are available in pretty much every color LEGO makes, and they can even be assembled with non-transparent pieces if you so desire. But $49.95 is a bit steep for just a 1GB flash drive, no matter how nostalgic it may seem.

[ Etsy – 1GB Nano USB Stick in a 1×2 Lego Plate ] VIA [ Digital Drops ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Turning something as mundane as a vacuum cleaner into an object of techno-lust can be a hard act to follow, but when it comes to the Dysons, it looks like design runs in the family. The Motorlight Wall was created by Jake Dyson, son of James Dyson, the vacuum guy, and it’s a wall mounted light that features an adjustable beam that can be angled between 10 and 120 degrees, creating a wide or narrow shaft depending on your illumination needs. The lights are also remote controlled, and up to 30 of them can be adjusted via a single remote which is handy if you have a series of these installed in a large room.

According to Jake Dyson’s website, the Motorlight Wall was supposed to be available for sale last November for just shy of $400, plus an additional $44 for the remote, but that doesn’t seem to be the case just yet.

[ Jake Dyson Products - Motorlight Wall ] VIA [ designboom ]