Oh! Gizmo

By Luke Anderson

With rising gas prices, I’m trying to find new and creative ways to save on fuel costs. However, if money is no problem, and you love throwing parties, you have to check out the Party-A-CarGo. Essentially this is a portable party machine that hooks up to the back of your vehichle.

The Party-A-CarGo hooks up to your tow hitch and provide tunes and booze to all of your closest pals, wherever you go. That’s right, the bulk of this is a dedicated kegarator. Of course, just having this thing attached to your vehicle is probably one of the best ways to get yourself pulled over for no good reason. You’d better do a lot of partying, as this thing will set you back a cool $3,000.

[ PartyaCarGo ] VIA [ Dvice ]

By Jonathan Kimak

Headphones have always been a good friend of the gamer. They keep the parents, girlfriend, neighbors or pets from ruining a perfect moment by shouting/barking “Turn that damn game down” just as you were about to execute a perfect headshot. Many times you had to sacrifice comfort for functionality or vice-versa. But the AudioFX Pro 5+1 gaming headset hopes to give you everything you need, including comfort.

They do look rather comfy and the 5.1 surround sound is a really nice feature. Bonuses to the design are the included force feedback effect and LED lights on the side that indicate the volume level. It’s a USB headset and has a price tag of $79.94. Be sure to use the mute mic button if you still live at home and you don’t want to be caught on YouTube being chastised by your mom and laughed at by millions of others.

[ eDimensional ] VIA [ Everything USB ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m sure these noise canceling ear plugs from Sensear would provide plenty of peace and quiet on your next flight, particularly if you get stuck next to this kid. But they seem to be geared towards people who are stuck in even noisier environments, like say the ground crew working outside the plane. And instead of simply eliminating all the noises around you, they actually just reduce them to the point where they won’t damage your hearing. That way you can still hear the jet engine revving up even while having a conversation with someone.

The microphones are embedded in the ear plugs themselves, and feature binaural functionality which basically lets you tell which direction a particular sound is coming from. The ruggedized device also features large buttons that can even be used while wearing gloves, as well as inputs for an MP3 player or a two-way radio. The only downside is that it will set you back $445. So if you’re just looking to get a little shut eye while traveling, there are far more affordable solutions. But if you’re worried about wandering into the path of a jet engine, they just might be worth the investment.

[ Sensear SP1 ] VIA [ DVICE ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Given how many songs are ‘illegally’ downloaded from the internet every day, it’s kind of hard to claim you’re a rebel when so many other people are doing exactly the same thing. And even though this clock radio from Intempo ’steals’ music it in a slightly different way, I still don’t think it deserves the ‘Rebel’ moniker. Instead of grabbing music online, the Rebel records the most-played tracks from any FM station and then converts them to MP3 files which can be offloaded to a memory card or USB flash drive. It does seem to be a slightly easier way to discover new music, as long as you’re happy with the quality of FM radio, which is far from CD quality. The Rebel also automatically removes DJ banter and commercials from the recordings, though I have my doubts as to how effective it is given that DJs will usually talk through the entire intro of a song.

Other features include a headphone and line-in jack, AC adapter, slots for MMC, SD and Memory Stick cards, a USB jack and enough on-board memory to store up to 40 recorded songs. You can get it directly from the Intempo website for about $136.

[ Intempo Rebel ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Evan Ackerman

No matter how many channels your home theater system puts out, the simple fact is that with two ears a piece, we only hear things in boring old 2-channel stereo. It’s pretty amazing, then, that we’re able to tell where sounds are coming from in such detail. We can do this thanks to our clever brains, which know what our ears and head are shaped like and use that information to decipher the locations of sounds which are heard slightly differently by each ear.

This is the principle that binaural recording is based on, and why crazy looking microphones like this one from Otokinoko exist. The idea is that if the stereo microphone is shaped like a head, it’ll hear (and record) sounds in exactly the same way your ears do. Then if you play the recording back through a regular pair of stereo headphones, your brain will be able to reconstruct all that yummy directional information and it’ll sound like you’re listening to something live and in person.

That’s the idea, anyway. In order to reproduce the ideal effect, the head and ears of the listener have to be the same as the head and ears of the microphone. And, it only works with stereo headphones, not with speakers. Here’s a sample on YouTube. This particular binaural mic costs $3899, but if you paint a face on it and give it a silly hat, you can make up some of the price in giggles.

[ Japan Trend Shop ] VIA [ Uberreview ]

By Evan Ackerman

Plants are nice I guess, but as far as I’m concerned, they have two major problems: they’re demanding, and they’re useless. The Constant Garden is a plant I can appreciate, since (being made of rubber) it requires no maintenance, and as each stalk has a little speaker and an LED embedded in it, it performs a function and looks pretty. The designer, Vitorio Benedetti, imagined the Constant Garden to be a sort of desktop calendar thing… It syncs with your computer, and reminds you of appointments and stuff with “a coordinated audio visual approach.” The rest of the time, it can play “garden sounds,” whatever those are. What kinds of sounds do plants make, anyway? Irrespective of what the Constant Garden is supposed to do, I really like the organic look and feel, and it would bring a much needed something alive(ish) to any sterile work environment.

[ Constant Garden ] VIA [ Tech Digest ]

By Evan Ackerman

If you’ve been desperately yearning for a Sony Rolly ever since you saw how cool they (kinda maybe) are when we saw one perform at CES, it looks like they’re now for sale in Sony Style stores and online for an outlandish $400. I’m still not sure what sort of niche market the Rolly is targeting, but here’s what it can do:

-180-degree horizontally opposed 1.2w stereo speakers and a digital amplifier provide powerful sound performance

-Six moving parts — Rolly player’s arms, shoulders and wheels work with two LED lamps to create a tiny floor show.

-Three motion function settings let you watch the Rolly player analyze and interpret the music, program its moves yourself, or download moves from your computer with the included Motion Editor Software5.

-Bluetooth capability allows you to wirelessly stream music from compatible digital music players, PCs, or mobile phones

-2GB storage capacity means that the Rolly player can hold up to 520 songs and the included Lithium-ion battery can provide up to 5 hours of continuous music playback

More features, and a video of Rolly from CES, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

Fine, they won’t really snap your neck, but at least they’ll make your ears tickle, and that’s gotta be good for something. The iFeelU EX2 2.2-channel “Body-Sonic Vibration Ear Wearing System” uses two speakers in each earbud; I’m guessing that the second speaker at the back is actually more of a mass driver, producing vibration rather than sound. According to Gizmodo, who got some eartime with them, “for explosions and other big booms, these things are surprisingly great, with solid feedback and definite in-ear quakage [sic].” They may not be as great for listening to music, although it looks like you can adjust the strength of the vibration separately.

They should be available not too long from now for about $40 a pair; for that amount, it might be fun to pick some up just to see what they can do.

[ iFeelU ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By Evan Ackerman

It may be way, way outdated tech nowadays, but most cars still have tape decks in them. Most cars I drive, that is. New cars that only have CD players (also outdated tech, for what it’s worth) are damn annoying because there’s no good way to get your iPod (or whatever) to work with them. Don’t even get me started on how awful those AM/FM transmitters are. Anyway, tape adapters are the way to go, since they’re easy and cheap and work flawlessly. You can get them with built-in MP3 players, and now they also come with Bluetooth.

The Flexii Bluetooth Cassette Adapter works just like a standard tape adapter, except for the whole Bluetooth instead of wires part. It comes with an internal lithium-ion battery good for about 5 hours, a car charger, and a USB cable good for I know not what. It’s a mildly neat little gadget, but for $46 shipped, I might just stick with good old fashioned wires.

[ Flexii Bluetooth Cassette Adapter ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re in the business where you have to record the occasional interview, why spend your money on a dedicated digital audio recorder when there’s a good chance you’ll already have a laptop computer with you. The Narae Recorder Mini is a compact microphone that simply connects to the mic-in jack on your notebook, and is capable of recording sounds up to 32 feet away. To be honest though, the only thing this really has going for it is its compact size. You can connect any microphone (non-phantom powered) to your laptop with the right cabling, but thanks to its small size this one could easily be mistaken for a Bluetooth or wifi dongle. So it might be handy if the person you’re talking to doesn’t actually want to be recorded and you need to keep it on the down-low that you are. No word on pricing or availability, but you can probably assume it isn’t going to break the bank.

[ Narae Inter to roll out its high-performance microphone ‘Recorder mini’ for notebook pc ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]