Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

Billed as the “World’s only Apple-certified solar charger carrying case” the new Solar Surge from Novothink for the iPhone 3G/3GS and the iPod Touch lets you harvest the sun’s energy to replenish your device’s less than epic battery. According to the Novothink website, “2 hours of direct solar exposure provides about 30 minutes of talk time on a 3G network or 60 minutes of talk time on a 2G network”, but if the sun hasn’t made an appearance you can always fall back to the included USB cable for charging its built-in lithium-ion polymer battery.

A series of 4 multi-colored LEDs on the back of the case lets you see the battery’s remaining charge, and they’ll also let you know if there’s enough light available to actually take advantage of the built-in solar cell. In fact Novothink has even gone above and beyond the call of duty by providing their free Solar Planner app for either device, which provides an estimate of how long you’ll have to leave the Surge in the sun to maintain your iPhone or Touch’s battery level, depending on the current weather conditions and your location.

Eventually available in 6 different colors, the Surge for the iPhone runs $79.95, while the single colored iPod Touch model is currently on sale for $52.95.

[ Novothink Solar Surge iPhone & iPod Touch Charging Case ]

By Evan Ackerman

Computers spend a lot of time thinking that they’re smarter than us. Like, with USB: your computer figures that it’ll just start firing up all of its software and whatnot whenever you plug something in, like your iPod or iPhone. Well, you know what? Sometimes we don’t want to sync our data. Sometimes we don’t want to automatically fire up iTunes and spend 10 minutes backing up our iPhones when we just needed a little bit of a charge, and God forbid the iPhone gets plugged into a different computer that tries to delete all of the music that’s on it…

You know what? NO.

Hence, this USB cable with a little switch that lets you decide whether you want a data connection, or just a power connection. The iPod/iPhone version is $13, and there are other USB adapters for $10 each. Yes, it’s more expensive than a cable without the switch, but if you don’t get one, you’re basically just admitting that your computer is smarter than you, and then the machines win. I mean, you don’t hate humanity, do you? Do you?

[ USB Fever ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

In a totally obvious move that has only taken years to implement (thanks Apple!), ZoomMediaPlus has released an SD card adapter for the docking port on iPhones and iPod Touches that allows you to transfer content between an SD card and the device. This is a useful accessory for a whole bunch of reasons… Carry it along with your digital camera to be able to view and upload pictures on the fly, for example. Or stuff a bunch of movies onto a big SD card for traveling. Using the zoomIt app, you can transfer files in both directions, which gives you the option of bypassing iTunes’ ludicrously draconian file sharing restrictions.

Personally, I hate iTunes. It’s slow, it’s bloated, and it makes it exceptionally difficult to do even the most basic things. I’d love to use the zoomIt’s accessory to be able to transfer, say, a couple songs onto my iPhone without having to suffer through iTunes. So obviously, the big outstanding is going to be file compatibility. The zoomIt website says that you can “view, listen to, and share all of your photos, music, video and files” which also includes PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and PDF files. If this works as advertised, I’d be more than willing to pay $50 (with a $10 pre-order discount) not to have to rely on iTunes ever again. Available in April.

[ zoomIt ] VIA [ iLounge ]

By Andrew Liszewski

You’ll be hard pressed to convince your friends you’re not an Apple fanboy with a set of these iPod Touch themed duvet covers and pillow cases on your bed. But who cares since I’m pretty sure these are being sold without Steve’s blessing, and they could end up being a hard-to-find collectors item if and when Apple’s legal team catches wind of them. So get them now from ellos for just 349 Krona, or about $49.

[ iPod Touch Themed Bedding ] VIA [ PicoCool ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Bring back some truly impressive vacation videos with this new waterproof case from H20 Audio that lets you use your video-capable 5th generation iPod Nano under water. It’s completely waterproof to a depth of 12 feet, and thanks to H20 Audio’s ‘Commander’ scroll wheel technology you can still take full advantage of all the Nano’s controls while it’s in the case. Now at $79.99 it’s far from being the cheapest case on the market, but if you have any desire to shoot with the Nano under water, you’re probably not going to want to cheap out. (In other words I’d recommend this over a Ziploc sandwich bag.)

[ H20 Audio Capture Waterproof Case ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I hate vacuuming. It’s not that I’m lazy and don’t want to clean, it’s that I really just hate the noise my vacuum makes. Headphones go a long way toward drowning it out, but it still just gets on my nerves. Wouldn’t it be great if instead of some ungodly noise, your sweeper blasted out music of your choice? The folks at Electrolux have been hard at work on just such a device.

It appears to be currently in its concept stage, but the Silence Amplified vacuum is not only one of the quietest of its kind, but features a fancy little iPod dock and some speakers. In their quest to make the perfect cleaning tool, they did a study to see how music affected people’s cleaning routines. It seems that hard rock gets the job done fastest (which explains how I can make the house spotless in record time) while those listening to jazz are more thorough (did I say spotless? Well it looks clean enough.). No word on if or when this will be turned into an actual product we’ll be able to purchase.

[ Electrolux ] VIA [ Appliancist ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Apple has managed to get the power adapter for their iPods and iPhones pretty small over the years, but if you still hate dealing with white cables you might want to consider DLO’s WallDock. ($24.99) It plugs into any wall outlet and thanks to a pivoting dock connector and cushioned top, your iPhone or iPod simply has to lean back against the wall and rest while its battery is recharged. Of course the design means the WallDock can’t really be used with a power bar, so if that’s all that’s available you’ll just have to suck it up and go back to using your sync cable.

[ DLO WallDock ] VIA [ The Gadgeteer ]

By Andrew Liszewski

So it might not be from the Logitech we all know and love, but this “professional audio recording” accessory for your iPod or iPhone includes an X-Y style microphone that should improve the quality of your captures if it works as promised. Audio is recorded in the uncompressed WAV format, and the lovingly named LIC-iREC03P module includes switches for enabling automatic gain control and adjusting the attenuation. ~$117 from Geek Stuff 4 U.

[ Logitec LIC-iREC03P ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While Tascam might not be a household name, they’re well respected in the professional audio industry. And when a company like them decides to start supporting the iPod, well then there’s a good chance that Apple’s little MP3 player might just catch on.

The CD-200i is a rackmountable CD player that includes a pop-out dock which supports “any Apple iPod” according to their site. In addition to playing music from it, the iPod can also be controlled from the CD-200i’s front panel or wireless remote, be recharged while docked, and even play videos through an S-video connection on the back of the deck. Oh yeah! It also plays CDs too (MP3 or WAV files) with an improved internal clock for smoother sound and support for CD TEXT and ID3 tag info.

[ Tascam CD-200i ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]