The speakers each have a power of 3W, a small passive subwoofer, a full duplex microphone and a USB port. There are 3.5mm audio jacks going in and out for daisy-chaining.

The Braven 600 costs $149(USD) and lasts 14 hours. The Braven 625s costs $179.99, lasts 16 hours and has a shock-absorbing aluminum grille. It also comes with a waterproof bag and a USB flashlight. The Braven 650 costs $189.99, lasts 20 hours, and has aptX and AAC encoding.

The speakers can be pre-ordered from Braven site and will start shipping in June.

[via The Verge]

On a related note, New York City’s public schools have imposed a similar ban on mobile phones. But instead of shutting things down completely, it has instead given rise to portable storage trucks that let students check their phones by paying a dollar a day to store their gadgets.

These cell phone storage trucks are the brainchild of Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage, which has been deploying their brightly-painted storage trucks to schools that have metal detectors at their entrances (so students can’t smuggle in their mobiles.) It might sound like a silly idea, but these trucks are pretty popular: they serve an estimated 500 to 550 students per day from the Bronx’s DeWitt Clinton High School alone.

[via Kottke and NYT via Core77]

I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I think these ugly, bulbous vehicles look more like something Woody Allen would have driven in Sleeper than something you’d see rounding the track at Nürburgring. That said, you’d hope that at least they’d do the cell phone thing well.

I’m not holding my breath on that one either. These things sport an anemic 2-inch LCD screen, and a camera which offers “200 lacpixel; support to shoot MP4 with sound, the time depends on storage, with front camera, flash, telescopic cameras” I didn’t know what a lacpixel was before today, but I’m going to assume they meant it was lacking 200 pixels, because this calculation clearly doesn’t apply. It also supposedly has a QWERTY keyboard, but I think they meant they were typing the product listing with one, as there’s clearly none in sight. At least this thing makes phone calls, right?

If you absolutely must have one of these for the sheer novelty of the thing, you can get one over at AliExpress for about $76(USD). Me? I’m going to save my money to buy some soap to go wash my eyes out with.

Scosche says that when the dongle senses the car moving it will block all sorts of things on the phone including texting, email, voice calls, the camera, and more. It’s also supposed to still allow voice calls if it detects a handsfree headset. The idea is that it will prevent the driver from using the phone and being a hazard or just pissing the rest of us off. Too bad it can’t block idiots that read or put on makeup while driving too.

I see a couple issues with the $129.95 gadget though. The first thing is if you happen to roll your car and the wheels keep spinning how would you call for help? The second is that you have to be running an app on the mobile for the device to work, and the third thing is that all the driver has to do is unplug the OBD-II dongle to foil the system (though it will notify you via email if it’s removed or deactivated.) The system also doesn’t list iPhone compatibility, though it works with Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and others.

The Infobar C01 (JP) looks pretty retro with its checkered keyboard beneath a full touchscreen. It’s powered by Android and measures a disproportionately tall 5.11 inches in height by 2 inches in width and under half an inch in thickness. It weighs 3.7 oz and its 3.2-inch screen has a 854×480 resolution. It has an 8 MP CMOS camera, USB and microSD ports. It’s Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and IR compatible. Since it’s designed for the Japanese market, it also comes with a digital TV tuner.

The phones will be available in Japan in February 2012 on the KDDI (JP) mobile phone carrier. Even if you do like its looks, it’s doubtful that you’ll ever be able to get one outside of Japan though.

[via designboom]

While in the bag, the “nano-silver”-lined SilentPocket also makes your phone impossible to hack wirelessly, blocking out all RFI and electromagnetic transmissions. Once it’s placed within, your phone or tablet will be completely shut off from the outside world. That means that all texts, emails and voicemails will only arrive once you take it out again. While you normally might just press the sleep switch on your device, many phones can still be tracked even if you think your phone is powered off. Of course, you could go into airplane mode to completely shut off communications.

Still, if you’re worried about what information you device might be sharing while you’re not using it, then this will do the trick. The MIAmobi SilentPocket comes in different sizes, to fit your smart phone and your tablet, but no prices are listed on the website.

[via Ubergizmo]

At just 0.22″ thick, it’s supposed to be the world’s thinnest keyboard, but that’s not quite true since the Hatch & Co. SKINNY is only 0.07″ thick. Still, it’s probably a bit more comfortable to use, since they’re actual keys, and not touch-sensitive like the SKINNY.

The E6300 keyboard measures just about 3.1″ × 8.1″, so it’s quite compact. The Rapoo’s keyboard is rechargeable with a charge lasting up to a month.

It was designed to work well with iOS and Android devices via Bluetooth, and you can get one for $39.99 (USD) over at Focalprice.

[via GeekAlerts]

The Doubleplay runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and features a 3.5-inch main touchscreen. The slide-out keyboard is perfect when you want to get down to the texting nitty gritty. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU and has a 5 MP rear camera with 720p video and an LED flash. The camerasounds like nothing to write home about, but that’s not what users will be looking for when they get this phone, which is all about typing.

The LG Doubleplay will be available from T-Mobile in a couple of weeks.

[via Designboom]

The speaker itself looks quite good. If there are more than one of these around, they’ll start booming out in stereo, which is a cool trick. They weigh 18 ounces each, so they’re reasonably light and portable (4.3″×4.3″×4.9″).

The speaker itself can be charged via a microUSB port. A complete charge of 3 hours should last just over 20 hours of play time. In addition to wireless audio, they come with a 3.5mm audio jack as well.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Each of these speakers will cost you €149 (~$213 USD), so they don’t come cheap. They’ll ship in Q3 of this year. Well, they might work well, but a pair of these would set you back almost enough to purchase a Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin dock (!).

[via designboom]

Richard incorporated a rotary dial in the back of the device, which can be interchanged with a button dial as well. The body of the phone is made out of electroplated copper, which has been painted to give it a worn effect, with scratches and fading that has appeared over time.

The brass dials can be swapped out for other models and colors. The back of the phone doesn’t look like any other phone that I’ve seen and it does look pretty amazing – if not a little impractical.

[via designboom]

I have a friend who’s absolutely obsessed with following the latest trends and getting new releases of gadgets she already owns the moment they come out. She buys the new model when it comes out, uses it for a few months or so, then either sells, gives, or stows away the old model when a newer one comes out.

It’s a vicious cycle and it’s wasteful. Designers Da Deng, Chandra Baker, Chris Platt, and Jason Schuler probably understand and know a thing or two about these people when they came up with revOlve.

Their concept design for an all-new breed of mobile phones, revOlve, bagged first place at the 2010 International E-Waste Competition in the Designer Category, and it’s easy to see why.

revOlve wants to “break the cycle” of serial cellphone replacers by handing them a phone that is simply too genius to trade in for another one. Full specifications are unavailable of course, since this is really just a design, but it’s one that I’d love to see turned into reality.

revOlve can be easily disassembled, so each component can be upgraded, replaced, and recycled when necessary. The bottom part of the phone where you can see the loop (which is also convenient for hanging the phone on a keychain or belt or something) is equipped with an induction generator. So when you’re running low of juice, just give the revOlve a few (or a lot) of spins to re-charge the battery.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Yanko Design]

If you’re one of those people that always listens to music when they walk around or work, then you’ll probably like this app. It dynamically generates playlists from your music library based on how you’re feeling, not just your musical tastes. You just tweak the various mood and tempo sliders on the front of your smartphone, and the app does the rest. The music is profiled via general emotions and then tinkered and refined to your personal specifications. It’s also got the handy ability to pull in recommendations for songs you don’t already own and preview them before you buy.

The latest version can even use geolocation data to modify recommendations based on what other people in your area like more than other areas of the world. That’s not all. You can also share your mood via Facebook or Twitter, which is kind of cool, but ultimately might end up broadcasting more info than you want.

Moodagent is available for the iPhone, Android and Nokia smartphones (USD).

[via Ubergizmo]

Apparently, the update wasn’t so fixed after all since some users are now getting another error that makes the update fail. The error message reportedly comes after step 7 in the update process where the phone reboots. The error pops up in Zune it seems.

The error was confirmed by WinPhoneSupport via Twitter and they are looking into the issue. I would say that if you own a Samsung Windows Phone 7 handset you need to just skip the update for now and wait until all the issues are ironed out.

[via WindowsPhoneThoughts]

If you want to get closer to the action than your iPhone will normally allow, PhotoJojo’s 8× zoom lens kit could come in handy. Check out some of this example photo that they were able to take with it:

Not bad, considering that they are using a cheap telephoto lens on an iPhone, which itself doesn’t have the best camera sensor. The lens snaps onto the camera using an included case, and is available for both the iPhone 4 and older 3G/3GS models. There’s a collapsible table tripod that comes with the kit as well, and they even throw in a lens cleaning cloth.

Honestly though, when I want to do high quality telephoto shots, I’ll stick with my DSLR and an 18-200mm lens.

[via Photojojo]

Yes, smartphones don’t work for everyone, but I’m a bit surprised that this phone only has one button. The phone is designed to call parents or other emergency contacts when the caller needs immediate help. It seems to me that you’d need more than one button if you have multiple emergency contacts.

Once the call is completed, the device sends an automated email with GPS data pinpointing the caller’s location. There is also an alarm that will allow parents to find a child when it is lost. While a complete handset for kids won’t work for 5-year olds, I’ve seen plenty of them playing with iPhones, so using one isn’t that far behind.

[via DVice]

Pantech isn’t just some new name in electronics, they are the third largest mobile handset maker in South Korea, after Samsung and LG. The DDR2 smartphone, the Vega X, is supposed to offer some impressive processing speeds. It’s about 1.5× as fast as a their previous DDR1-based smartphones. But while the phone may be speedy, the rest of the phone’s specs are pretty ordinary. The Vega X’s 4-inch screen is just a standard WVGA LCD, so it’s a bit bleh. Also, I’m not particularly impressed with the 5MP camera. WTF is that about? Some Asian manufacturers are making 10-12MP cameras in cell phones already.

It’s hard to quantify the fact that they boast that it’s as fast as a PC. Seriously? As fast as my PC? I doubt it. I’m sure that even my MacBook Pro 17 will kick that phones ass, but hey, I’m sure that it’s faster than Pentium 1 or Intel 486 PCs – and definitely zippier than an Atari 800.

[via Fareastgizmos]

I’m not sure if this thing is really legal to use, but it’s supposed to be the lightest, smallest, and most sophisticated digital cell phone jammer. It’s designed to look like a pack of cigarettes, so if you’re a non-smoker, you’ll look like an idiot, but at least you’ll be happy to have a cellphone-free environment.

This jammer turns GSM, DCS, PHS, and 3G to static, but shouldn’t affect any other electronic devices. You can use the age-old excuse that your place has iffy reception because “it’s old” or because of the “pipes in the walls”. It works in a radius of 32 feet, so the dinner table will be uninterrupted. This also works well on that texting teen that you have at home. Never pay for 27,000 monthly texts again!

The Hidden Cellphone Jammer (Cigarette Pack) is available from Chinavasion with the retail price of €35.19 (appx. $46 USD) for 1-5 units.

[via Geek Alerts]

The coolest flip phone that I have seen in a long time has tuned up from a company called iida and the phone is the X-Ray. The phone has translucent cases in red, blue, or black colors. No matter the color, you can see through the case with the parts inside being part of the design of the phone.

The phone has a small 7 x 102 dot-matrix LCD you can see on the front that shows time and caller ID info. Inside the phone is a larger 3-inch screen and the devices measures 49 x 110 x 15.7mm overall. Other features include an 8.08MP camera phone that can record video and has flash and image stabilization. Storage is 925MB onboard with expansion using microSD cards.

Pricing and availability are unknown at this time, but you might be able to find out more over at the iida website.

Facebook is apparently not developing their own phones, but working with INQ Mobile to come up with two smartphones, which will feature heavy Facebook integration. The devices will probably tie-in with AT&T’s network and are expected to be released in Europe in the first half of 2011 and in the US in the second half.

While I think it’s an interesting idea, I can’t imagine what benefit it would have over any other smartphone with a Facebook app running on it. Besides, I don’t use Facebook all that much these days anyhow, so no, I won’t be buying one.

[via Bloomberg]

Touted as a “breakfast cutting board,” the MyBrett is a laser-engraved piece of wood, that will look good whether you eat a sandwich on it or hang it on the wall. MyBrett literally is German for ‘my cutting board’. The MyBrett interface includes such exciting breakfast applications as “Sausage,” “Egg,” “Tea,” and “Cheese.” Not sure what the deal is with the pills though. Maybe they’re vitamins?

They’re currently available for pre-order for €15 (appx. $20 USD). Expected delivery is at the end of September, though I’m not sure that they deliver worldwide. Send them an email to find out.

[via Leet Lady]