Seriously, I couldn’t make this shit up. And now, you’ll be able to cover yours up thanks to the “Ecohime Flush Water Sound Cell Phone Strap”. Just flip the switch on the Ecohime, and you’ll conceal any unpleasant noises with the sound of loudly running water.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

What I don’t get is that they made this thing look like a rose, but it only covers up sounds, not smells. I mean why wouldn’t you design this thing to emit a pleasant flowery scent while it’s doing its job? Seems like a major miss. Well, there’s always Ecohime 2.0, right?

Want one for your pocket? The Ecohime can be yours for the low, low price of ¥999 (appx. $10.98 USD) over at Strapya World.

This floating wireless speaker from Elima can connect to any Bluetooth device that supports A2DP or AVRCP for transmitting sound. And since it can receive transmissions from up to 10-meters (appx. 30 feet) away, you can set your iPhone or other compatible device over on the poolside table – or grab an underwater case and float the whole thing in the pool. The orb-shaped speaker measures about 6-inches in diameter, and features a pair of 2-watt speakers for stereo sound.

But unlike the guy in the picture above, I wouldn’t recommend floating this thing in the salt water ocean – otherwise, glowing  pink musical notes could come flying out of it. Or worse yet…

If you can bear the thought of buying something that’s being marketed by mentioning how you can play Backstreet Boys music on it, head on over Chinavasion, and grab one for $40 (USD).

Designed by Kouichi Okamoto with ceramicist Daniel Jo, the Water Clock consists of a small fired clay base topped with a pair of magnetic spheres. A pair of powerful magnets underneath the delicate clay surface move the tiny orbs in a circular path to tell the current time. While the spheres are magnetic, they’re actually buoyant, so if you fill up a glass with H2O, the “hands” of the clock actually float on the surface of the water. Each of the spheres can be placed into any dish, plate or other vessel you happen to have lying around.

And while all the designer’s pictures show the clock working with crystal clear water and delicate china, I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t make your own clock using beer, wine, orange juice or Donkey Kong Jungle Juice swimming in a Dixie Riddle Cup. That’s the true beauty of this thing.

The Water Clock is available over at Generate for $299 (USD).

The Happy Savon (savon = French for soap) looks like a little white whale, and fills sits on the edge of your bathtub blowing bubbles as you take a soak. Just fill the miniature cetacian with any liquid soap or shampoo and flip on the power. For smelly bubbles, just add a tiny bit of aromatherapy oil to the mix.

Despite the water mammal shape and the bathroom theme, the battery-operated whale isn’t submersible, so don’t try and float it in the water unless you want a dead whale in your tub. You’ll also want to be careful to aim the bubbles towards your tub, unless you want a slippery mess all over your bathroom tile floor – the last thing you need when you step out of the tub.

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Regardless of the hazards, the Engrish marketing materials say it’s Relax Romantic Fantasy – so how could you go wrong? You can find the Happy Savon whale bubble blower over at the Japan Trend Shop for $63 (USD).

At first glance, I thought this seafaring sports car was the underwater Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me. Much to my amazement, it’s a real amphibious Lamborghini Countach built by Mike Ryan of SeaRoader.

Price: unknown, but if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford one.

[via Gadget Life]

With up to 215 horsepower, the JetLev jetpack flings you up to 28 feet in the air at up to 40MPH by pumping water through its jets.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I think I’m gonna stick to my innertube for now.

The Playpump, to quote gizmag, is “essentially a windmill on its side, driven by children, not wind.” The Playpump is installed near schools so it also serves as a roundabout that children can play with. It can gather up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40m, and it’s good for up to 100m. In between the pump and the faucet is a tank, meaning children can play on the pump for a while without wasting water.

Some of you might be thinking that it’s unfair for the children to work for their community’s supply, but it’s actually not that simple. First of all, without the Playpump, these children would still work to fetch water. Some have to travel quite a distance to get water, and all of their bodies are strained by their heavy load. So spinning on a pump is really nothing compared to the alternative.

Second, some schools don’t even have a playground for these children, so it’s a good way for children to have fun and yet help their families at the same time. And obviously adults can always step in to help with the pumping.

The Playpump is driven by ads that are placed on the water tank. The ads also pay for the maintenance of the pump. But Playpumps International knows that it will take more than the ad-revenue to achieve their dream of bringing clean water to 10 million people by next year, so they’re asking for donations. The bottled water you see above is coming out in the US this spring; 100% of the Love One water’s proceeds will be used to fund Playpumps.

Spread the word or donate if you can.

I’ve never seen these R2D2 water bottles before today, but I want one for the next time I leave the comfort of my climate-controlled basement to go outside to get some fresh air and exercise. That is, assuming I could fill it with Grape Tang and vodka instead of water while I saunter down the sidewalk in my Stormtrooper outfit.

Unfortunately, if you live outside of Japan you might have a hard time finding one of these. But if you happen to speak both Japanese and Protocol Droid-ese, you can find the R2D2 Water Bottle over at Tanomi for ¥3,300 (appx. $37 USD).

Strenco’s ST-2 Steambot lumbers along thanks to a tiny copper Wilesco steam engine that’s been implanted in his chest cavity.

Now don’t expect to just flip a switch to get this retro robot going. You’ll need pop his head off, fill him up with water, and light a tiny (stinky) Esbit fire in his belly before his mechanical innards get started.

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And despite the wild gyrations of his internal steam engine, the robot moves at a snail’s pace once up to full speed.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Only 300 of these $600 (USD) limited-edition Steambots were created, so good luck finding one. A couple of places to start on your robot quest include MiniSteam, ManuFactum and General Robots.

Eagle this is Houston, what’s poppin? Over?

“Yeah, so.. I float over to where the cooler’s supposed to be, but in it’s place there’s this…I’m looking at this machine labeled “Urine Recycler”. Over.”

Don’t tell me it’s broken again! Dammit Timmy, I thought I told you to fix the Urine Recycler on the Endeavour!

“Houston, Houston: I don’t think it’s broken.”

What? So what’s the problem?

“The concept is the problem Houston. I have a problem with the whole freaking concept behind this machine.”

Eagle we spent $154 million on the Urine Recycler –

“And I spent half of my life training to do what? Drink my own — Jeebus Houston! How much does Gatorade cost nowadays?! How much for tap water?! What is this, Jackass? Am I being Punk’d or something?”

Eagle it’s not always urine; it also recycles moisture and sweat–

“I’m crashing the ISS on your ass in 3-2-1 you sadists.”

[via Scientific American]

Just slip your laptop into one of these oversize plastic sleeves, press the zip seal closed, and it protects your precious portable from the elements. Once your laptop is safely inside the bag, it should resist drips, rainwater and dust (and presumably spills of Red Bull too).

Keep in mind that the design isn’t 100% waterproof, as there are holes in the back to provide ventilation for your computer. That said, I don’t recommend throwing your laptop into the swimming pool in any event.

Japan’s Thanko offers the weather resistant plastic sleeves in two sizes, so most laptops should fit in one or the other. They retail for ¥1980 each (appx. US$20). Now all you have to do is figure out how to read Japanese, and convince them to ship them overseas.

In the mean time, start breaking out some Ziploc freezer bags and see what you can MacGyver together for yourself.

Adafruit’s Botanicalls Twitter Kit lets your plants communicate over the web, letting you know when they need water, or if they’re feeling happy that they’ve been recently cared for. And since Twitter can notify your mobile device of new posts, you can receive a text message when your plant is feeling blue.

The easy-to-assemble electronic kit uses wired moisture sensors to detect your plant’s state of mind and send information out to the Internet via an on-board Ethernet jack. Connect the board to your PC using a USB cable, and the Arduino-based circuit can be programmed to send custom messages to Twitter.

The kit is available from Adafruit for $160 USD. All I need now is for my dogs and cat to start Twittering too and I can finally take a nice long vacation.

[via MAKE]

The latest in a series of merchandise Taito has issued for the 30th anniversary (now I feel really old) of the classic arcade game, these durable aluminum bottles are perfect for bikers, hikers or generally outdoorsy types. Now, the intersection of people who fit that description AND who like Space Invaders is probably close to infinitesimal, so I guess that’s why they’re only making a limited number of these.

Expected to ship in April 2008, you can pre-order one of the three designs from video game import shop NCSX for $12.50 each.

The Antibac2k Magic Ball kills unpleasant odors, as well as removes allergens and contaminants from the air around you. The spherical gadget filters, humidifies, and disinfects stale air, and can even add a pleasant fragrance to fill your nostrils with glee. It does this all while putting on a relaxing light show with a ring of 30 green, blue and white LEDs.

Just pour a tiny drop of Antibac2k’s special purifying solution into water, fill it up, and it does the rest. Your nasty, stank air will be pulled in, scrubbed, cleaned and spewed back out smelling like a rose (or one of numerous other scents.) The makers of the device claim it can effectively remove dust, smoke, odors, bacteria, fungi and viruses from your airspace. A single Magic Ball can clean the air in rooms up to about 350-square feet.

So if you need to clean up your act, you can pick one up online from b-eshop for HKD 1,680 (about $216 USD.) The manufacturer claims to distribute these all over the globe, but I couldn’t find any for sale outside of Asia.

When Victor’s XA-AQ33-W media player isn’t swimming around the bathtub with you, it can head to dry dock in a stand that sits on your bedside table. The player does its job to play up to 256MB of MP3 and WMA music through a built-in amplified speaker. It’s also got LED illumination underneath, producing a cool glow of blue light. There’s even a handful of pre-installed “relaxation tunes” to help you chill out.

The player runs on batteries, so you can even take it out to the pool if you’d like (not that I’d ever use something that plugs into an outlet in the tub). You should get about 15 hours of play on a single set of batteries.

The whole thing looks a bit spacecraft-like to me, making it perfect for that outer-space themed room I know you’re just dying to decorate.

[via Idea Digital Code]

The Healing Theater Umine projects watery blue and green moving images on your ceiling as it plays back digitally recorded sounds of the islands. In addition to a beach setting, the Umime can transport you deep into the rainforest along with chirping birds and a green, leafy light show, or under the sea, swimming with the fishes and a deep blue visual effect.

In addition to the built-in nature sounds, you can hook up your favorite media player and listen to your music as the images play. It also comes with a removable frosted dome that lets keeps the images from reaching the ceiling, instead creating a brighter, point lighting source.

As is always the case with the LED projectors, the effect requires a totally dark room, and probably won’t be quite as dramatic as the marketing image above. Still, it looks pretty cool. The Umine projector is available for pre-order now (shipping mid-August) from HimeyaShop for $84.

The water cannon floats around your swimming pool, and can remotely fire 20-foot blasts of water at unsuspecting victims from up to 40-feet away. The cannon is propelled using a system similar to the nozzles that drive tugboats around, so you can maneuver it quickly and easily. It can even do 360-degree spins.

Two versions are available (orange and green), which run on independent radio frequencies, allowing battles between you and a friend.

The remote water cannon is $129.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer.

HOOKED! claims to offer a totally realistic fishing experience (let’s hope it’s better than the silly fishing exercises in Zelda) including photorealistic bodies of water with lots of aquatic life to pluck. The game will include online multi-player, and three single player modes as well (Practice, Time Attack and Tournament.)

It’ll cost about $59 when it comes out this September, which is $10 more than most Wii games, presumably to cover the cost of the controller add on. Bait not included.

[via WiiFanboy]

The AquaRain is a battery-powered device that floats along the surface of your bathwater and sprays a geyser of constantly recirculating water into the air in a couple of different patterns. Add to that a set of three color-changing LEDs, and you’ve got yourself a serious light show in your tub.

While it might not come close to the fountains at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, it’s should offer enough of a display for most bathtubs. The AquaRain is available now from NCSX for $39.

The unique ZumReed Drop Speaker looks like a water droplet, and features a hidden nook that securely docks your iPod on the inside. It even features external volume and playback controls that are waterproof, so you can control your iPod with wet hands.

The Drop Speaker comes in orange, white and teal colors, and costs ¥4988 (appx. $42 USD) from Japanese retailer Dreams6.