Archive for April 2007

This nifty device is a self-contained surround sound recording studio. The Samson Zoom H2 Handy Recorder uses a set of three directional microphones to record high quality stereo and surround imaging to its built-in digital recorder. Thanks to its microphone configuration, the recorder can accurately capture stereo positioning as well as 5.1

Designer Susanna Hertrich created this unique calendar that gradually rids itself of the previous day by shredding them into oblivion. The Chrono_Shredder combines a calendar, clock and shredder into a single device that gradually scrolls through the days, eating them away with the shredder.

Here’s another cool clock design from Japan’s I.D.E.A. International. This one lets you project a functional analog clock face onto any wall. The projection clock is housed in a see-through acrylic shell which shows off the unique optics and mechanical components that generate the clock image. The projector works from up to 13-feet away to produce a clock face around 5-feet in diameter.

In a surprising move, Research In Motion today announced that they will start to produce software that will let you run BlackBerry applications on select Windows Mobile 6 devices. The BlackBerry software will run side-by-side with Windows Mobile applications as a dedicated icon on the programs list.

Have a hankerin’ for some old Super Nintendo games, but don’t want to spend all your cash on Virtual Console downloads? French game modder Kotomi has just the solution for you. He’s taken a Super Nintendo console and smashed it down into the case of a Nintendo Wii .

I’ve been dying for an excuse to feature one of my favorite artists, Dan Goodsell on my blog, but his whimsical paintings never seemed quite appropriate for Technabob. Today, Dan gave me just enough of an excuse by when he jumped into the video gaming world.

Personally, I can’t stand those people who walk down the street with their Bluetooth headsets on, talking into space. But if you’re one of those people who just can’t possibly be bothered by holding your cell phone in your hand, have I got an invention for you. Consisting of a pair of giant rubber bands (in case you break one,) the kit lets you fasten your mobile phone to the side of your head, thus freeing your hands for whatever important tasks you need them for.

The gimmicky USB device du Jour is this flash memory drive that looks like a poker chip. The drive itself isn’t anything fancy, but the fact that it slides into the chip-shaped container for storage makes it a little more fun. The Memorex Poker Chip Flash Drive won’t win any awards for storage capacity, weighing in at modest 1GB, but it’s a fun gift for the poker addict in your life.

Dig that retro “Speak & Spell” sound? This sound module out of Germany produces an array of interesting eighties-esque bleeps, blips and fuzz that can incorporate little bits of speech and other sound effects. The Flame Talking Synth can also be driven by a MIDI controller so you can really compose some serious electronica using one of these and composition software.

According to a recent post over on AVS Forum, Wal-Mart is reportedly working with Taiwanese manufacturer Fuh Yuan to crank out HD DVD players for a wholesale cost of just $50 per unit, based on an initial commitment of 2 million players.

Now that the street date has been broken on the Xbox 360 Elite, consoles have begun to pop up all over the place. The guys over at The Llama’s Adventures managed to get their grubby hands on one, and the first thing they did was rip it open to see what was really under the hood. As expected, the new console sports a 120GB hard drive and an HDMI port, but it also has what appears to be an updated motherboard, with a new CPU and GPU chipset revision.

This light projector casts an ever-changing animation of the phases of the moon onto your wall. The moon phase projector from Banpresto can project a 2 foot diameter moon image from about 6 feet away. The projector gradually changes between all of the lunar phases over the course of about an hour.

It looks like the April 2007 backwards compatibility update for the Xbox 360 has added a number of new Xbox games, including some which we thought would never make the list due to their graphical complexities.

These funky speakers provide let you listen to your iPod in the kitchen, on the beach or in the bathtub while keeping your precious music player nice and dry. The unique ZumReed Drop Speaker looks like a water droplet, and features a hidden nook that securely docks your iPod on the inside.

Have a sweet tooth? Well don’t try to bite into this chocolate bar or you’ll get a mouth full of plastic and glass. This may look frighteningly like a real chocolate bar, but it’s actually a pocket calculator. The Choc-U-Lator is cleverly packaged in a wrapper that would fool just about any chocoholic.

Lexon’s latest alarm clock has a nice sleek modern design, and shows not only the date and time, but the current temperature as well. Featuring a clean anodized aluminum body, the clocks each have an electroluminescent backlit LCD readout of pretty much everything you need to know at a glance.