Archive for July 2007

Meizu, best known for their ridiculously copycat media players has released a new player that actually looks pretty decent. Surprisingly, it doesn’t derive too many of its looks from other manufacturer’s players either. Available now from Brando, the $189 Meizu Mini Player looks like a pretty capable little media player.

These freshly baked cupcakes from Semk may look tasty, but you’ll probably chip a tooth on ’em if you try to bite in. That’s because they’re actually speakers, not cupcakes. Bummer. Yep, no delicious frosting, just bass and treble.

If you just can’t get enough megapixels in your digital camera, you might want to wait just a couple more days for this new model from Panasonic. The new Lumix DMC-FX100K offers a whopping TWELVE megapixel resolution.

Always one to create watches with cool, but less than practical designs comes TokyoFlash with another new watch design. Originally available only in Japan, their new Cyberpunk TS100 stainless steel watch has a face loaded with 90 tiny red LED dots that flash and flicker across the display, eventually leaving only behind the time. From the looks of things, it might be a little hard to make out the time when it’s daytime, but it’ll look hella cool when the lights go down.

Light bulbs are made out of glass, so they shouldn’t melt unless you heat them to a couple of thousand degrees Farenheit. That is, unless you get one of these kooky lighting fixtures from Propaganda. The lamp lets you fool people around you into thinking that your bulb is actually melting like a Good Humor bar on a hot Summer day.

These compact speakers feature enclosures made entirely from an unlikely material, porcelain. According to Japanese designer, Noboru Kawamura, the china construction is said to provide a warm, tender sound that traditional wood or plastic enclosures can’t achieve.

This little pendant might look like a tiny camera, but it’s secret identity is a digital music player. The handmade wooden mini-cameras have an embedded Motz Music Box at their core, letting them play MP3, WMA and OGG files. The only real downside to the player is that it only has 256MB of memory, and doesn’t look like it’s expandable.

Bushnell’s new Trail Scout Pro 5.0 night vision digital camera is designed to be mounted to a tree in the forest, and automatically snaps 5-megapixel digital photos of anything that crosses its path. In addition to being able to shoot night vision pics, the $270 (street price) camera switches into a full color mode during daylight.

While I don’t really know if these qualify as “gadgets,” I just had to show you these awesome tape dispensers coming from UK designers at j-me. A clever visual pun manifested in 3-dimensions, they dispense Scotch tape instead of playing the magnetic type.

Chiaki Murata’s Xbox 360 design is now commonplace in living rooms around the world. But back in 2003, the system was still just in the conceptual stages. Now, the Japanese industrial designer has released some great images of a couple of his original design concepts that didn’t make it. I’ve never seen a picture of this first prototype, but I actually like it.

Like to play Guitar Hero 2 on your PS2 or Xbox 360 but don’t want to lug around that full-sized guitar? This new mini guitar from XCM lets you play those rhythm games on a pint-sized version of the controller. The XFPS Mini Guitar has all the controls you need to jam out, with none of the bulk.

You can always count of Fossil to crank out some über-cool wristwatches. One of their latest creations mashes up the analog and digital worlds in a brilliant way. The minute I saw Fossil’s Ana-Digi watch, I was reminded of that classic Star Trek episode with the half-white, half-black races who hated each other because of the color of each other’s skin.

This new wireless streamer from Freecom lets you listen to thousands of free internet “radio” stations anywhere in your house. The Linux-based MusicPal not only receives over 5,000 ‘net music streams, it can also stream MP3s directly from your networked PC or Mac.

Denon today revealed their latest home theater sound system, the DHT-M380. The new system has one major distinguishing characteristic… the speakers have beautiful hardwood cabinets. The clean, elegant design lets the system integrate nicely into any living room.

If you happen to have your cell phone ringer turned off, and you don’t care for the “vibrate” setting, you might want to check out these nifty things from London’s Mathmos. These tiny Light Charms clip onto your mobile phone and blink whenever a call is coming in (thanks to those lovely radio frequency emissions.)

Designer Richard Lawson has created the oh-so-simple LED lights that clip on the top of an ordinary 9-volt battery. Originally designed for a Mathmos-sponsored design competition, they’re now available for you to purchase for the first tim.