The original had the distinction of being the first talking quartz clock, and the newer version appears to retain much of its functionality. However, the update also features LED lighting and speaks the date, weather and temperature data (in Japanese or English) when the top of the pyramid is pressed twice. Unfortunately, the clock is only available in Japan at the moment, but if Seiko does not bring it to the States, it will undoubtedly make its way here through exporters like Japan Trend Shop, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya. [Seiko via Crunchgear]

The damn thing got like two over-the-air stations. All I can say is that it is a great time to be alive with our HDTVs and smartphones. Hit the following link to see the full list. [OObject]

Rad Blaster also includes a 1.1-inch OLED screen and 2GB of built-in memory. It's certainly bigger than a shuffle, but it doesn't sound like a bad deal for $60. I mean, can you breakdance to a shuffle? I think not. [Rad Blasters]

Check out the video above. It's choc full of whimsy. Of course, I will be dammed if I'm paying $65 for something that only does 320 x 240 resolution at 8fps with no audio. [Exemode via Engadget]

Do you find yourself resenting your iPhone for its complexity? Do you wish you could do away with pesky text messages and confusing navigation applications and all that augmented reality? Though it's currently only available through the Cydia store, with iClassic and a little tinkering can dumb your iPhone down into the iPod you never had. Or the one you once had and replaced with your iPhone. [MobilitySite]

Perhaps my mustachioed butler and I can relive those moments with this retro cassette speaker. The device will work with any player that has a 3.5 mm audio jack. [OnlyHotTrends]

Fortunately, this novelty watch has not been completely lost to the ages. If you look hard enough, you can still get your hands on dirt cheap "modern" versions. [RetroThing via Gearfuse]

In the olden days of pinball, there wasn't much to adjust. Free game scores were hard wired into the machine and couldn't be changed. But with the introduction of Williams High Speed in 1986, things got more complicated.

The new machines would dynamically adjust the free play score based on an algorithm. It also introduced a method where if you had already scored a free game, it was impossible to win a random free game.

The post at Cheap Talk goes into much more detail, but ultimately, these algorithms, exploits, and the layouts of the tables themselves got so complicated that new players couldn't figure out how to master them. And, as we all know, pinball faded into the night. If you're at all a fan of pinball, it's an interesting read. Head over to check it out. [Cheap Talk via Retro Thing]

Image via ktpupp

BTW, if you hate the gallery format as much as the Grinch hated Christmas, click here.

Leica M7: DSLR schmeeSLR. Digital photography still can't match the old-school beauty of film, and Leica's M7 35mm camera is one of the best and most gorgeous out there. It's the kind of gift you'd hand down to your grandkids, partly because it'll last forever and partly because it costs enough that you need several lifetimes to get your money's worth. The M7 also has an even-more-decadent Hermes edition which clocks in at $14,000, but the normal M7 is available now and would send any prosumer DSLR-owner into fits of jealousy. $5,500 [Link; Amazon]

Retro-Gen: Modern videogames are so complicated, so expensive, so...3D. A true retrophile isn't interested in Modern Warfare 2, but could be persuaded to play a little Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2 or Toejam and Earl 2: Panic on Funkotron. The Retro-Gen, a little sorta-legal handheld emulator, will play either original Genesis cartridges or ROMs that you've loaded onto an included SD card. Plus, the entire system costs less than some modern DSi or PSP games. $38 [Link; Video Game Central Store]

French Press: Here's one where an irrational fear of the new is totally justified. Your typical fancy, electronic drip coffee-maker spits out watery, bitter brown liquid only technically identifiable as coffee, while the French press (basically a glass jug with a mesh screen plunger) produces rich, delicious coffee, retaining the essential oils that give a true depth of flavor. Not only is it older, simpler, and cheaper, it's flat-out better. $20 [Bodum French Press]

Set of 11 Kenny Loggins Albums on Vinyl: You know what, this is a great gift for anyone, retrophile or not. Even if you don't have a turntable, 11 of these albums would make excellent wall art. Matter of fact, I might just buy these myself. Go find your own Kenny Loggins vinyl collection! $10 [eBay]

iPod Classic: Multitouch? OLED? Wi-Fi? Widescreen video? What about the good old days, when convergence was a crazy futuristic concept and PMPs were called MP3 players, because, well, that's all they did. The iPod Classic is just about the only traditional hard-drive-based PMP left on the market, and while it's better than ever (thin, long battery life, spacious 160GB hard drive), it's still a relic of the past. I mean, seriously, a click wheel? What is this, 2007? $250 [Link; Apple Store]

Classic Prints From The Onion: The comedy gods over at The Onion have their very own gifts for retro-minded buyers, creating "classic" Onion front pages from times in the publication's fictional history (what, you didn't know it was founded in the mid-18th century as "The Mercantile Onion" by Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel?). The all-time classic is "Holy Shit: Man Walks on Fucking Moon," but "Whites Invent 'Rock and Roll'" and "Mr. T Releases 'Pity List '86'" are both pretty amazing things to hang on your wall, too. Guaranteed to stop passersby and give them the giggles. $33 each, framed and matted [Onion Store]

Trip to the Computer History Museum: You can be a retrophile and still love tech, and the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California is the best place in the country to revel in the fascinating history of technological advancement. Right now, they're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the integrated circuit, examining the history of computer chess and visible storage, and remembering Charles Babbage, inventor of the first automatic computing engine. Among those constantly rotating exhibits are jewels like the Cray 1 supercomputer, the world's first ethernet cable and a Tandy TRS-80. Free admission [Link; CHM Site]

DON'T BUY A Modern Smartphone: Anybody who yearns for the old days is going to find the idea of a powerful, always-connected pocket computer pretty threatening. Today's smartphones are as powerful as the best desktop computers from ten years ago, and are only getting better. An iPhone, Droid or Palm Pre might well explode a retrophile's mind all over his face. But if he's submitted to peer pressure and allowed a thoroughly modern iPhone into his classic-rock life, we do have one recommendation: The iRetroPhone iPhone app, which simulates an old rotary phone. $1 [iTunes]

Don't forget to recommend your own favorite retro-centric gift in comments-include pics and pricing if possible.

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

Not everything's better digitized, you know? People like pinball because it's nostalgic and flawed, not because it's such a great game. Sure, this digital version lets you "bump and tilt," and for $6,000 I'm sure the rendering of the flippers is excellent—but it's got no soul. But since pinball was already pretty much dead by the time I was born, maybe I'm not the best authority on the subject. It's available from HS now. [Hammacher Schlemmer via Technabob Crunchgear]

Built using a pair of old PCs, some fishing wire, inkjet printer motors, spools and little lander models. You use a wheel to control where the lander is and a button to control the rockets, aiming your lander to its ideal landing position on the moon's surface. It only cost him $800 to build, and it'd be an impressive creation if it cost twice that. [PopSci]

OK, it's a sketch of a concept for what the French thought videotelephony would look like in 2000, not a working videophone, but still it shows people were thinking big at the time.

In fact, even earlier in 1878 a wily inventor named George du Maurier actually published a conceptual upgrade to the era's "speaking tubes" using this drawing below, which depicts a "viewing display" to go along with that generation's literal series of tubes.

Only in 1927, with the help of IBM, would the traditionally accepted view of a "videophone" come to pass. The screen displayed at brisk 18fps and was run using one those room-sized computers (Ed. Note: as correctly stated in the comments, this was not necessarily a "computer" but a half-room full of necessary equipment for the broadcast). The video was one-way, but the audio allowed then Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, seated in D.C., to speak with an audience in New York City. [Wikipedia - Thanks, Blam!]

As Ben notes in the video, it's really the vintage Atari keyboard that sells this thing. The clickity clack is unmistakable, soothing and flashback inducing all in one—he even managed to get the thing to pop up at near the same angle as the original!

Some more specs, courtesy Ben's web site:

- Base unit is Atari XEGS motherboard, as usual.
- XE 130 RAM expansion built-in.
- Uses MyIDE circuitry and custom OS ROM to use a 2.5″ PATA hard drive. Very fast! You can check out Mr Atari's site here.
- Large 15″ screen, similar to the C64 laptop but this one is better looking and shinier (obviously important)
- Uses original, new-old-stock Atari 800 keyboard. This is probably the best keyboard in the history of computing, so it was worth including, despite the complications (see story)
- Flush-mount cartridge slot.
- Amazing old-school styling!

Oh, and there's the classic Ballblazer too:

[Ben Heck via Technabob]

You see? Nothing out of the ordinary here. Just a fully-functional Victorian house car on wheels tooling around the Nevada desert.

Be warned: The rest of the images in the gallery link below are light on gadgetry/vehicles and heavy on WTF, sexy Mad Max hippies, fire breathing and even some bondage. [LA Weekly]

No word on new features; even though our own Matt really liked the original Chumby, he didn't see much of a niche for it to fill. But the design has kind of an iriver neo-retro thing going on with the cubic design and big dial, and we've always had a soft spot for the little guy. We'll update more as we get new information. [Ryan Block]

The video reportedly took about 1,500 hours to create, and I pretty much had an acid flashback-type experience while watching it, during which time I traveled back to the 1980s and relived my entire youth all over again in the span of about three and a half minutes.

Pong, Mario Bros., Raccoon Mario, Bubble Bobble—it's all pretty much there, backed by an unmistakably 8-bit beat. Amazing stuff.

Update: Brothers Brick reports that the artist was Tomas Redigh and the song was written by Daniel Larsson. Good work! [YouTube via Waxy via Boing Boing]

Also fun is the $2 app's use of the iPhone's accelerometer to pitch-bend sounds, and its ability to let you jam along with a friend—and hear what they're playing on your phone.

As you'll hear in the video below, NESynth has built-in classic sound effects (jump, fire, laser, etc), and an arpeggiator to help build up melodies using the on-screen piano keyboard.

(For the synth geeks out there: sound generation comes from 3 pulse waveforms, a triangle waveform, and white noise.) [NESynth | iTunes Store]