[Brando via Foolish Gadgets]

One Charles Brand Etching Press owner Tron-ified his hardware with a few rolls of 1/8-inch glow in the dark tape, an X-Acto knife and quite a bit of patience. And while the implementation is certainly a bit laborious, widespread implementation into one's home would be so much cooler than more nightlights. [printeresting via geekologie]

To the kid's credit, he was able to deduce that the tape had two sides (took him three days) and that you could switch between two kinds of tapes fairly easily. He was also given weird looks on the street and allowed to listen to music in class because of his teachers' nostalgia. Other choice quotes:

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.

I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.

Another useful feature is the power socket on the side, so that you can plug the Walkman into the wall when you're not on the move. But given the dreadful battery life, I guess this was an outright necessity rather than an extra function.

But in the end, which did he like better: his Walkman or his iPod? The iPod, of course, except for the fact that the Walkman had two headphone ports for easy music sharing. [BBC via Engadget]

Starting this spring, hipster-fashion-tape-design-company Azumi & David will sell you sunglasses tape. We'd like to believe that the sticky ribbon is merely intended to spruce up a shirt or a bag, you know, with the treasured facade of casually dangling glasses. We'd like to believe that.

But you know what? At minimum, two poor Azumi & David models are penciling in their eye expressions as we speak. [trend de la creme via geekologie]

If you're longing for the days of mixtapes burned dubbed to a gaudy looking Memorex cassette, this is for you. The USB port allows you to transfer files to the PlusDeck to be put on tape, so you can play them back in your circa-1988 Walkman.

But the PlusDeck Ex does have a few worthwhile features, such as recording FM radio to a digital file, phono jacks for playing and ripping vinyl, 7.1 surround sound support and a cellphone In, which is presumably for recording voicemail and/or conversations. It also has RCA in/out, 3.5mm in, and a clock/timer that lets you schedule recordings.

The only problem is the thing runs about $300, which is about $250 more than I'm willing to pay, personally. [Think Geek via Uncrate via Wired]

The JVC player was probably only ever intended to service old, supplementary collections of tapes, but my romantic side hopes that at least one person will see this news and think "Aww, shucks, I guess it's finally.time to get one of those Dee-Vee-Dee players." As a comfort to those people, JVC (like others) will continue to offer a few combination players, and at least plans on selling its standalone VCRs until inventory runs out. [TradingMarkets via BBG]

In your heyday, people rocked out to your not-so-dulcet tones, unwitting grunge parents produced little grunge babies to the soundtrack of your sweet hisses, and relationships and restraining orders alike were borne of compilations carefully mixed onto your glossy insides. Now you're silenced, screwed into the shape of a cabinet and put up for sale on the same "Internet" that did such horrible things to your children. Such is the way of the world, Tape. And let's be honest — as much as you don't want to hear it, this is the coolest you've looked in years. [CreativeBarn]

Late Tuesday night, at approximately 10:20PM ET, my maternal grandfather, Bert Praetorius, passed away at approximately 90 years of age...During World War II, he worked for the US Army in signals intelligence (SIGINT) along the east coast of the United States and Canada in efforts to help locate and track German U-boats. After the war, he was honorably discharged and returned to New York City to work for NBC as an electrical engineer, often working on broadcasts of Yankees games (he knew and was friends with many of the players, including many who are considered "greats" today). It was here that he developed the technology for rewinding to work properly (think of something like when you're watching tv and you see someone drop an egg on the sidewalk, and then you'll see the entire think in reverse flawlessly, without the lines you would see like when you would try to do the same with a tape in the VCR- and remember, at this time, this was many years before the advent of home video recording). For this, he received little recognition, despite the now complete ubiquity of his invention...I just felt that it was important to let at least some people know who he was, as his invention, while it likely hasn't actually affected your life much at all, is something with which almost everyone is likely familiar and has never even thought about, as well as him just having had an interesting life.

[reddit via bbGadgets]

Much like normal tape, the adhesive goodness can be used pretty much anywhere you want, but this type specifically has an artistic value, allowing you to create your own messages, profanities and primitive pictures, which can then be used to decorate your abode. Prices range from £5-£7 ($10 - $14), but can't you just get some nice wallpaper instead? [Technabob]

The Good:The headphone jack fit perfectly with the iPhone's recessed headphone jack. (The old one broke after I lopped off the adapter's plug trying to shave it down.)
The Bad: A simple test revealed that the Monster was no more resistant to the GSM buzz than the 10-dollar version from RadioShack. This one is $25.

Verdict: If you're trying to kill the iPhone's self-inflicted GSM buzz, forget it. You're better off shaving the extra plastic off your old one. Careful, now, careful! And Monster, we'd like to think that if anyone can shield a tape adapter from GSM EMI, you could, so get working on it. And maybe change that Compatible with iPhone sticker to Kinda CompatibleZZZZZ withZZZZ iPhoneBZZZ!.

(I would switch to airplane mode, but you know what? I don't want to miss calls because I'm listening to music.)

The kit also comes with three bits of colored tape in order to stylize your end product, because really, people with duct tape wallets care loads about how their wallets look. – Jason Chen

Product Page [My Duct Bills via Oh Gizmo]

No word on how Sony has managed to pack the extra minutes' worth of tape into these MiniDV cassettes, but we're thinking perhaps the tape itself might be a bit thinner. But honestly, this whole tape thing is getting old; we would prefer solid-state everything. Let's just hope that camcorder battery doesn't catch on fire—a lot can happen in 22 minutes.

Why the longer tape, anyway? Well, longer is better for sure, and maybe Sony is remembering one reason why it lost the Betamax vs. VHS battle: its Betamax machines could only record five hours to VHS's six. – Charlie White

Sony announces 85 minute Mini-DV cassette [Newlaunches]

If when you come across a tape gun that uses heat to shear the tape apart instead of cutting blades, your first thought is that smart criminals are going to start using this thing to make it harder for forensic technicians to connect the dots, you might be watching too much CSI. We're just saying.

Thermo-Cut Tape Gun [Innodesk, via Uber-Review]