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If you’re a world traveler heading out to exotic destinations this summer, this Traveler’s Phrasebook T-Shirt might be just for you. It uses the same pictograms you see on international signs across the globe, bringing world communication down to its most basic level. Designed by Artemy Lebedev of Optimus Maximus keyboard fame, it covers the…
Label this as unconfirmed for the moment (we’ve since written Microsoft for comment), but one tipster told us about a refurbished Xbox 360 that couldn’t connect to Live. When he called Microsoft, they said that his box had been “banned” from the service by the previous owner and nothing could be done one the matter.…
Using a laser flash of only 40 billionths of a millionth of a second, scientists have learned how to alter the magnetism of one bit of hard drive disc 100x faster than technologies on the market today do—meaning hard drive writing speeds would increase proportionally. This technological leap is due to heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)…
Crystal Icing, known for covering various electronics in Swarovski crystals, offers an iPhone given the same treatment. For $295, you can get your phone “iced” with 1,500 regular-sized crystals, or 3,000 really small ones. Patterns range from butterflies to “tons of flowers” to flames. Or even camo, for you tough guys with an eye for…
This week at Uncrate: We attempt to improve our feeble bodies with Bowflex SelectTech 1090 Dumbbells, wash up at the beach using the Hot Jugz Portable Shower, and enjoy some Great Grilled Cheese. We also add some badness to our bedding with the Bangover Quilt, use the Bubble Scrubber to make doing the dishes more…
The Barigo Clock Weather Station is a battery-powered device with mysterious, seemingly floating disks that show you the time, temperature and humidity. Encased in clear plastic, the 4-inch clock is available with either brass or nickeled brass dials and base, or you can choose a wooden base. Either way, its unusual analog cylinder form factor…
The Pitch A horde o’ red-blooded Americans from Georgetown, S.C., are handed 200 Nikon D40s and instructed to document their daily lives. Cue a cloyingly sweet montage of townsfolk snapping each other at barbershops, cheerleading practice and garden parties, while the narrator waxes rhapsodic on the D40’s ease-of-use. The spot culminates with the Georgetowners congregating…
The iPod shuffle doesn’t have to feel left out of the iPod dock derby any more, because now it has its own ultra-portable speaker system from Corega Japan that matches up perfectly with the shuffle’s five krazy kolors. The laws of physics might keep this microdock from sounding genuinely kick-ass, but its claimed 200Hz-16kHz frequency…
When the world was full of large objects, we shrunk them down to fit in our pockets. Now that we’re saturated with awesome gadgets, one industrial design exhibit has decided to make things large again. Will we never be satisfied? Short answer: no. How about some good old medium-sized gadgets next? ENLARGE! [via neatorama]
Okay all you Apple-worshiping sheep, here’s a fitting enclosure for the object of your quasi-religious lust, letting you fold your iPod up into its own mini-hymnal. Designed for 30GB and 80GB iPods, just strap this $31.27 case onto your player and no matter what plagues befall you, all its anthems within will be safe to…
How much smaller can a Bluetooth dongle get? This one from DTech is just 4.5mm thick, and if you think it looks small compared to that British penny, imagine it with its plug-in part retracted. Good thing it has a hook on the end so you can attach it to your keyring, or else this…
iResQ, a company that offers an iPhone repair service, will also remove the device’s camera functionality for $100, including overnight shipping. Why would you ever want to handicap your iPhone? A lot of jobs that deal with sensitive information—R&D positions at corporations, lawyers in courtrooms, government folks, and so on—won’t allow a camera behind closed…
After recent reports that the Xbox 360 has a failure rate of 30%, one EB Games associate (their level in the company totem pole not clear) said this: https://gizmodo.com/xbox-360-failure-rate-30-says-retailers-271487 Failure rates for all other consoles were not high enough for EB to consider revising their policies. Most other console systems have a failure rate of…
Maverick Systems has just announced their development of the world’s first portable wireless internet gateway. Does this matter to anyone not in an IT department? Maybe not, but we still think it’s pretty cool. Here’s why: A USB card/device, the gateway functions much like a wireless router. But it can support up to 32 simultaneous…
The Nielsen SoundScan numbers for Jan. 1 to July 1 are out—unsurprisingly, album sales are down 15 percent from the same period last year (229.8 million sold) while digital tracks are up 49 percent (417.3 million sold). Despite the digital uptick, however, overall music sales keep falling. Even with digital single sales rolled into albums,…
iPhone ringtones stored as unprotected AAC files on the iPhone. Does this mean we’ll be able to use our own files soon? [Macrumors]
Sony’s commercials have transcended the bounds of normal advertising, and Sony’s newest Blu-ray commercial (after the jump) is no exception. Purposefully esoteric, their clarity of message sits somewhere between Cirque Du Soleil and a Jean-Luc Godard film. If we are to take this new Blu-ray commercial literally, the technology scans retinas…of wolves, plays music…through water,…
Trying to make fishing games seem like fun on the Nintendo Wii, Brando releases the Wii Fishing Pole, an attachment that you clamp onto the Wiimote, supposedly giving you more realism and a heaping helping of that unmistakable fishing excitement. What excitement, you say? You know, all that casting and waiting. It’s fishing without all…
Just when the nightmares of the original Chocolate’s user interface have become less frequent, Verizon is introducing an all-new edition from LG. New to this slimmer Chocolate are a “vibrating touch keypad” and a navigation wheel with something called “Trace Motion light.” Besides that, it has photo sending and stereo streaming Bluetooth profiles, speaker-independent voice…
Our jaws collectively dropped when we saw this iPhone carrying bag, which was about to sell for $305 on eBay. It’s a shopping bag, folks. Sure, it’s more like an open-ended box than a mere shopping bag, and yeah, we were pretty impressed with it, but $305? WTF? We haven’t seen this kind of insanity…
