First off, these are not Tamagotchis (lawyers back off) but they are along similar lines. It was the only way to get an attention-grabbing headline without writing: “Virtual girlfriend and boyfriend handheld gadgets that are like Tamagotchis, but aren’t really”.
Meet the Virtual Girlfriend and Boyfriend, your chance to actually date not one, but up to eight different members of the opposite sex without once having to take a shower, shave or change your kacks. Keep your date satisfied and you earn points, fail miserably and you get fast-tracked back to the land of Tom Thumb and his Four Brothers. Check this out:
“These saucy little Tamagotchi-style gizmos are set to become must-have accessories for any wannabe smoothie who enjoys getting jiggy with it (that'll be everyone, then). Ideal for perfecting your relationship skills, each Virtual Girlfriend/Virtual Boyfriend features 8 LCD characters, all with their own distinct personality: from studious square to insatiable gothic bunny boiler.
The idea is to keep your randomly selected cyber partner happy by taking them out, complimenting them, buying them gifts and doing naughty things with them. The more satisfied your virtual date becomes, the more points you collect and the longer the relationship lasts. Using the three control buttons you can select between gifts (anything from lingerie to deodorant), compliments (oblique or spectacularly blunt), places to go (the jewellers to the bingo) or, if you're feeling lucky, wild passion.”
Who needs the real thing, eh? Except of course, for sex, companionship, cooking, putting you to bed when you're smashed, laughing at your stupid jokes, borrowing money from, etc. But apart from those few things…
Tattoos hurt. It’s a fact. They hurt when you get them and if you’ve been stupid enough to include a girlfriend or wife’s name somewhere, hurt even more being erased or changed. Unlike relationships, tattoos really are forever.
Some people don’t like the whole pain bit so, for them we have the Fake Tattoo Pen. For the grand total of £30 you get a tattoo pen that comes with six interchangeable colour gel pens and – get this – a vibrating holder so that you get the whole noise/shaky thing without the pain.
There are 9 girly stencils included so make sure your girlfrenz don’t have them cos there’s nothing worse that showing up on the council estate playground with the same tat as your homies.
Comes with one AA battery and a one-way ticket to Chav City. Via Coolest Gadgets
Some bands deserve a second chance while others should have been buried deeper, if only to ensure they couldn’t claw their way out.
The hugely popular Second Life virtual world looks like the up and coming online venue for those blasts from the pasts. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which category Duran Duran fall into but if you thought they were gone you’d wrong. Suzanne Vega was first to perform on Second Life earlier this month and Duran Duran are slated to play a gig on an online island real soon.
“When the video revolution began we instantly saw the opportunity to experiment and explore a new form of expression to enhance the musical experience," said keyboard player Nick Rhodes in a statement. "Second Life is the future right now, offering endless possibilities for artists.”
There’s a whiff of desperation about it all but those of you desperate for the 80s to return and who'll settle for Sims versions of your fave popsters know where to go. Watch Sim Vega get it on earlier this month. Via The Inquirer
A breast cancer organization in Hong Kong is placing these mousepads in internet cafes all over the city to remind people to examine themselves regularly. Great idea, but a little risque for the US.
Now I can decide which mousepad I'd rather use, this one or the Busty Racing Girl mousepad from Korea. – Jason Chen
The Harmon Kardon harmony Remote has been out for a few months now, but CNET's finally gotten around to reviewing it.
What do they think? Well, they're enamored with the decent battery life, strong IR signal, Windows and Mac support, and included docking cradle. In a showdown between this remote and the Harmony 720, they'd recommend this one partially due to the "extra set of contextual icons on the screen."
The only problems they've noticed were minor ones, like the remote not sitting that securely in the dock and an intimidating web interface. Nothing product killing, and definitely nothing severe enough to recommend staying away from this remote. It's available now for around £100. – Jason Chen
This may be "shocking news" to General Motors, but apparently there's a pretty decent demand for an all-electric vehicle in today's market. The Tesla Roadster Electric, which does 0-60 in four seconds and promises not to explode on the freeway have all been called for.
People have already plunked down deposits for the company's first 100 cars, which are due out in 2007. Their money, all £53,000 of it, guarantees that they will get a car as soon as they silently roll off the lot. – Jason Chen
Meow listen here: we're pretty sure that this is something the world needs. Yes, a Hello Kitty Slider phone with preinstalled Hello Kitty games, wallpaper, ringtones/meow-sic, and themes. We don't care that its only a 130 by 130 pixel screen, and it only does 32-note polyphonic ringtones (no mp3-tones for you, sugar nuts.) On sale somewhere else in the world this August, meaning right Meow!– Brian Lam
A few features separate this Cardo Scala 700 Bluetooth headset from the pack. One is its multi-pairing capability, which allows it to pair to two different phones and switch between them at the touch of a button. Great for if you've got two phones or if you're sharing this with your wife.
Then there's the location buzzer, which is activated from your mobile phone to make the headset beep, saving you the trouble of taking apart your entire room just to find out you left it in your pocket. Then there's the battery status LEDs that tell you whether it's full on charge, half charge, or all empty. Pretty nice features that would make this headset a better buy than the bargain basement ones they pass out at office parties. – Jason Chen
Altec Lansing's A7 speakers were hot shit in the 1950s through the 1970s. It was then that they were known as the "Voice of the Theater", distinguished by being the only commercially-available speakers approved by the Research Council at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I totally cut and paste that, and I feel dirty for it. Anyhow, in 1973, Billboard mag claimed they were the most popular studio monitors in the country.
The crazy-looking horn speakers have a fan thing-a-ma-bob on top, I'm assuming for high frequency, and a 15-inch unit for rumble, and maybe a bit of mid-bass. The 200-watt speakers are handmade, cost £3,200 each, and take 8-10 weeks to deliver. They've been designed to accoustically match the originals.
Match the originals?! WTF!? Wouldn't you say speaker design has advanced since 1950? Someone clue me in. Why are these fugly monitors worth this kind of money? I'll apologize if someone can edu-ma-cate me to the farks. But for now, I'll say this: Altec, face it, you make computer speakers for Dell now. Don't try to make us pay five-figures for a pair of 1950 speakers from your better days.– Brian Lam
Kevin Kelly, Wired's Senior Maverick, is starting a blog dedicated to covering all manner of street hacks, like this the ones that transform pickup trucks into post-apocalyptic armored vehicles. This is a modified Ford with gun turret. Note the Armored rear panel, and the Jolly Rogers on the turret shields. Kelly speculates that this car has runflat tires. We're only scared of such a car if Mel Gibson himself is behind the wheel.– Brian Lam
This SV-SD300 from Panasonic lacks any type of internal storage. The only memory it has is from external SD cards that you plug into its SD card slot. This, actually, may be a good thing, since the player only supports USB 1.1 for file transfers. You'll want to take out the SD card and use a card reader to load up your tunes.
The other features, luckily, are a bit more 21st century. There's the 23-hour battery life, four-line black-and-white LCD and a simple 5 button interface. It's available for £79.99. – Jason Chen
The Sonic Super Ear is a small device that gives a 50 decibel gain over standard hearing. It is small, only needs one AAA battery, and includes a headphone jack for super-stealthy listening. ThinkGeek seems to think this device is for listening to lectures or nature sounds, but don't kid us. The Sonic Super Ear is for espionage, straight up. $40. – Travis Hudson
The Standing Wheelchair concept design allows wheelchair users to stand upright in the wheelchair, allowing them to see the world as they did before. It looks similar to a Segway, but has more features to help the user keep upright and hold on to the wheelchair.
One of the many lifestyle adjustments paraplegic wheelchair users have to make is getting used to viewing the world sitting down. It really makes a difference, we hear, when you can no longer talk to people face to face. With the standing wheelchair, users can interact with people and generally regain some of their former "perspective". – Jason Chen
iRiver announced it's now shipping a 2GB version of its T10 portable media player in the United States. It's an attractive and ergonomic device that plays back MP3, WMA, OGG and Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 file formats and has an FM tuner along for the ride.
To sweeten the deal, iRiver is offering a free audiobook download from Audible, Inc. along with the player, which also supports almost every subscription-based music download service except iTunes. You'll recall our post about the player's release in Japan last April, and now it's finally available in the US for £80. – Charlie White
Start your BitTorrent engines, boys and girls, for Hitachi is planning to release a one-terabyte hard drive by the end of the year. The hard drives will be of the standard 3.5-inch size and will make their way into PCs and home servers. One terabyte of storage is plenty, methinks, but since high definition video takes up an awful lot of space, having a terabyte (or two) of space available will become more and more necessary.
Company reps haven't even so much as hazarded a guess as to how much this sepulcher will cost. – Nicholas Deleon
We told you last week about the MSI NX7600GT Diamond Plus card, a VGA graphics card with an HDMI port. This week, the company is crowing about how it's the "world's first HDMI graphics card," but what that really means is it's the first card to pass a compatibility test of the HDMI ATC (Authorized Testing Center). Keep in mind that it's not the first graphics card to have an HDMI port. You'll recall that we showed you the Sapphire Radeon and Asus graphics cards a while back, both of which have HDMI ports.
Maybe these other HDMI-toting cards will soon get the stamp of approval from the ATC, too. Meanwhile, all these cards are going to be a welcome sight to those who want to use a computer as a source in their home theaters, running an HDMI cable from PC to receiver or screen. Here's to HDMI: making things easier, carrying both 5.1 audio and 1080p video right where they need to be, all on one cable. – Charlie White
The Lapinator is the coolest named laptop accessory out there. It also could be considered the most useful. The Lapinator will keep your crotch from melting into a pile of goo by providing a thermal barrier between the laptop and your legs. It is available in a 13-inch model for £10 or a 18-inch model for £15.
The Lapinator uses 3M Thinsulate and a cross-linked molded foam bottom to keep the laptop and yourself cooler. It also includes small stick-on bumpers to elevate the laptop and provide better cooling. This is a must have for the bathroom, next to the toilet paper and stacks of magazine. – Travis Hudson
SIMveillance is a project that takes a surveillance camera and transforms the recorded video into scenes from The Sims 2. It was recently demonstrated in San Jose, Calif., focusing on a public square where people went about their normal business. Unbeknownst to them, their each and every more was being recorded by the video camera and were instantly translated into Sims on a different monitor. Très cool, indeed.
Already, privacy activists are complaining that this is an invasion of privacy, yada, yada, yada.
The SIMworks Web site has a non-Youtube video of the project in action. It is, in fact, really interesting. – Nicholas Deleon
Surveillance cameras often have more to do with paranoia, fantasy and fear than reality, but the Smarthome 520TVL color camera takes the real world into account, solving a major problem with outdoor surveillance cameras: cold and ice.
Some cameras won't work below certain temperatures, and any camera lens that's iced over is not going to be much good, either. This one solves those problems with an on-board heater, allowing it to bring you crispy-clean pictures at temperatures down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit.
The 768x494 camera is NTSC and PAL compatible, and has a 1/3" Sony CCD picking up all the action (or lack thereof) through a 3.5mm - 8mm zoom lens. With its removable sunshade to protect against the hot weather, the 520TVL has all the bases covered for £200. – Charlie White
Today Trolltech has unveiled their Qtopia Greenphone. This is the first open Linux mobile device built for developers. Meaning it will allow open source developers to create and test applications on a GSM/GPRS cellphone. Unfortunately, that means this phone will never hit the commercial market for the average joe Linuxhead.
At least it will allow the Linux junky developers of the world—and there are a lot of you out there—to get your hands wet with mobile application programming. Qtopia Greenphone is currently display at Linuxworld in San Francisco. – Travis Hudson
Here's what you've been waiting for, folks: the world's first inflatable furry chair. Thanks to AK Design, you can get your hands on the AK Creature, a sexy-looking chair that's sure to make you the coolest kid in the dorms this semester. It weighs about seven pounds and comes in three colors, all of which have just the funnest names ever: mammoth, primate and yet, or, brown, black and white.
If you're concerned about where the fur comes fun, don't be: it's just faux fur (and faux leather), and not viciously torn off the backs of wild animals.
The Primate can be found in brick-and-mortar Best Buy stores for £70 while the other two can be found at Best Buy's Web site for the same price. Thank you, Best Buy, for jacking up the price by £15 from what AK Design says they should retail for. – Nicholas Deleon
Cab drivers across the globe are boldly calling bullshit on the recent addition of GPS systems to taxi cabs, which makes obvious sense. In the mass majority of cases, cab drivers know the city they're in better than I know my way around a strip club—so navigation wouldn't and shouldn't be a concern.
The cab drivers are more concerned that the GPS units are allowing HQ to violate their rights by monitoring them for speeding and other offenses. I'm mostly siding with the cabbies on this issue. No need for unnecessary equipment that will make the cab ride more expensive and not allow my driver to speed. Maybe I'll change my mind once the GPS navigation systems get a more-advanced traffic monitoring system. Image via Wikipedia– Travis Hudson
If you're done looking for adventure after riding that Harley all day, come home to your crash pad and flop down on this motorcycle chair. With its leather-ish seat padded deep to quiet down that hyper-vibrated ass, the leather-tasseled biker bags hanging on armrest/wheels will make you feel right at home.
That eagle on the seatback is vaguely reminiscent of Harley-Davidson, but not quite the same thing. Even so, it's a great piece of furniture for bikers who have motorcycles on the brain even when they're asleep. Potato-potato-potato sound effects not included. It's £2000. – Charlie White
Seven inches: Measure it up! This Media Center PC has a 7-inch touch screen on its face, presumably to be used as a secondary monitor, like Voooo PC's lust worthy Aria. It has a better TV tuner than the Aria, being that it's over the air HD. But the rest of the spec sheet ain't looking so sweet: A Pentium D950 "Pressler"? No match for the Core 2 Duo inside the Voodoo. Everything else on it is standard issue. Meh.– Brian Lam
Verizon announced yesterday that they'll be coming out with the Home Media DVR, which is supposed to enable its FIOS (their fancy fiber to the home initiative) customers to stream DVR'd content around the house. Sound the trumpets. What might this mean for the average consumer, though?
Pioneer of all things TiVo, Dave Zatz points to a few things that deserve further attention. Firstly, the fact that Verizon is openly supporting the concept of room-to-room streaming means that TiVo's days as being the sole supporter of such forward-thinking technology may be coming to an end. Secondly, that we can expect to see more companies beginning to charge for services à la carte—nickel-and-diming us, as it were.
And don't be fooled by Verizon's professional tricksters who may want to call the DVR "place shifting," since throwing content from room-to-room isn't exactly the same as moving content across the country. – Nicholas Deleon
Samsung has released the YP-K5 MP3 player in Korea. This is pretty unfortunate for everyone else in the world because this player seems pretty awesome. It supports MP3, WMA, ASF and OGG. It is available in 1GB, 2GB or 4GB capacities and includes a snazzy, slide-out integrated speaker. The controls also look pretty good, along with the LCD screen. Damn you, Korea. Share the cool DAP love every now and then. iPods are just so 2004, we need something new to tickle our fancy. – Travis Hudson
This is it folks, the day I have been waiting for since I was a wee little tot. The long awaited—at least for me—Sirius Stiletto 100 portable satellite radio player has finally been confirmed via the homeboys over at Crutchfield. This player showed up in their catalog with all of the details. including pictures.
Here's the deal, the Stiletto 100 will feature an integrated antenna for true satellite radio playback. It will also include a headphone jack (duh) and an antenna jack—for a home/car kit. It can store up to 100 hours of tunes in MP3 or WMA format. It will feature Wi-Fi technology for Internet streaming. Include two batteries—a standard battery and an extended life battery that provides a measly four hours of satellite radio playback, 14 hours of Wi-Fi playback and 22 hours of stored tune playback. We aren't sure if this info is for the standard, extended or both batteries. Lastly, and unfortunately, the Stiletto will retail for a blistering £210.
Crutchfield has confirmed that the Stiletto will be hitting their website as of September 1 with units available later that month. Although, rumors are circulating that Circuit City and Best Buy will be receiving Stiletto units this month. – Travis Hudson
This USB Bluetooth Hub is something that you can actually use on a daily basis, slightly different than other items we've written about in the past. As you might imagine, it's a three-port USB hub, but one that also doubles as a Bluetooth dongle. (The remaining port supplies the unit with power.) Now you can clutter your desk with all sorts of great USB gadgets and attempt to transfer ringtones to your cellphone, unless, of course, you have fun-crippiling Verizon Wireless.
The hub retails for just £10. Is it the first such gadget we've seen? Parhaps not, but it is quite a bit cheaper than other, similar hubs. – Nicholas Deleon
The Shape of Song is web-based software by New York-based digital artist Martin Wattenberg that has its own unique way of artistically interpreting MIDI files. You can load any MIDI song you can find on the Web into the interface (that's "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles pictured above), or pick one of the many songs already in the site's 648-piece repertoire, and it will visualize it for you by drawing translucent arches that correspond with various parts of the music.
Too bad you can't hear the music while it's doing the analyzing and drawing. Guess that will be coming in version 2.0. – Charlie White
Oh man, the sun has only been up for a few hours and we are already posting pictures of lacy underwear. Yeah, it's going to be a good day. This sexy pair of iGroove panties will holster your iPod and allow you to lounge around in the panties, rock out to some Journey and drive us guys wild. Oh, and that picture may be a little not work appropriate, but by now you are already fired so keep browsing the porn. The panties are available for £6.00 in black and in one size fits all over at The Sexy Society. – Travis Hudson
The SwissMiniGun is a 2.16-inch replica of a Colt Python, and it's a real gun that shoots tiny bullets that are just .35 inches long. This miniature Swiss-made revolver and its ammunition are painstakingly crafted using watchmaking technology.
Looks like the little shooter could do some damage, propelling that tiny slug at 426.5 f/sec. out of the muzzle. Wonder if it has a kick to it. No word on pricing. – Charlie White
AMD is releasing 23 new dual core processors today, including its answer to Intel's Xeon "Woodcrest" processors, the "Socket F" Opteron CPU. AMD says that processor, the 2.8GHz 8220SE, can beat the fastest Intel Xeons by 11%. AMD goes on to say the 8220SE chip is 47% faster than Intel's Xeon 7041 in a four-processor configuration, while using 27% less power.
AMD also revealed that it will be shipping a quad-core processor in the next ten to twelve months, and the processors are said to consume the same amount of power as current AMD dual-core processors. Meanwhile, today's fastest processor from AMD, that Xeon-beating 8220SE, is priced at £1,400. – Charlie White
USRobotics has two candy-coated phones compatible with everyone's favorite VoIP service, Skype, in the pipeline. The phones, the USR9602 and the USR9601A, both take complete advantage of Skype's many services, including SkypeOut and Skype Caller ID.
The USR9602 (pictured here) is also known by the easier-to-digest name USB Internet Mini Phone. As you might guess, it plugs into a USB (1.1 or 2.0—choice!) port on your PC, from where you'll be able to make prank calls to people around the world for just a few ducats. (Substantially less if you actually look up the value of a ducat.)
Meanwhile, the USR9601A, which is already available, does everything its little brother does, but is not quite as mini—that's why they call it the USB Internet Phone.
The already-available USR9601A retails for £25.00 while the upcoming USR9602 still doesn't have an official release date nor a price. – Nicholas Deleon
First off, these are not Tamagotchis (lawyers back off) but they are along similar lines. It was the only way to get an attention-grabbing headline without writing: “Virtual girlfriend and boyfriend handheld gadgets that are like Tamagotchis, but aren’t really”. 
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
