Hi-tech Frontier

Hello Kitty Phone 3G is our next impulse buy We aren't usually so taken in by a KIRF. In fact -- we've seen so many knockoff iPhones, we had started to consider ourselves steeled against their charms -- and then along came Hello Kitty Phone 3G. What is it about HKP3G that we love so much, you ask? Is it the happily tooled pink background scene on the facade of the phone? Is it the hideously realized user interface, complete with typos and a blatant disregard for capitalization standards we've all respected since the 19th century? Is it the little kitty on the solo button? Is it the name? Is it the fact that, at $99, it would cost us just as much to own one as a real, actual, iPhone 3G? Answer: it's all of those things. We're getting one.

Bandai RilakKuma netbook suffers from serious supercuteitis The RilakKuma is what's known in the business as a money-printing device. It might have the same spec -- Atom N270, 1GB memory and 160GB storage -- as every netbook since the time of Moses, but its killer feature is a set of eyes and whiskers painted on the lid. Having once already cashed in on popular children's characters, Bandai is clearly not shy about exploiting its intellectual assets in peddling outdated 8.9-inch 1024x600 displays to the undemanding youth. Only 500 units will be produced, making this a pretty exclusive item and the price is unsurprisingly steep: ¥79,800 ($862). Integrated WiFi and a 1Seg tuner go some way toward rationalizing the cost, but let's be frank, rationality doesn't play a huge role in a purchase like this.

SHAPE UP alarm clock: Shape Your Body Up with SHAPE UP Are you in the middle of diet and exercise program to lose some weight? If you do, you need the product that I have found when I search my best plan to lose some weight. The product that I have been use has a function to wake you up and also to push you to exercise in the first time you open your eyes in the morning. If you think about alarm clock, you are right. But this alarm clock its little bit different with other alarm clock. It has shape like barbell that you can see in your exercise place. This product called SHAPE UP, which is suit with the way to turning off the ringing. It has now button or something like that to turn the sound off. To turn this SHAPE UP alarm clock off, you need to do 30 reps. so it’s good for your health and your diet and exercise program for your effort to lose some weight. With this product, I bet you will have great change in your early day. You will get the perfect thing to remembering you about yo...

Hitachi Maxell HP-CN12 Bean-shaped Canal Earphones Hitachi’s Maxell announced the HP-CN12, bean-shaped in-ear earphones that is available in eight colors. It comes with also a bean-shaped cable keeper so users can adjust the length of the cable. The HP-CN12 features 10mm sound driver, 20-22,000Hz frequency response, and 16ohm impedance. The Bean will be released in Japan on 24 July.

The Flipside of Fashion is Security – This Wallet is a Vault in a Pocket Tin foil is sooo passé. If you’re stylish and paranoid, the Flipside wallet is the fashion accessory for you. This polymer and aluminum wallet comes in three striking colors, holds 6 cards or 15 cash bills, and springs open automatically at the press of a button. Credit cards these days come with embedded radio (RFID) chips, and the Flipside’s shielded interior prevents identity thieves from skimming your cards. The stylish geek knows that fashion is fleeting, and when it’s time for a new wallet, the Flipside is completely recyclable. Best of all, it’s made entirely in the US of A.

Wristwatch Tattoo Lets Your Arm Tell Time When you hear the term wristwatch, you generally think of a timepiece that you wear on your wrist. Well someone is looking to change that definition. There isn’t a whole lot of information on his design, but I am going to assume for now that it is only a concept. The idea is a subdermal implant or “electric tattoo” that can function as a watch. It uses your natural kinetic energy for power (not unlike some watches out there) and somehow uses a wireless signal to sync up with an external clock to make sure it is correct. It only illuminates when you hold your wrist up to look at it. A very cool idea, if it could work.

Calvin Klein USB Sunglasses - Stylish Or Stupid? I guess if you’re shelling out hundreds of dollars for a pair of brand-name sunglasses it doesn’t hurt when they do something more than make you look like a tool. Calvin Klein’s new USB shades for example (available in October, just in time for the Summer to be long gone!) feature a detachable arm that reveals a 4GB flash drive. I guess it’s a handy way to carry a flash drive, particularly since you’ll be less likely to lose it because it cost you $199. The downside though? Forget about doing any file transfers or backups in the sun since you’ll have to take the glasses off before you can access the flash drive. No thank-you!

Ravage Transformers USB flash drive Got amazed with the new sequel of Transformers the movie? Yes, this movie became a box office soon after its premier. Many people love the special effects and excellent actions shown in the movie, and off course, cool transforming robots in the movie. Since the animated Transformers series in our childhood age, we must want to have one of those fancy robots for our own. Now, our dream could come true. It is not those toys or action figures. Believe me, it is fully functioned transformers robot. Well, off course it is not a full scale car that could transforms in to an autobot but you can have your own Ravage AKA Tripedacus Agent, a robocat that could turns in to a cassette. Off course cassette is so long time ago and in this digital era, Ravage got new version of transformation, smaller and better, the USB flash drive. At last, the truth revealed. This is actually a USB flash drive with the case that could transform in to a cat figured Ravage for th...

Mosquito Sound Alarm Clock Is Cruel And Unusual Punishment The thing I enjoy most about camping is the sounds of birds and other wildlife at the crack of dawn. Conversely, the thing I hate most about camping is the quiet drone of a single mosquito in your tent while you’re trying to fall asleep. It’s almost impossible to figure out where the little bugger is, and when the sound stops, you know they’re up to no good. And that’s why I think this Mosquito Sound Alarm Clock is cruel and unusual punishment. It would definitely get me out of bed in the morning, though at the cost of emotionally crippling camping flashbacks. $25.95 from Danna Bananas.

Liquid Image video camera goggles get upgraded specs: awesome Aloha, friends! Are you finding your beach holiday experience is missing that certain bit of techno je ne sais quoi? Maybe it's because your snorkeling exploits are going undocumented, in which case you may look to Liquid Image's newly unveiled UDCM310. An evolutionary improvement on the previous model, the new goggles feature a 5 megapixel CMOS sensor, software-free USB connectivity and the ability to record 720 x 480 video at 30 fps to a microSD card. Sure, it's not exactly overwhelming you with shooting options, but it also keeps your hands free for whatever underwater heroics you want to film.

Play More Notepad Makes Me Want To Take More Notes Designed by the Netherlands based studio Trapped in Suburbia the ‘Play More’ notepad ended up being a finalist at the European Design Awards according to Top Cultured. And rightfully so! The clever notepad features standard lined paper on one side, but on the other is a series of patterned prints that makes the page end up looking like everything from a soccer ball to a baseball to even a golf ball when crumpled up. Sadly it’s not available for sale, but I hope Trapped in Suburbia realizes they could probably make a small mint if they managed to produce these and sell them to stores like Urban Outfitters.

Spy Camera Keychain - Why Do You Keep Sticking Your Keys In My Face? I doubt anyone will realize this innocuous-looking keychain is actually capable of recording 640×480, 29fps videos or 1280×960 stills while it’s hanging from your keys. But something tells me they might get suspicious when you’re constantly holding it at weird angles trying to get the lens pointed in the right direction. The keychain’s got 4GB of internal memory, which is enough to store 65 minutes of video or about 3,000 photos from the 1.3MP CMOS sensor, and it charges and syncs to your PC via a simple USB cable. However, I think the $177 price tag from is a bit steep.

i.Saw USB Chainsaw Looks Real, Probably Isn’t I’m sure the website for this USB-powered chainsaw known as the i.Saw is a parody, or some attempt to trick those gadget blogs who’ll post anything, but it’s convincing enough to warrant at least a mention. So there, I’ve mentioned it. $59.95 available for pre-order now with an estimated ship date of September. Now who’s clever enough to figure out what this is really about?

USB Light Bulb Is Actually A Light Bulb There are any number of potentially useful and/or incredibly stupid light-up USB accessories that owe their glowyness to various flavorings of LEDs. That’s cool, I’m down with that, I like the futuristic look as much as the next geek. But retro is rapidly becoming the new futuristic, and this USB light fits the bill neatly with a light bulb that is, in fact, a light bulb. You know, the old school vacuum + filament + heat + inefficiency + if it breaks you have to clean up really carefully or you’ll get shards of glass in your feet kind. Numerous disadvantages aside, the one redeeming factor if incandescent bulbs is present in this USB powered version… Namely, the ability to cast a warm and pleasing glow, which (I imagine) provides a nice counterpoint to the inevitably harsh and unyielding photons that are being pumped out by whatever device this little lamp is plugged into. For about $14, you get the lamp plus two spare bulbs, one of them frosted ...

Flash drive bonanza: 36 crummy drives tested and compared! The wild array of flash drives you see above -- a veritable cornucopia of bad taste, if you will -- has been put through some rather exhaustive paces by the freaks over at Test Freaks. That's right, they rounded up the finger tip, the tiny skull, the truly disgusting chicken foot, as well as a wide variety of fake edibles -- and poked and prodded them en masse until they came up with the answer we expected: most of these are actually pretty shoddily made. As if you buy a foul-looking shrimp tail flash drive because you expect it to get the best transfer rate. Hit the read link to check out the full insanity of this undertaking.

NC State gurus build remote control bats, freak out Dukies and Tar Holes Micro-aerial vehicles, or MAVs as they're called in the elusive underground, are far from new, but a team from NC State University is hoping to advance the field with an all new critter. The Robo-Bat is a remote controlled creature that relies on a super elastic shape-memory metal alloy for the joints, which is said to provide a full range of motion while enabling it to "always return to its original position -- a function performed by many tiny bones, cartilage and tendons in real bats." The crew is also utilizing other "smart materials" in the muscular system, giving it the ability to react in real time to environmental changes such as sudden wind gusts. Ideally, this bionic chiropteran would be used to chivvy those who dare step foot on Franklin Street or inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, but in less malicious situations, it could help well-meaning scientists get the bottom of that whole ...

Wifi Detecting Baseball Cap You know what I like most about this wifi-detecting baseball cap that’s powered by a couple of CR2032 batteries and displays the strength of any 802.11b or g networks in your vicinity? The fact that it’s pretty much completely useless to the person actually wearing it! I mean the whole point of a wifi detector is so you can find an available hotspot and get yourself some free wireless internet, but unless you’re taking this thing off every 5 minutes to check the light-up panel on the front, you’ll be oblivious as to when you actually find a network. At least it’s just $21 from Thumbs Up.

Trace Of Time Whiteboard-Esque Clock Erases Itself Over Time Designed by Il-Gu Cha, the ‘Trace of Time’ clock is made from stainless steel with a glass face that allows you to jot down meetings and other important events when they’re supposed to happen. But the single hour/minute hand actually features an integrated eraser which cleans the clock’s face as it sweeps around over a 24 hour period. So while the clock’s useful for planning out your day, you can forget about jotting down things you’ll need to remember later in the week, since they’ll be gone by tomorrow.

Ned Kelly thumb drive for the bushranger in your life Bushrangers were Australia's answer to English highwaymen and Ned Kelly was perhaps the most celebrated of them all. Known for his homemade armor and helmet -- here represented by the USB plug -- Kelly has now been truly immortalised by the art of memory stick modding. Fair enough, woodworking isn't a terribly precise art and we could just as easily claim this to be a Hristo Botev (who?) USB drive, but we have to commend the considerable effort required to put this baby together. On the other hand, there are snazzier alternatives out there, which look great even without you explaining the mythology behind their design.

Colorful Ipod Touch Stickers I totally understand the hard work of the iPod designers to come up with the best design for each series. They have put all their energy and thoughts to create the most stylish, the funkiest, and the most hip design to satisfy the customers. I might have to send my apologize for them, but I really want to change the look of my iPod touch and add my own elements into it. It was like an answered prayer when I found this colorful iPod touch stickers. These stickers get all the elements that I want for my iPod look. I can get all the colorful, unique design on my iPod cover. What else I can ask? This protection skin is also made from high quality vinyl. Scratches cannot ruin the perfect look of my iPod. I also found it easy to apply on my iPod without leaving adhesive marks. Even bubbles will not appear inside it. The designer iPod touch sticker has thought on the perfection of this skin. Beside I get the front and back cover, I also can get the code to downloa...