Just got back from the N-Gage QD launch. A couple of thoughts from the day for anyone who’s interested.

The Zippy 128MB player (aka the CLUE DN4128) is a teeny tiny MP3 player which just happens to sport a 36 hour telephone and voice recorder as well. Ah the joys of a trusting, loving, digital universe, eh? Around $160.00. ‘Connect the unit to any phone in the house and it automatically and silently records hours of calls made from any extension with voice activated recording.’

“Now pay attention, Mr Bond. It may look like an ordinary pen, but in reality it is a 256Mb flash memory drive which you can use to infiltrate Blofeld’s lair and download all of his incriminating MP3s.” Doesn’t have quite the same ring does it? SpyDisk. [Babel] 128MB or 256MB. USB interface. $67.00 or thereabouts. Q out.

The Talkbackwards site lets you listen to your songs backwards. No I *don’t* know why they would do this. No, it obviously isn’t a trivial task. No, I can’t see a commercial angle to this. Please stop asking, I’m getting a headache. ‘For many years there have been rumors that certain songs, speeches, and ads contain hidden subliminal messages that can only be heard when played backwards. This is known as backmasking, and there is much deabate about its existance….

Some clever German techies have come up with the free unCDCopy program which allows users to make copies of copy-protected audio CDs. Their reasoning is that unCDs – i.e. those that refuse to play in CD drives – present an unfair restriction on the fair use of CD owners. ‘The team said it was prompted to action by complaints from CD purchasers that “unCDs”, like those by Celine Dion or crooner Robbie Williams, failed to play in CD drives typically…

Audio Bored. – ‘AudioBored is a public online audio messaging board that allows for anyone to call in, record a message, and post it to the server. Simply dial the free 1-800 number from the website and record your note. Visitors to the board can click on the sound clips and listen to all the recordings collected. More here. Audio seems to be the coming online thing. Is this a reflection of better compression codecs or more bandwidth? Whatever. See…

This CNN piece on the introduction of digital billboards is fairly interesting, but what caught my eye is the fact that owners Clear Channel plan to sell advertising on a time-slot basis rather like the TV. This is an interesting thought – put together ubiquitous digital paper type screens a l� e-ink, wireless remote billboard technology like this and you’re very close to a Minority Report type world where advertisers beam messages to you depending on who you are (cellphone…

Moodbook – ‘is a tiny Windows utility that brings art to your desktop and sets a tone for your daily mood and emotions!…With MoodBook your desktop looks like an art gallery changing art expositions either automatically, at regular time intervals, or manually, with a click. Each exposition has either a tranquil, neutral or vivid background and a picture of art in the centre.’ Free download. [..and while we’re on the subject why not check out the Relaxation at Your PC…

The Tivoli Model Sirius is billed as the world’s first table top satellite radio. Oooh, isn’t retro so cool nowadays? ‘It features an easy to use digital interface, AM/FM analog tuner, Sirius Satellite Radio and an alarm clock.’

The 5D1 USB Headphones [Babel] look a bit weird. Wonder if they work? They incorporate ‘wingtype’ speaker pods to give a better surround sound effect, as well as an internal sound card. Just plug them into the USB port of yer computa.

The L.I.S.2 is a sort of dashboard for your PC. It fits into a standard drive bay, plugs into your motherboard at various strategic points and displays all sorts of funkadelic stuff like CPU temp, fan speeds etc. But wait, there’s more. It will also display a 20 band equalizer for Media Player or Winamp, check for new emails on your POP3 server and even sound alarms for your appointments. Oh geekness!

Bandai’s BowWow [Babel] service is the PETA friendly way to clone your pet. No food required, just a loving home. Awww… Babel’s acting up at the moment, so here’s the original Japanese site just in case y’all need to order in a hurry.

HipWave – ‘dating anytime, anywhere’. A product born of a drunken, half crazed and desperate marketing team’s Christmas night out? ‘The HipWave Dating Channel is a fully functional dating service which has been integrated into the next generation Instant Messenger…Dateables are products and services which will soon be available to purchase for other members. These will consist of such items as Membership/Messaging Time, Coffee/Drinks, Flowers/Chocolates, Specialty Gifts and much more.

Fancy having a chat with Google? Then hie thee to Catty and prattle away. * you> what kind of day are you having today? * catty2> frankly i am having increasing trouble identifying who is a member of the press ;) ‘To be short, Catty is trolling around, picking randomly chosen phrases, and then searching for them on www.google.com..At the beginning, she’s mumbling with absolutely no sense. Then, as people are throwing offensive phrases at her, she learns how to…

PruneBaby! Golly peeps, here’s yet another totally legitimate and very funky use for P2P sharing technology. For buying and selling. With no…ahem…fees at all, but with auction type features such as user ratings and the like. PruneBaby! is the first Peer-to-Peer software designed to unite buyers and sellers across the Internet. Download this FREE software to find the deal of a lifetime and see how simple e-commerce can be�’