Regular Ferrety readers will know that we love simple applications of technology which offer clear benefits, and the Talking Tins product is one such example. ‘Talking Tins is a new product designed to help the visually impaired identify the contents of their tinned food… Identifying different objects of a similar shape has always been difficult for the visually impaired who want to stay independent. This frustrating problem is now solved by a new concept, using a re-recordable voice message to…

I don’t care if it is a spoof student project, I still think it’s fabaroony. The Teleparanormalphone. ‘A telephone that will detect and record cases of “ghost calls”…This extra apparatus is an electromagnetic field detector -a tool widely used by ghost hunters. Users can detect unusual fluxes of electromagnetic energy through the meter, and if necessary, easily record the receiving voice for later speculation…’

OK, so this week’s watch week. Happy with that? Good. The Cellular Watch is probably the most useful of these ‘light up when phone rings’ gadgmoids. $22.00. ‘This Cellular Watch lights up each time you cell phone rings even when the ringer is off! What�s more it changes patterns so as the phone rings new amazing flashing colors appear. Whether in a meeting, at the movies, or out on the town, the Cellular Pen will flash bright colors each time…

The Play-Pump is an absolutely fabulous idea. ‘Cavorting on a roundabout has always been fun for children. Now pure, clean borehole water can be pumped into water storage tanks while the playground roundabout equipment is in use. The Play-Pump is a specifically designed and patented playground roundabout that drives conventional borehole pumps, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum, while entertaining the children.’

Ass-vertising. I have absolutely no comment to make, except to say that this is apparently real. [Via Museum of Hoaxes]

Oh dear. Apparently, according to a new study commissioned by Siemens, all these cool new gadgets are causing us far too much stress. Oh dear. ‘Mobile phones, laptop computers and PDAs are increasing levels of stress in the workplace, according to a study.’

The MDC 6500Z is Mustek’s attempt to prove that it can cram more functions into a digital camera than anyone else around. Billed as a 7 in 1, the 5 megapixel camera features ‘Digital Still Camera, Digital Camcorder, Web Cam, Digital Voice Recorder, Video Camera [and] USB Portable Disk…’ Only WAV audio though – no MP3. Judging by the dire speed of the web site, we reckon that they’re also running the corporate web server off one.

The Gibson Wurlitzer Digital Jukebox (TableTop) looks groovy. 40GB hard disk, external hard drive expansion via USB 2.0, integral colour touchscreen navigation and wireless network and Ethernet connect. ‘Download from a Library of 400,000+ Songs. OK, so you are too picky. No problem, because you now have access to hundreds of thousands of songs�from major label to independent artists�available for instant download directly to your jukebox.’

The Tatung Elio PJ is being billed as the world’s first ‘hard disk based personal media player featuring 2.2� color screen with MP3, JPEG and Windows� Media Audio playback capability.’ It’s small, black and quite cool thinking methinks. [Via Akihabara News]

The PKB-800 is apparently the world’s first Universal PDA Thumboard. Works via infrared too, so take that you Bluetooth ninnies. ‘PKB-800 works with most Palm OS3.5 to 5.2 ,Pocket PC 2000 , 2002 & 2003 PDAs…Measuring in at a mere 129�90�18mm , It is small enough that users can use all 69 keys and complete functions with Only [sic] their thumbs…’

Look, it’s patently clear that you simply don’t realise what you’re missing. Clearly anyone with any sense would know that without a Talking Watch which announces the time out loud, remembers appointments, sings Happy Birthday on cue and features a rooster crowing alarm, your life is simply devoid of meaning. So dig deep and splash out that $14.99 now. I didn’t realise that talking watches were really that popular. But apparently they are.

It is not widely known that The Ferret has recently obtained his doctorate in…uh….Applied Criaseonology, a process which was indeed rather troublesome. As a result, we will be moving sometime over the next millenia to a new domain, to whit the .PRO space. And we will not be talking again to the likes of you load of riff raff either! ‘Presently, only licensed members of the legal, medical, and accounting professions can register .Pro domain names. Registrants must fully disclose…

The SoftPear Project ‘aims to create compatibility software between the IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh architecture…We do not develop an emulator for PowerPC Macintosh…Instead, Darwin/x86 or GNU/Linux will run on the PC, and the Mac OS X user interface, its libraries and all applications running on top of it will run on Darwin or GNU/Linux, using SoftPear’s compatibility layer.’ Fascinating!

Peter Ravn’s MiniDisc page – ‘Hacks, tips and tricks on Sony MD units.’ Visit here if you want to make your MiniDisc player sound super delicious.

Look, there’s bling and then there’s Bling Tech! And the Zipang Combo external hard drive case is clearly of the latter persuasion. SuperFly! ‘ZiPANG 2.5″ External IEEE1394 and USB2.0 combo case is one of the newest product in the market. Its body is Chromium plated for a smooth finish & a slick look and fastened by two silicon rubber belts.’