The Ferret proudly presents to the people of earth a round-up of the top five gadgets to make your Skype chat easier than ever. Unlike the poor Skype employees above, forced through office space cut-backs to conduct their Google share dealing in the corridor of Skype House, we have located the best kit to untether your calls from the computer, or at least part of the way. Read on for more, McDuff…
Read MoreMonthly Archives: November 2005
Page turner.
The Volta:Bene. And now a small cultural intermission here on Ferret Radio as we visit a new product which lets musicians turn the pages of their score with the press of a foot pedal. Well done, hurrah. Author! €299.00. By simply pressing a pedal volta:bene has solved a problem that musicians throughout the world have been facing for centuries: how to turn over the pages in their scores. No more of those slip-ups when the pages float off the music stand….
Read MoreCell phone mashup.
This is quite simply the ugliest DIY handsfree cellphone mashup we’ve ever seen. In fact it’s so ugly it’s almost beautiful. Almost.
Read MoreThe Talking Tankard.
The Talking Tankard. Makes friends for you, when you’re too ‘tired or emotional’. Or something. Talking Tankard takes the thinking out of drinking. With LED lights and 3 different sounds it warns you when your drink is getting low! Ideal for the Couch Potato, Student, Village idiot, local pub and stag nights.
Read MoreLassie phone home!
The Pet Finding Phone Collar (well what else to call it?). [Babel] Apparently if someone finds your missing pet, all they have to do is plug this collar gadget into their mobile phone and it will call you to let you know it’s been found. No…sigh…the pet’s been found, not the collar. Well yes the collar…but not alone…[?– Ed]. And no, we cannot figure out how it works either, so don’t ask. Around $16.00 and very very Japanese.
Read MoreFlickr? Meet Flash!
FlapiViewer. An online Flikr photo gallery creator which uses Flash to do the business. Great for posting a nice gallery on your weblog or site. Looks quite nice actually. Beta so caveat!
Read MoreVid for the kid?
The TF-DVD550 V-Zon portable DVD/CD/MP3 player for kids. Is that supposed to be vision? You know, Vision spelled V-Zon? Is it? Wow, that’s soooo coool. Isn’t it kids? Yeah. Too much, far out, groovy, swing that cat, baby. [Enough! – Ed]. 3.5” LCD screen, headphones, anti-skip (useful probably), video and digital audio out, rechargeable battery. Price? Missing in Ak-Zon!
Read MorePhone for the elderly.
The MS2000 Mobile Phone for the elderly. Five quick call numbers, hang up, dial and power buttons. What more do you need really, when it comes down to it? Italian designed, dual band, no LCD, ‘built in vibrator’, talk time 2 hours, 40 tone polyphonic ring.
Read MoreThe Jet Lag Visor.
The Portable Jet Lag Kit. The FeelBrightLight 100 Light Therapy System includes a visor, charger and mounting kit for fitting onto other types of hat. Just remember to take it off before you step out, eh? $199.95. More here. It uses safe, heat-free blue-green light to biochemically increase seratonin, a mood elevator, while simultaneously suppressing melatonin, which increases alertness to prevent symptoms of winter blues such as lethargy, increased appetite, afternoon slumps, increased need for sleep, and seasonal depression. The technology…
Read MoreThe R2D2 Phone.
The R2D2 Phone. Rip his arm off to make a call, why doncha? You vicious beasts! £49.95 ($89.91). Whenever somebody rings you, R2 will let you know by beeping, jiggling and spinning his head. His little eyes even light up with happiness, bless ‘im. Your cute little telephonic chum will entertain you so much, you probably won’t even want to answer your call. Luckily, there’s a demo mode, so you can enjoy R2’s antics as often as you want, and…
Read MoreAutofocus for all.
The Helimorph Autofocus Cellphone Camera. Another company steps up to introduce an autofocus camera module for mobile phones alongside Sharp. Apparently it’s very reliable and very low power. How long before all low end digital cameras are phones as well, eh?
Read MorePandora, music friend.
Pandora. No messing, no gimmicks, just a beautifully crafted music recommendation service. Put in your favourite music, they’ll stream stuff they think you’ll like, which you then rate as you go. Ad supported or subscription. It’s gorgeous. No really! We take your input (artists, songs) and feedback (“I like this”, “I don’t like this”) and use the Music Genome Project to create stations that play songs that are musically similar to what you’ve told us. That’s it; only the music…
Read MoreLanguage learning gets the groove.
Earworms. The musical brain trainer. Did you know that music helps you remember stuff? No, neither did I, but it actually sounds quite logical. Just think of those times when you’ve tried to get a catchy tune out of your head. Well these people have developed a language training course based around music, and according to their blurb – ‘pupils using this technique regularly achieve average marks of over 90 % compared to less than 50 % with conventional book based learning.’…
Read MoreStan, Stan, the plumber man.
Dude, if Stanley did watches they’d incorporate wacky macho stuff like a screwdriver set, vice clamp, hexagonal wrenches and tape measure. Oh wait, they do… From around $55.00.
Read MoreTelephone thrill.
Retro Sixties Telephones. Is $160.00 too much to pay for something that we dropped, slammed down, cracked and otherwise abused a scant few years ago? Just how old do you have to be for retro? All the parts you can see are vintage, but with a state-of-the-art microphone, wiring and cord, they work like they’re brand new. Russell Johnson and his crew in Argentina collect thousands of antique phones to find the perfect parts for each restored model, and it can take up to…
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