For the unknowing, Apple started shipping its new iPod Touch late last week. This is the new iPod that’s essentially the iPhone sans the phone; prices start at $300 for 8GB and go up to $400 for 16GB. While they’re usually sold out as quickly as they come in, I managed to grab one and made a nice little review, at least I hope it’s nice. I’ll be covering the design and structure of the device itself, the UI and applications, music playback, video playback, and the iTunes WiFi store (I know it’s an application, but it’s special!).
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A few weeks ago, when ordering some motorcycle gear, I took a random look at the ‘Presents&co.’ section. There I found a lighter that caught my eye.

Made of first-grade but vintage-looking brass, it’s a replica of those used by French soldiers in the first World War.

It’s an inexpensive gadget which is always a pleasure to look at. You’ll see a bigger picture and a video after the break.

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We wrote about the Vertical Mouse back in January, one of my friends has been suffering from R.S.I. so decided to buy one of these to see if it helped, so here’s his review of the Vertical Mouse, cheers Scott.

Working from home on my PC has been a pleasure & a blessing for the last few years until around June when I developed a sharp R.S.I. pain from using my mouse, the only thing I could do was take regular breaks away from the computer but I soon found this more of a hindrance than a solution and it was never long before the pain would come back. I decided upon the Evoluent 3 vertical mouse which keeps the wrist in a more natural handshake position rather than the common twisted forearm, the logic sounded good and I decided to try it out.

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Why give someone a single still framed picture when you can give them an entire slide show? The MF-575 is an inexpensive hi-tech digital photo, MP3, and video player with a bright, high-resolution 5.6-inch color TFT screen.

When I bought my first MF-575 picture frame, I got it as a gift for a family member who liked to complain that I never send them pictures anymore. The problem is, I have a digital camera and haven’t gotten any pictures developed in several years. So now, whenever I go over to their house for a visit, I just bring an extra memory card from my digital camera full of new pictures. If you don’t have an extra memory card, the MF-575 has an easy-to-use MD/SD/MMC memory card reader that plugs into any computer with a USB port. So you can just plug the entire picture frame into your computer and copy the pictures onto the card that way if necessary.

This year on Christmas morning, I was thinking about taking a series of pictures while everyone is opening their gifts. Then I’ll take the memory card out of my digital camera and pop it into the MF-575 picture frame for an instant slide show for everyone to enjoy on Christmas afternoon. Good idea right? The number of images you can put into your MF-575 slide show is only limited by the capacity of the memory card being used.

Here’s the full review: MF-575 Digital Picture Frame

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I was recently approached by Scott Seegert and asked if I’d like to review his new book, it’S A GUY thiNg. It’s the first time I’ve ever been contacted by a published author and as I’m not renowned for saying no to freebies I was more than happy to accept.

I received my signed copy of it’S A GUY thiNg last week and have flicking through it and giggling to myself ever since. The book is all about the crazy things that oddballs guys have registered patents for in the past. There are such gems as the “Helmet mounted Pistol” which incorporates a neck support so as not to strain your self when it fires. Patented in 2002 is “Tom’s Buttocks Cleavage-Revealing Pants” which are special pants for the ladies with a certain area of material removed in a nice fashion conscious pattern.

Scott’s writing style suits the subject material perfectly and if he ever fancies blogging he is more than welcome here. He’s given me permission to reproduce a couple of his patent posts here, so enjoy:
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So maybe you’re thinking that Transformers is a dumb toy commercial.

While it is based on the toys made in the early 80’s by Hasbro (Thank you Hasbro!) However the writing crew did a great job binding together a story that parallels the atmosphere of the original Gen I Transformers, while bringing new, and clearly up to date ideas to the big screen and introduce a whole new generation to the joys of Peter Cullen and his voice (hint, he sounds a lot like Optimus Prime).

You’re probably wondering also, did they make good looking robots?

Are there ridiculous Michael Bay explosions, battles, and chase scenes?

Did I nearly blow out my kidneys so I could stay and watch the whole movie?

Well of course, the answer is D, all of the above.

Read on for slightly juicier Transformer info (no spoilers, but good reasons to see it, you know, if you like having fun) Read the rest of this entry »

Last year we reviewed the Picoo Z R/C Helicopter and it turned out to be one of the coolest presents ever, I’ve just read about a new version of Picoo Z, Sky Challenger, which lets you and a mate battle it out in the air.

Like the remote control tanks we reported on a few days ago, these new Picoo Z’s use lasers to fire upon each other.

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In less than two days, at 18:00 local time, the oh-so-hyped iPhone will be available for sale across the US. Mr. Jobs has offered the final version of the device to several (Apple lovin’?) US journalists, so there’s already a plethora of reviews available.

This article will be based on the available iPhone reviews (it’s going to be quite a while until it comes to Europe) and on my personal experience with the Nokia E70. The E70 is already pretty old, almost unknown, and ugly. But what it offers is already way beyond the iPhone.

This will be a long article, which will directly compare the two devices, highlight each one’s strengths and weaknesses, and give some insight in the world of the Symbian operating system and the s60 interface.

US readers don’t despair, I will make as little reference as possible to the fact that Nokia’s smartphone has WCDMA connectivity while the iPhone is limited to EDGE. And I’m doing that just because the E70 that’s available in the States is also limited to EDGE.

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