As everyone knows, getting enough sleep is essential in life, even more so for growing kids who need that time to allow their bodies to recuperate after a grueling day at school. We adults love our beauty sleep too – ask any parents to newborns and you’ll probably see that they rank sleep even higher than sex in their priorities, but unfortunately they get little of either while attending to Junior. Whether you get too little or too much sleep, sharing a room with others can be a tricky situation especially when everyone inside has different schedules. Hence, one person’s alarm clock might wake up the rest of the inhabitants way before their scheduled wake up time, leading to a lousy start to the day. How about an alarm clock that works in a rather charming manner, waking you up gently without the rudeness that accompanies most of the other loud ringers? This concept Hybrid Alarm Clock is truly innovative in essence, featuring a big, red, flashing light that pulses and glows as it attempts to arouse you from your slumber.

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The Golf GTI is the favorite hot-hatch of the world. It’s currently at its fifth generation. Yearly, in Worthersee Austria, there’s a GTI festival, where owners and fans of the GTI pay some hommage to this great car.

This year it’s the GTI’s 3-th anniversary, and Volkswagen have decided to reward their fans with a very, very special edition of the GTI. We’re talking an engine which is situated above the one found in the Phaeton (and Bentley Continental GT by that matter), and not so much below the one found in the Bugatti Veyron. It can do 100 kmh in 3,7 seconds, and exceed 200 mph.

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I wouldn’t mind having a pet dog, I enjoy walking (especially in the rain) and it would give me somebody to talk to in the day other than my MSN contacts. The one thing that puts me off having having a pet mutt is the fact I’d have to pick up the mess it would leave behind, picking up a dog turd with my hand in a plastic bag makes my skin crawl. This next gadget could be the answer to that, the Sha-Poopie™, a telescopic dog turd catcher.

Invented by a man who absolutely hates picking up after his dog, The Sha-Poopie™ makes the job both easier and less unpleasant. No bending, no trying to use a stick to scrape dog poop onto a newspaper or, worse yet, using a plastic bag to actually pick up it up!

Available from Solutions for $19.95 (though I must admit I’m not convinced this is the answer).

NASCAR, yeah, yeah, I know, low tech rollers that bash about between two walls turning left. Well believe it or not, there is some real technology, and its only skin deep!

Racing cars have always had great looks, no matter the formula. However, I felt like a complete moron (not a new feeling for me, so indulge me) when I read this bit by David Newton at ESPN.COM.

The NASCAR teams, face serious time limits for detailing and showing their many logos and paint schemes. With sponsor changes, special themes, honorees, and driver adjustments, paint shops would be overworked to say the least.

Newton notes that there are really two teams that always paint their cars, they are of course Junebug (Dale Earnheart Jr.) and Jeff Gordon. Gordon’s team of course is sponsored by Dupont the paint company, and well, they like to paint. On the flip side, everyone’s favorite Columbian Juan Pablo Montoya (ex-Mclaren F1 driver) drives for Chip Ganassi in NASCAR and his entire team runs wrapped cars every week at every race (for his NASCAR teams). Note: the car is wrapped,,, not J.P.M.!

The vinyl wraps, (its a specialty pressure sensitive adhesive backed vinyl made by 3M) can be installed over any level of trim on a vehicle (as long as it’s smooth). From a fully painted and decaled car, to simple primer, a new complete wrap can be installed in under 6 hours with all graphics complete. There is no need to add additional decals, numbering, or other accents. An entire car wrap can be printed out in about 90 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

This past Wednesday, Google unveiled a new “universal search” function that integrates text, photos, video, news, scanned books and blogs in a single list of results. The search engine will automatically check Google Video’s archive and allow users to click on a “watch video’ link that will embed the video right on the search results page.

Other video sites publishing clips or full-length versions also appear. Several companies have been working to improve video search on the net, but none with Google’s pedigree or market share.

BeSocial: digg story | methodshop

Rarely do I, and I’m sure most of you are included in this as well, come across an iPod gadget that actually looks like it hasn’t been done before. And if you doubt me, just look, there are pages upon pages of speaker systems, docks, chargers, and cables. This isn’t an iPod karaoke machine, but it is one big, wireless speaker with an iPod dock and more.
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This retro looking clock is just like one of those old style clocks with the bells on that ring continuously until you happen to physically stop it. It has all the original features such as hands for telling the time and setting the alarm with. Yet with the flair of design that we have come to expect from the Japanese this clock is not entirely what it may see at first.
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The Meizu MiniOne is probably the second-most expected vapor-ware floating around the ‘Net. We’ve totally neglected it until now because we thought it was impossible to make this work. Or, that if it did work, that it would pass by Apple’s lawyers.

This time, it seems to be more than a rumor. I am, of course, truly and utterly unable to decypher the Chinese characters on Meizu’s blog. The guys at Akihabara News could. If you want to see their other products, try here.

Read on for the spicy details:

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