The Gong and Time Bomb, Two More Silly Alarm Clocks
Too funny/silly not to write about them

The Time Bomb clock will wake you up with a blast and then some buzzing

There are plenty of alarm clocks to choose from, starting with the simplest ones, and ending with those with intricate shapes and working principles, and from the funniest down to the most annoying and seemingly meaningless ones. The next two pieces of alarm clock engineering we’ve stumbled upon were too silly to miss them, and we decided that you definitely must know one or two things about these crazy gadgets.

The first one and the funniest is the Time Bomb alarm clock. The looks of this clock completely live up to its strange name as this time-keeping machine has been designed to look exactly like a bomb cartoon characters would simply love.

This all ages-approved shape is as funny as it is strange and we’re sure that it will generate a lot of stir and questions in the ranks of your friends or visitors. The casing is made of a dark translucent plastic and the time is visible thanks to an easy-to-read projection display. The Time Bomb is well worth its name, as it will tick and tock its way towards the alarm time, and will burst with lights when the alarm goes off. It also sports a very convenient snooze button, to let you enjoy some extra minutes of napping, and other easy to use setup buttons.

The Time Bomb is powered by tree AA batteries and we would not recommend it to the faint-hearted: before the usual high-pitched buzz, this one will first “kaboom!” your sweet sleeping moments. We’re not sure whether war veterans would like it too much…

The Gong alarm clock is one of the silliest gadgets of its kind.

The second alarm clock does not look that cool, but it comes with high points on the silliness scale: the Gong Alarm Clock. As its name clearly says it already, this device comes with a miniature gong and a shirtless man with a miniature hammer to bang it as the alarm goes off. The whole thing looks very silly and the sounds it makes are quite annoying; we wouldn’t recommend this either, especially if you’re the kind of person who strongly dislikes brutal, military-grade wakeup alarms.

And if you’ve had one too many booze sips, the Gong Alarm Clock will make things even worse when it comes to starting the day with a hangover. The silly Gong retails for $20, while the funny Time Bomb will set you back $24. Yet, they’re perfect as hilarious gifts for a friend of yours who digs silly stuff.

SoundBulb, a Solution for Hearing and Sight
Light and sound, from virtually the same source

The SoundBulb: LED lighting and a wireless speaker in one

Wireless technologies are expanding their borders further and further away and this leaves a lot of room for new and sometimes spectacular things to be created. Wireless speakers are one concept that was once thought to be a SciFi contraption never to be seen in real life… yet these days a pair of Bluetooth speakers is nothing new; on the contrary, it represents a rather normal presence in a certain setting. The SoundBulb concept can be easily placed just next to the amazingly neat speakers of David Granath and the design team he’s part of, as they take wireless sound even further in the realm of functionality.

The SoundBulb is a concept that tries to mix in both sound reproduction and lighting purposes. While these new bulbs look pretty much like any other incandescence bulbs, they’re running on multiple LED units and a special lens.

Detailed description of the SoundBulb.

LED lights have been a natural choice because any other light-emitting source would generate too much heat and damage the audio components. Yet this problem is far from being solved, despite the seemingly failsafe plans presented by designers Hoang M Nguyen, Poom Puttorngul & Anh Nguyen. One thing we’ve missed is the opening through which the air moved by the live driver should travel; loading some 8 Ohm speakers in a completely closed cabinet isn’t exactly the best idea to get a decent sound.

The SoundBulb connects in your normal bulb sockets and it will receive music streams from your WiFi/Bluetooth-enabled devices around the house. The speaker and the LED lights share the same power source, which we hope is not 220V; having such a voltage and the bulb-integrated chrome-plated volume dial in the same equation makes us a bit nervous, frankly. The SoundBulb is just a concept so far, but the chances to see it actually becoming real and hitting your corner shop in a few months are not to be neglected.

The Verbatim Speaker Keyboard
Utility in question

Many would wonder why spend $75 on a speaker keyboard.

Sometimes it just seems that the multimedia concept goes a little too far, and, when it comes to our daily gadgets, each passing week brings a new item to make this assertion even stronger. It’s the case of the new keyboard from Verbatim, the Speaker Keyboard. Now, it’s true that Verbatim isn’t one of the heaviest names when it comes to keyboard manufacturing and the company is way better known for its high-quality storage solutions. Yet, let’s see what the Speaker Keyboard is all about.

Well, it’s obvious that such a gadget is trying to hit two birds with one stone: typing and enjoying your fav music at the same time. Yet we’re looking at a rather cool gadget flawed by some functional imperfections.

We’re not gonna talk too much about the keyboard itself, because in this case there isn’t any special feature, save for the backlighting, which can make typing in dark surroundings a lot easier. As far as the released pictures are concerned, we dare say that the Verbatim Speaker Keyboard is built quite sturdy and from quality materials, but when it comes to keyboards, the only tests to be taken seriously are those of time and heavy use.

The keyboard has a raised wedge housing the stereo speakers and some other controls for your music playback habits. The whole ensemble is powered by your USB port, whether we’re thinking about the audio or the backlight. The Verbatim Speaker Keyboard sports mic and headphone connectors, meaning that you can actually go personal with your music in case you’re in the same room with some people who simply cannot find anything cool in Cannibal Corpse’s track “The Bleeding.” Just make sure about your computer’s setup as the USB audio chipset will automatically override the existing settings and use this keyboard as the default device.

Of course, you get transport controls and a volume knob, but they won’t do in our case. We were almost willing to stop asking why not buy some top-notch desktop speakers and enjoy hefty bass and crisp audio but we saw the price for the Verbatim Speaker Keyboard: 75 bucks is definitely too much for such a gadget, unless you’re desperately looking to have a keyboard that very few others would ever get; for Mac or for PC.

A Windows XP-driven 8″ Touchscreen Coffee Maker
Coffee, anyone?

Pentium 3 @ 500 MHz, Windows XP, GeForece MX440, ATX motherboard: and it’s a coffee machine. With an 8

Brewing a cup of coffee is no rocket science and pretty much everybody can come up with a decent drink. Yet it looks like for some guys, having coffee brewed the traditional way is too simple a thing; and the coffee machines go in the same category also, because this could be the only reason for adding a no-nonsense computer to such an appliance. And by the term “computer” we’re not referring to a chip, but to a fully functional computer running… Windows XP!

Now, why would anyone need an XP-loaded coffee machine? We don’t know; and the only person who might have a proper answer to this question is Reko Maenpaa, the Finnish designer who created this kitchen uber-gadget.

By far, one of the best features and the first thing to catch your eye is the no-joke 8″ touch-sensitive display this appliance proudly sports. It not only looks great but at the same time this solution offers true functionality and adds serious points to the “cool factor.” The coffee-making process takes less than 30 seconds and this is a very good time; and the rest of the functionality of the initial coffee machine has been preserved, so nothing will be changed in terms of taste and the likes.

On the IT side, this kitchen gadget comes with a really powerful computer, at least when compared to the AI modules in common coffee machines. This unit runs on an Intel Pentium 3 processor clocked at 500 MHz, driving a Windows XP. If your first instinct was to say “hey, 500 MHz for XP is way too slow” think again: it’s brewing not PhotoShop!

The hardware list also comprises an ATX motherboard and a GeForce MX440 graphics card; and because it’s a real computer, you can actually see the display of the coffee machine on your TV. Or you can order your coffee via WAP or a standard web browser. Almost like calling someone at home and asking him/her to have a cup of coffee ready in some 20 minutes as you’re on your way home.

Some Neat Gadget Combination for Halloween
Fun in the dark

A very dark and evil all-black contact lense
Enlarge
Halloween is indeed a very good holiday for all those who are fond of the darker, sometimes even gruesome side of fun, whether we’re thinking of all sorts of pranks, wearing scary costumes and apparel or simply acting “darker.” And for these people, a lot of thingies are created and sold each year, as it is the case with what we plan to present to you next.

Some might say that they look horrid, while some collect them: we’re talking about contact lenses with intricate designs and coming in the wackiest models possible.

Well, for this Halloween, you can enrich your contact collection with the innumerable models available in this nifty webshop. From the most traditional and all-time classics to the modern designs, you’ll be able to find a wide assortment of contact lenses to suit any of the “dark” paths you’d choose to tread this Halloween.

From all-black to dragon-eyes, jagged teeth and feline contacts, you can become a truly scary apparition in the shadows of your neighborhood. Some of these designs can also be heavily customized, but in this case you’d better hurry because they take a full week to be created and only afterwards are they shipped.

And just to take a step on the tech side, here’s another piece of fun gadgetry that comes in handy and most fashionable on Halloween, while also being very useful for the rest of the year as well: a USB thumbdrive shaped like a human skull. This creepy gadget offers 2 GB of storage space and USB 2.0 speed with hot-swap capability; retailing for $19, it is both cheap and useful, not to mention the effect it could have on your female colleagues as they’ll see a small human skull stuck in your notebook and a miniature human jaw tossed around on the desk.

An Endless Banana from Japan, Utility Strongly Doubted
Weird is not a strong enough word

The Endless Banana – as weird as it gets

Surely there were more than a couple of speechless guys after Epoch launched its new gadget, called the Endless Banana. Indeed, there are rather few people who can instantly come back to their senses after being exposed to this strikingly weird contraption: we’re talking about a small, pocket-sized toy resembling a banana, which you can endlessly peel over and over again. And here is where things end abruptly: why on Earth would somebody be looking for such a thing? Is peeling a banana the next trend in pocket toys? Has Tamagochi been killed? PSP is no more? What’s wrong with them, all of a sudden?

Now, Japan is a place where strange things happen and even stranger things are being made, so the Endless Banana should not be looked at with such amazed eyes.

Yet, we’ve tried to understand what’s behind the very gadget, and why these things are invading the world. It seems that eating one or more bananas for breakfast has become a very strong movement in Japan during the last period. This amazing trend came from a bestselling book (sold in more than 700,000 copies) stating that the “morning banana diet” can help you lose some kilos fast. And fast has this habit spread across the country: 102 million tons’ worth of bananas are being imported annually in the country; supermarkets are making efforts to keep the stocks up and it looks like things aren’t going to stop too soon.

The Endless Banana simulates the action of peeling a banana AND makes the proper sound: the famous Japanese actress Saki Fujita has been chosen to record this sound just to make sure that the toy will be most welcomed by the market. Don’t even dare ask why one needs a human person imitating the sound of peeling a banana, because this is way beyond our area of expertise.

Is there any chance that bananas become the next social drug? Will peeling bananas replace smoking? Will we see campaigns offering help to those who want to quit peeling bananas but can’t get through with it by themselves?

The Immersion Scarf Is the Ultimate Protection for Your Texting
Can one spell “weird” better?

How silly would such a sight be in real life?

Some of us can’t concentrate as much as they would when there are a lot of people passing by, when hearing all sorts of chattering or are simply easily distracted by surroundings. For them, as well as for
those who want to keep absolute secret about what they’re working on when they need to work on a computer, some guys have devised this wacky hood and it looked like fun since there were people interested in buying it. Now, for the next piece, things seem a bit different as we’re talking about the portable version of this contraption, going by the name of the Immersion Scarf. Is it possible for someone (except for texting lovers) to become immersed in the world of the mobile phone?

In case some guy thinks about using this Immersion Scarf in conjunction with a PSP – and thus “immersion” becoming a very serious thing, this cloth tool might have a reason behind.

But could anyone imagine taking this scarf out of one of your pockets, introducing your cell or PDA in it and then put the whole thing on your head? This would look indeed a bit too much: I mean, if you’re that concerned about the privacy of your text messages, why do you text in public? Or if you feel like surfing to special websites using your handheld device, why doing so in public?

We know it’s only a design idea, but it proves to be so hilariously weird that we’re actually trying to find some reasonable motivations one could come up with to use such a thing. Having found none reasonable enough yet, I beg of you to think upon this matter, too.

Go Green (and Hot) with the Candle-Powered Disco Ball
An energy-saving disco lighting effect

Candlelight and disco

Now, that’s hot: a rotating disco mirror ball in miniature, sworn to recreate that funky atmosphere we enjoyed so much during the 70s and the 80s and even closer to our day. But the really hot things are yet to come, as this disco light is entirely energy-saving because it uses no electricity – it works on candle-power. All you have to do to set the groove in motion is to light two candles and place them in their designated places, then enjoy the rotating small sparkles around you and play that Bee Gees CD.

The gadget is ridiculously simple in its principle, but the fun is simply immense: as the candles burn, the air gets hot and rises towards the “wings” attached to the rotating axle.

Then the axle itself will start revolving, and with it the mirror ball, reflecting the light coming from the candles and creating a most warm and cozy atmosphere, simply perfect for those romantic moments in the company of the one you love. Taking into account that good candles can burn for many hours, you’re sure that the cool lighting system will work for the entire evening without the need of a replacement; just make sure you don’t fall asleep with the candles still lit or some bigger and far more unpleasant lighting FX could be triggered as your house catches fire.

This wacky gadget is also pretty cool for carrying it with you in case you plan a quiet weekend in the wild together with your friends in a place where electricity is missing completely; as long as you’ve got candles, the disco’s open, even if you’ll be dancing to some portable speakers and an iPod.

The Candle-powered Disco Ball retails for around 20 EUR (approx. $27) and comes with two included candles. Now, we couldn’t agree more with the question the editors from Foolish Gadgets have asked themselves: since the design of this candle-powered disco ball seems to be extremely easy to build, wouldn’t it actually be dramatically cheaper to build one yourself? And also have a lot of fun doing that, because we expect you bought beer with the money you saved…

$140 Night Sweat Alarm Makes No Sense, Save for Diabetics
It wakes you up if you’re sweating while asleep.

The Night Sweat Alarm. Weird? You can bet on that!

There are a lot of weird gadgets out there and a couple of them come in at ridiculously high prices despite all the strong doubts regarding their utility. Some could be used for fun, indeed, while others are simply weird and one should be a bit weird as well to put them to any use. Well, such is the case with one of the strangest things lately: the Night Sweat Alarm; and the name can barely speak for its weirdness.

So, you’re probably asking yourselves what’s cooking with this alarm device. Well, it will wake you up in case you’re sweating during your sleep! We told you it was a weird thing, didn’t we?

Now, what’s the point in such a contraption? No one can tell for sure. Should sweating be a dangerous action like fires and the associated smoke, such an alarm would come in rather handy and life-saving even. But sweat? Come on! Some ads online say that this gadget will sense perspiration and will wake you up to remove clothes or blankets, as need be.

Really, that’s hysterically laughable! People can actually feel whether they are too warm or too cold during their sleep and take unconscious actions to set things in order, be that covering or uncovering. Why would one need a specialized and expensive device attached to one’s wrist or ankle to tell when one’s skin is damp because of the sweating?

The Night Sweat Alarm is one hell of a gadget: it not only emits a characteristic sound (possibly to scare sweat away), but it also vibrates. Now, try to imagine a very warm summer night, with you trying to go to sleep dressed as light as possible – first of all it is a question of whether you’d like to put some plastic bracelet on you… Then, imagine that you’ve finally slipped into the realm of dreams, somehow not caring anymore about the discomforting humidity and having found a position you can really sleep in… and then the alarm going off, all hell breaking loose, you waking up (you’re sweating, remember?) and by all means, your “significant other” being awaken by all this commotion as well…

And the final question is: would you pay $140 for this whole nightmare? If so – good luck, you might be among the few in a shopping mood right now; or ever, if it comes to the Night Sweat Alarm.

Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad

The Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad

Some say that genius often appears in the least appropriate places and at the most incredible times. Now, how bad would you feel after forgetting a genial idea that happened to cross your mind in a very uncanny place where you had nothing to write it down on? To prevent such immense losses for the humanity, a couple of guys gave some serious thought to the matter and came up with an interesting solution in the body of the Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad.

Things were way simpler than you would have ever thought in the first place: all you needed was some waterproof paper people could write on in wet conditions.

It is yet uncertain whether studies have been made on the locations most likely to be associated with genial ideas; nevertheless, since the shower can definitely be counted among them, here we go with a gadget especially designed for 100%+ humidity. The Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad is easy to mount on the walls of your shower cabin using its double-sided sticky foam layer or the keyhole slot.

It’s loaded with 25 sheets of the best water-resistant paper, going by the name of “Rite in the Rain,” an all-weather paper that will allow you to write down anything in the most unlikely environments. So if a great idea strikes you while you’re scuba diving and have the Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad strapped to your gear, you can just take a seat on a rock at the bottom of the bay and write things down; or, play some tic-tac-toe with your fellow-divers.

The Shower Genius Waterproof Notepad comes with 3 refill packs (25 sheets per pack) with the 3.75″ x 5.25″ x 1.25″ (90mm x 126mm x 30mm) dimensions; it retails for just under $15 while the refills are almost $7. Now, hit the shower and write!