Month: September 2010
Awareness! The Headphone app lets you hear outside noise while you're listening to your headphones
An app just launched for iPhone and iPod Touch claims to make headphone listening safer by letting in a limited amount of outside noise. Awareness! The Headphone App allows you set the microphone on your iPod or Phone to pick up outside noises like traffic, car sounds or conversations and feed them into your earphones.…
Orange's San Francisco handset brings an Android smartphone under £100
Orange have taken smartphones under the £100 mark this week with a new Android phone costing only £99 with no contract. Their own-branded San Francisco handset is on pay as you go and packs decent mid-range features. But the killer of course is the price. Orange say they're bringing apps to the masses. When will…
Video: 8m Hello Kitty shoots lasers over the Tokyo sky
A 8m inflatable Hello Kitty surveys the changing light over a Tokyo cityscape while shooting lasers and water jets and bobbing gently in the wind. This is a great video. The enormous Hello Kitty was placed in Tokyo Bay as part of a spectacle to encourage tree planting, of course. Don't know how we missed…
Mad Men Gadgets: 10 items oozing 60s style that would fit in Don Draper's office
If any TV series has made us nostalgic for the style of the early sixties, it's Mad Men. The one-liners, the booze, the wealth and the gravity-defying bosoms (of Peggy) are all part of the draw but it's the style that makes it a killer package. Who knew the early 60s looked so damn good.…
Three things holding Augmented Reality back – it's going to be ace when these get fixed
We do love Augmented reality a lot. As emerging technologies go, it's probably one of the sexier ones, with the strong visuals and the general feeling that you're in a computer game making it a bit more exciting than say the structured data web, another hotly tipped trend. However Augmented Reality is still a little…
Invention of the Day: the spring out ReadySteady Tripod for video cameras
All the anti-shake camera technology in the world can't correct for a truly shaky hand. So there is a use for tripods, especially if you, the filmer/photographer want to be in your own films and photographs. Sure, you can always try sellotaping the camera to the wall (I've been there), but chances are a tripod…
It's a Fashion Buggy! Pictures of the Lacoste Citroen concept car
Fashion brand Lacoste - known for minimalist preppy sports-inspired fashion and their alligator logo - have collaborated with Citroen to make a car. It's a real fashion buggy. What with it being a concept car, it doesn't actually exist as a commercial product, but if it did, I fear it would be out of my…
Bottles to bags: GreenSmart turn coke bottles into laptop bags
That plastic bottle on your desk could have a second life as a bag. People have been able to make fabric out of recycling plastic bottles for a while, but Greensmart is one of the first companies making a consumer business out of it. Plastic bottles (PET #1) are a serious environmental issue - they…
Five fun things to do with Facebook Places
Facebook Places has arrived in the UK and we're pretty excited about it. It allows you to "check-in" at places you visit and share your location with your friends. It is only available to Facebook users with smartphones, it's native on the Facebook app on iPhone and can be accessed over a phone's browser by…
Fatepod: a dating site for following up on those chance encounters
At ShinyShiny we maintain a healthy interest in both online dating sites and things with silly names, so of course we were delighted to hear about new online dating site called "Fatepod", launching on Monday. I don't know where the "pod" bit comes from, but the "Fate" bit is there for a very good reason.…