British summertime just isn't the same without rain, puddles, mud and more rain. Luckily we've already got our eyes on our number one summer saviour for festivals, washed out barbecues and picnics, the cheesy, flashy and kinda sci-fi Ella-Ella LED Umbrella (eh eh eh, sorry).

Viewquest has created an umbrella that's big enough to keep you sheltered from the rain but also has a flashing optical fibre shaft, which glows in six different colours, great for Star Wars or Blade Runner fan boys and girls. The base of the handle also has a really powerful torch that you can tap on and off, so it's perfect for stumbling back to your tent if you find yourself lost in the rain, sleepy and in the dark at a festival.

The Ella-Ella is available from Viewquest for £24.99 from the beginning of June, but head over to the website now for pre-orders so you're guaranteed to have your hands on one for festival season.

Researchers are currently devising a way to gauge out a bit of our arms to replace all of that unnecessary muscle and flesh with our favourite gadgets. You know, to make life that little bit easier.

A few months ago we saw that Nokia had patented a crazy vibrating tattoo that would live on our forearms. But, if you thought that sounded creepy now it seems research is underway to take things even further into the realm of a Terminator movie or a Jeffrey Dahmer murder scene, as scientists devise new ways to jam electronics under our skin.

The inventive researchers at software company Autodesk have been messing around with dead bodies and found that gadgets do indeed still work under human tissue, according to New Scientist, "a button, an LED and a touch sensor all functioned appropriately when embedded under the skin of a cadaver's arm," just in case you were wondering.

Now although it's annoying when you leave your phone at home or have to runmage around in your bag to find it when it rings, are we ever really going to want it to be part of our bodies THAT much? We really hope not. Plus there are issues about whether the gadget will need to be removed often, if they'll infect surrounding tissue oh, and the small fact you'll be slowly turning yourself into a cyborg.

However, are we just really freaked out because it all sounds a little too sci-fi right now? Will our perceptions change soon as we start realising life would be much more fun as a Borg and less as a regular human with all of that rubbish flesh and those stupid feelings? The truth is this kind of research has been underway for years, it's just that it all seems a little more real and terrifying now companies are starting to become interested in integrating these kinds of methods into their products, just like the first steps Nokia has been taking with its vibrating tattoos. Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said:

"The perception [of this technology] 10 years ago would differ from today and from what we would get in 10 years' time [...] People literally cannot be without this device [...] They don't feel the same when they are not connected. We live with our phones as if they are part of our body."

As much as we love all things tech here at Shiny Shiny we can't help but think that if you need your phone attached to you in order to function and feel lost when you're not connected, then you should maybe start re-assessing your life and not just gouging out bits of your body to get your iPhone even closer to you and stay in the loop. But hey, maybe we're just a little behind the times.

[Via New Scientist]

Just like Valentine's Day and Father's Day and every other kind of over-hyped 'day' in the calendar, Mother's Day means shops want to sell us cookbooks and chocolates, flowers and foot spas, but not every mum feels content in the kitchen or pampering her feet ALL the time.

You might be surprised to hear that women can operate more than just household gadgets (we know, we know, it's crazy talk), so we've pulled together a list of gift ideas that techy mums would love, or even non-techy mums that you think might benefit from a better Kindle case, a cool bag for her gadgets or a fancy new fitness tracker.

[Thumb via libertygrace0]

According to various sources, Samsung has unveiled a new model of its popular (and freaking HUGE) Galaxy Note handset at CeBit this week in a shade of dark pink.

From what we can tell it's got all the same specs as the original blue and white versions, so was a pink model really necessary?

The debate about whether tech brands should venture into the sickly sweet and rather controversial world of pink gadgets has been raging for YEARS.

The general consensus seems to be that yes, it shouldn't have to be pink to make the female sex want it. Yes, it can be a little offensive to think women just want stuff that's the colour of candy floss. But no, we shouldn't be getting quite so angry about it because (and many may find this hard to stomach) some women clearly buy pink gadgets, or they wouldn't be wheeled out time and time again by so many tech brands.

We've got no surefire answer as to whether pink gadgets on the whole are awesome, disgusting or giving out the wrong message to youngsters, but thought we'd collect together some past articles from Shiny Shiny and a few of our other favourite sites about the whole debate:

How gadget makers try to understand the ladybrain by Katie Lee.

All hail the pink mobile phone: Top ten pink handsets by Lucy Hedges.

Where are all the gender neutral gadgets for kids? by Cate Sevilla on BitchBuzz.

[Image via Engadget]

Ahh Valentine's Day, the shops are filled with pink fluffy rubbish, your loved up friends are discussing over-priced restaurant options and all your single friends are either desperately stalking Facebook for a date or they're planning on completely ignoring the romantic festivities altogether.

If you have a special someone to buy a present for this year (yes, your cat counts), then why not find something they'll actually use rather than a cute and completely ridiculous teddy bear holding a heart or a singing cushion. Eww.

Here's our list of Valentine's day treats, most are pretty useful, a few are admittedly a bit pink and silly, but we're pretty sure they'll put a smile on any geeky girl's face either way... Awh.

This morning we came across a study that claimed women check their phones first thing in the morning and don't look at their partners enough (so what?!), and now this afternoon we've found some more female-slamming research, which claims women know plenty about household gadgets and very little about any other kind of tech. Charming.

No, you haven't been transported back into the 1950's, the research comes from a report commissioned by Amica kitchen appliances into the way men and women use gadgets and what they have trouble working.

According to the research that polled 2,000 adults, women have a hard time turning on their children's games, getting smart phones to work properly and figuring out what that elusive PC does, but feel comforted by household gadgets, such as (you guessed it) hoovers, ovens and washing machines.

Now we don't doubt that there are valid reasons why some women may be able to use kitchen appliances yet struggle with other products, but the general assumption that we're all much more comfortable away from the real world in the kitchen just frustrates us and doesn't set a good example for young girls considering a career in tech.

According to the study, these are the top ten gadgets us useless women just can't get our teeny tiny brains around:

Laptop - The little tray we provide our husbands with so they don't spill food on themselves?!
PC - A policeman?
iPhone - A phone for your eyes?
Blackberry - Oh like the fruit? We have a neat pie recipe that includes them!
iPad - Like a plaster for your eye? We'll go into our medicine cabinet to get you one...
Mobile Phone - I have one, I don't know where the on/off button is though...
MP3 - Is this our address?
Sat Nav - Is this the name of a new sci-fi film?
Games Console - A board game?
Digital Camera - I have one, I don't know where the on/off button is though...

[Image via Mike Licht]

As it's the beginning of January you can guarantee that everyone is thinking about, talking about and trying to stick to their resolutions for the new year. So, over the next few days we'll be looking into gadgets, apps and online services that help you stick to those resolutions, you just need the will power to actually make them work in the long run, because there's unfortunately not really an app for that...

If your resolutions are about getting your body into gear, whether you want to get out running, lose some mince pie weight or wake up feeling happy and energised every day, then we've collected together our favourite health and fitness gadgets to get you on the right track. Some are a little pricey, others seem a bit gimmicky, but they'll certainly point you in the right direction when it comes to sticking to your resolutions and making a lasting change.

Check out the full article 10 gadgets to help you stick to your new year's resolutions on our sister site Connected Health.

Earlier in the week we wrote up a list of the top 5 WTF weird apps of the year and felt it was only right to pull together a list of our top 5 WTF weird gadgets of 2011 as well. So here they are, we have a rotating male sex toy, a light-to-brain ear headset and a jet pack. Enjoy.

Yes the iPad 2 is increasingly popular, everyone wants a Kindle and Nokia's new Lumia handset looks pretty damn good, but what about the cool and quirky gadgets that had us "ooo-ing" and "ahh-ing" throughout 2011?

We come across a lot of weird and wonderful gadgets here at Shiny Shiny and decided to sum up our top 10 of the year. Granted they're not all really popular or particularly useful, but they're clever and a little bit different, which is why we love them so.

ShinyShiny and sister site TechDigest have teamed up with the O2 Recycle team this Christmas in order to raise some money for a pair of great causes.

Collecting all our old tech gear from the Shiny Media towers, the O2 Recycling gurus are going to re-sell the items, and ethically dispose of the ones that have no value, pushing all profits made to two separate charities.

The Tech Digest/Shiny Shiny profits will be going towards the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who work tirelessly to help our little loved ones battle illness. O2 will be giving their share to Think Big, their initiative which empowers youngsters up and down the country, giving them funding to run their own community projects

But we can't do it alone! We need your help to raise as much cash as we possibly can for these two great causes.

According to the O2 Recycle team's research, we throw away 17.5 million perfectly usable gadgets every year, with a potential value of £750 million!

We're asking if you can pool together any unwanted gadgets lying around your house to put towards the fund raising effort. Just pop them into the post, to the address found at this link, and we'll do the rest. We'll make sure that the owner of each profitable item sent gets credited on the site, so that you're hard work is recognised.

O2 offer a full price-match service on your recyclable gadgets too, meaning if you're offered a better price for the item elsewhere, they'll match it to the penny.

The recycling scheme can of course also be used personally if you've got a charity you'd like to support, or just need a little extra cash of your own. But you'd be helping out a great cause by teaming up with the Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny teams!

For more info, check out the video below, and then head over to www.o2recycle.co.uk to get started

The worst thing ever has happened. Your laptop has been stolen and you're freaking out. Obviously you're meant to go straight to the police, but if you knew you had a tracking app on your laptop, would you be tempted to go and find it yourself first?

Well if you answered yes to that question you're not alone, with a huge 75% of Brits claiming they'd take the law into their own hands and attempt to retrieve a stolen laptop or smart phone themselves.

The study from LoJack for Laptops found that many people would be willing to go to great lengths to get their favourite gadgets back, with 37% admitting they'd beg, 20% would pay a ransom and a crazy 14% would even fly to another country to get it?! Come on guys, we get gadgets are expensive and important, but you're not Superman.

Interestingly women are nearly as likely to take the law into their own hands too, with 65% of them admitting they'd try to retrieve their gadgets in comparison to 74% of the men questioned.

Of course this doesn't just show a lot of the population fancy themselves as super heroes and really care about their gadgets, but it also points to the growing availability of tracking technology, like iCloud's Find my iPhone or the Hidden app.

The research was carried out by LoJack for Laptops in an attempt to show customers that they shouldn't just download any old tracking technology. LoJack for Laptops actually has a dedicated Theft Recovery Team on hand (we're not sure what that means but would like to think they have X-Men super powers and live in a lair), which work alongside the police to recover stolen laptops instead of encouraging people to go on a Kill Bill style mission of vengeance.

2,000 consumers took part in an independent survey from OnePoll on 28th October 2011.

When it comes to Christmas gifts we're all rather predictable creatures really, cuddly toys for kids, books for dads, cosmetics for mums, you get the picture.

Well this year we're daring you to push the boat out a little and try experimenting with a few different types of presents. Over the past few weeks we've been collecting together ten new products and gadgets that you (probably) never knew existed, yet they're all cool, quirky, practical and most importantly all make great gifts.

No you dirty minded people, we're not talking about 'naughty' gadgets (not today anyway), we're exploring a few gadgets, apps and even pieces of furniture that will make falling asleep and waking up that little bit nicer.

Duracell doesn't just make batteries, it's also launched a range of charging solutions to make sure you're never caught with zero battery no matter where you are or what you're doing.

We've all been there, your phone has been hovering at around 10% battery all day and then suddenly you have none and the screen goes dark. It's usually when you're following directions or desperately need to call someone and you get that scary, sick, panicky feeling that YOUR WORLD HAS ENDED. OK, just me?!

Regardless of how much you depend on your mobile phone, it's still really annoying to find you have no juice left. So Duracell wants to give you a lifeline with a range of small and compact charging solutions which you can use on the go, whether you're just commuting to work or travelling further afield.

We were sent a 5 Hour Portable Charger which plugs directly into our handsets and a Speedy Charger which charges up your batteries within an hour.

5 Hour Portable Charger

The handy little Portable Charger can be initially charged up from a normal plug socket and then it's kind of small enough to be kept in your handbag or laptop bag in case of emergencies. It has two USB ports, which means you can charge two gadgets at once whether it's a mobile phone, a music player, an eReader or even a Bluetooth headset.

Speedy Charger

The Speedy Charger charges up AA and AAA batteries within an hour, so whatever you need to power you can do so quickly and easily.

We know you'd rather be spending your pennies on something much more exciting, but the Portable Charger is so easy to carry and the Speedy Charger is handy for travel, so it's much better to be safe than sorry!

The 5 Hour Portable Charger is available from Amazon for £39.99.

HP has announced a new collaboration with big publisher Conde Nast, which means that subscribers can schedule the delivery of content straight to their printer from titles such as Allure, Glamour and Wired.

The new print-at-home service provides publishers with a new way to get their content seen and read. Julie Michalowski, the senior vice president of consumer business development at Condé Nast says, "this project is one of the many ways Condé Nast is using emerging technology to engage consumers [...] with this new HP pilot program, consumers will be able to have their favorite Condé Nast content at their fingertips."

The collaboration makes sense, but do we really want to print out our magazines?

When the Kindle was first launched there were those who lamented the death of the book and said that nothing beats reading words from physical bits of paper and I imagine there'll be plenty of people that feel the same way about magazines who the new service may well appeal to.

However, I do wonder whether the rise and rise of tablet devices means the publishers behind our favourite titles should spend less time giving us ways to read content physically and instead continue to develop their mobile and tablet offerings.

Would you ever print out your favourite magazine or just download the app?

[Image via]

Here's rather an interesting new product for cyclists. The makers of the HIOD One claim that it is the world's first sports communicator. It uses a Bluetooth-based system called PalTalk to provide an instant link with up to five other cyclists who can be up to 400 metres apart. It also works with mobile phone to enable the user to make and receive calls and stream music.

The device is compatible with voice activated phones, so you can simply bark your instructions to make and receive calls etc.

The HIOD One is designed to be attached to a bike's handlebar and sports a OLED display. There's also a control unit and earphones and microphone.

There's no details on price - if you are interested you need to email the manufacturers who are based in Sweden.

The Westfield Group opened its latest HUGE shopping centre in Stratford, East London earlier this month. It's got a cinema, a large hotel and its packed full of restaurants and shops.

Now we don't doubt that the centre would be ideal for shopping fans and fashion lovers, but here at Shiny Shiny we're much more interested in technology, so what does Westfield Stratford have to offer?

Well it's got an Apple store, Bose, GAME and Currys as well as a few more of our favourites, but today we were invited to look around the technology section of the John Lewis department store and we were really impressed with the hands-on shopping experience and huge range of products on offer.

Wacom is well known for its clever tablet and pen solutions, which aim to make all kinds of activities, from sketching to game development to image editing as easy and intuitive as possible.

The brand creates different kinds of interactive pen displays for specialist industries, the Cintiq range for animators and designers and we can't forget its impressive new Inkling product, which is basically the stuff an illustrator's dreams are made of, transforming images from ink-to-digital with one small pen.

However, Wacom also has a range of tablet and pen products called Bamboo, aimed at "normal" people who want to move around their computer with ease, annotate their work and dabble in Photoshop now and again. This week the Bamboo tablets have been re-launched, re-vamped and refreshed, so the devices don't just look much sleeker, but they're also even more responsive and impressive than their predecessors.

The new range consists of the Bamboo Pen & Touch, a black and lime wireless enabled tablet with a chunky stylus and express keys and the Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch, which is similar but comes with an impressive software suite of Photoshop and Artrage and a very MacBook-esque silver finish.

As I've got a MacBook and I'm not too keen on lime green, I decided to trial a medium-sized Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch for a few weeks and although it took a few days to get used to it, I found it made everything much easier and more intuitive. Although I'd like to hold it personally responsible for the fact I spent around five days in total just aimlessly doodling tattoo ideas and eyes.

The tablet

One of the biggest things to point out about the tablet itself is its super responsive multi-touchscreen with a range of multi-touch gestures that allow you to navigate around your PC or Mac quickly and easily.

The tablet also has a number of "express keys" down the left hand side, which at first I found a bit pointless, but once you've customised them yourself they become really useful and can save you a lot of time (well, a lot of seconds).

I was surprised at how slim and lightweight the Bamboo was, so it didn't prove too much of a pain to slot alongside my laptop while I've been on the move.

Oh and let's not overlook the fact it looks LOVELY, with its streamlined design, subtle silver finish and shiny black edging.

The pen

The stylus is really light and although it's a bit chunkier than a standard ball point pen it is very easy to hold and move around the tablet.

You simply slide your hand a centimetre or so above the tablet to move around the screen or tap it to scroll or click on something.

Just like the tablet's express keys, the pen has two buttons on its side that you can customise, so it's worth playing around with them.

Actually using it

In the past I've found that sometimes the devices which look and sound amazing don't really deliver in the long run, or just don't prove to be very useful on a daily basis.

Although the Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch does take some time to get used to, it makes photo editing and drawing a lot easier and everything else just generally much more fun.

I know a lot of people like to use Bamboo tablets for all kinds of things, scrolling, navigating, writing notes, you can use it for pretty much anything you can think of, especially since its advanced multi-touch screen means that it's very responsive to all kinds of gestures. However, I'm weirdly content with the MacBook's trackpad, so for me it was all about the drawing, photo editing and annotating. The surface of the tablet feels smooth, but almost paper-like, so once you've got the hang of the pen, drawing actually comes quite naturally.

The Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch comes with Photoshop and what I noticed the most was how working with a pen when I'm editing images as apposed to a mouse makes everything feel so much easier and more precise, going back to my trackpad just won't be the same :(.

If you feel a little intimidated by the Bamboo at first, then you can play around with a few of the product's dedicated apps, which let you practice and get used to the feel and rhythm of using a pen and tablet.

The range is available now from the Wacom website. The Bamboo Pen & Touch is £89.80, the Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch is £99.90 for the smaller version and £199.90 for the medium size we trialled.

According to recent statistics, people just aren't getting enough sleep, whether it's our crazy lifestyles, too much social networking or non-stop worrying, it seems our tired little heads are really paying the price.

The important thing is, getting good quality sleep every night doesn't just make you feel more refreshed the next day, it also has a direct impact on your overall health and wellbeing.

So, you can try some simple home remedies right now, like sprinkling lavender oil on your pillow, getting a warm bath or turning off all kinds of computers, phones and tablets before 8pm. But surely in this day and age isn't there an app to help us out?

Well, yes. There are plenty of applications available that are specially designed to help you monitor your sleep and wake up at the optimum time for your body, like Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock and Proactive Sleep Alarm Clock.

Although some people probably find these apps work well for them, at the end of the day they're only apps and there's only so much they can tell us.

A new product called Zeo Sleep Manager aims to go one step further than most of the solutions currently available and brings us a comprehensive system which will monitor how much sleep we're REALLY getting every night.

Already super successful in the States, the Zeo launches in the UK this week and we got the chance to have a hands-on (or heads-on!?) with the product.

The Zeo Sleep Manager Mobile consists of an app (both iOS and Android), bedside device and headband. Basically you wear the headband and its built-in sensors detect what's going on and send all kinds of information about how you're sleeping via Bluetooth to the app, meaning you can wake up in the morning and review how you slept. You can view how much time you spent in REM and Deep Sleep and also get a Zeo score which will tell you how well you're sleeping in comparison to other people your age.

However, the system isn't just about presenting you with flashy data, if you visit the MySleep section on the Zeo website you can keep track of your sleeping, as well as find online coaching tools to help you improve your sleep and find out what's going wrong.

We tried the Zeo out for ourselves last night and found it worked really well and gave us a VERY easy-to-understand reading with different colours representing different stages of sleep. The only thing I'd say is girls (or guys) with long hair should wear it up or you'll have a weird hair band, crease thing the next morning.

According to Zeo's CTO and co-founder, Ben Rubin, it takes a week to get a really accurate picture of how you're sleeping, so watch out for our views on the Zeo after we've tried it out for a whole seven days, as well as a hands-on video with the device and its app friend.

The Zeo Sleep Manager Mobile is available to pre-order now for £89.00.

In my eyes, Bose is all about the big, fancy speakers and headphones, the type of things I'll begin to think about when I'm a proper "grown up" and have money to throw away on pretentious electronics. But up until now they've always been put in the "out of my league box", along with designer shoes and Tom Hardy.

However, the brand's new speakers, which have been designed to pair up with any mobile device or MP3 player, are pretty special.

We got to have a hands-on session with the brand new SoundLink speakers at a preview event last night and although they do still come with a hefty price tag, the impeccable sound quality, robust casing and slick design means they're definitely worth saving up (or selling an organ) for.

Being mobile speakers, they've been specially designed to give you brilliant sound quality wherever you are and you can connect up any phone or MP3 device via Bluetooth. We tested out the speaker with a range of different tunes and even took it a good ten metres away from our phones and the quality wasn't compromised.

Another of the SoundLink's USPs is that it's SUPER durable. To prove this the crazy kids at Bose threw it around, pressed all the buttons hundreds of thousands of times with a special button pressing robot (who knew, eh?) AND exposed it to some homemade sea fog and it still looked good and worked well.

Now, although sound quality and durability is important, I do like things to look good too and Bose has done a good job at appealing to a few different kinds of people.

There's a premium version with chrome edging and a range of leather cases, which I don't doubt look fancy but aren't really my cup of tea. I was much more interested in the slightly cheaper nylon-covered models in cherry red and deep purple. You can also change your case if you get bored, playing up to our current obsession with personalising things and putting cases on ALL of our gadgets.

Now my only con would be (and I don't know if this is a testament to my weak arms), that the speaker was a little heavy, particularly if I'm taking it away with all kinds of other bags and things too. But, I'm willing to put that aside (for now) because it does sound amazing, better than my own ears in fact.

The SoundLink speakers come in at £259 for the nylon-covered model, and £299 for the premium LX version. They have different trims, different cases and different coloured speakers inside, but we were assured that the technology is EXACTLY the same.

We'll bring you a more detailed review in the next week or so.