You've probably already read all about what I thought about the Miidio speakers, which use the surface they're resting on for amplification. But what happened when we used a Terribly Scientific Method to test out which surface is best? Watch on.
We all got quite excited about the prospect of this blocky - yet elegant - touchscreen with a QWERTY slider, feeling that it might well be the phone to challenge that Apple gadget in the touchy-feely usability stakes. Well, we've got our mitts on it now and the results are... mixed. Watch on for details.
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Miidio speakers are designed to use the surface they are resting on for amplification; basically what that means is that the speakers themselves produce a tinny, faint noise until placed on a hard surface - which can include glass, plastic and wood - at which point you get proper sound and resonance.
The UFO speakers are the mid-range option at £70, and they're surprisingly heavy to the touch. Despite being small, they feel like solid metal; they also come with a couple of leads, a mains charging cable and a battery box. One lead hooks up to any phone / iPod / MP3 player that has a 3.5mm jack or suitable adapter cable and the other to either the mains or the battery pack. I used a BlackBerry with a media player.
We love StumbleUpon around here, both for finding exciting new sites and for seeing how many people love us enough to Stumble pages around here. So I pricked my ears up at the mention of a new method of finding other sites and drawing new readers to Shiny Shiny.
I ended up quite disappointed, however, when I discovered that Me.dium, despite its flash looks, doesn't really do anything new, useful or interesting. You install the add-on for Firefox or IE, then log in and go browsing as normal. Me.dium registers where you are and gives you a little map of other relevant sites in your sidebar. These you can narrow down into specific fields by using category tabs such as technology, sport or news. Then there's the social element.
You get two ways of communicating with fellow browsers. You can either leave a general public message on the "talk" board that opens up at the bottom of the sidebar - the only option if you have no "friends" - or you can leave a private message for your friends. Should you move from one category to another, open chats will go with you, but other general talk on the board will change to reflect the area you're in.
Remember those mythical Hello Kitty vibrators? Well, as we know they've finally arrived, and Zara and Alex got a chance to play with them. Alex even uses one on Zara...
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When I first heard about the O2 Wallet, a little bit of wee came out. Imagine! You can call from your phone, and now, you can use it as your travelcard, pay for stuff with it, and get special treats from magical posters! What's not to love?
The thought of getting my hands on one of the trial handsets (along with 500 real trialists) was more than I could bear. And when I received said handset, I quickly got over the fact that it was just a really dull-looking Nokia 6131. After all, if you're going to integrate your phone, wallet and travelcard, you're going to need something suitably hard wearing. And hard wearing is what comes to mind when you see the phone.
It works via NFC (near field communications) technology, which is the same as what's being used in the new Visa Cashless system. In theory, it means you can press your phone to the Oyster card reader and have it register your travelcard, press it against the Visa Cashless points and have it deduct money from your account, and press it against posters to receive things like exclusive content. In theory.
Let's see how it fared.
Zara's plan to achieve superhero status takes a bit of a nosedive as she realises that anti-gravity boots do not allow you to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But you can look endearingly daft bouncing around.
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Susi takes a look at these cephalopod-inspired bendy speakers which can give you finely balanced sound thanks to their flexibility. Ah, but is this sound any good? Watch, listen and learn.
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I had a look at this nifty, waffer-thin little presenter and managed to use the word "little" more times than anyone can be bothered to count. But it IS little. So there.
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Zara takes a closer look at the teeny weeny super slim Archos 105 media player.
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Zara has some fun snapping and editing with this HP digital camera. The massive 3.6" touchscreen is impressive but touchscreens aren't always that easy to use. Watch on to see how she fared.
HP Digital Cameras and Printers
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Shiny goddesses Katie and Zara check out the tiny, ultra-light Linux-powered UMPC which retails at just £219.
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I love this hard drive. I love it not just because it works and it's pretty but because it broke the Shiny Towers HDD Curse. And that allowed me not only to try it out but also to compare it to the likes of Buffalo's Turbo Drive.
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When I first whipped this DAB radio out of its box, I wondered if there was somewhere to put my lipgloss... it really does look like a little clutch bag. These are proving a big hit at Intempo thanks to their winter colours and more affordable price, so I took a closer look.
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Our lovely Zara teams up with Hippyshopper's Abi to take a look at some pretty, low-energy LED fairy lights designed by Oliver Heath.
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I came across MatchKey whilst busy laughing at the fact that it was being advertised using a testimonial from a friend of mine, the blogger behind Virtual Economics - though his surname is spelled wrong. But MatchMine had the last laugh because once on the site, I was sucked in and created my very own MatchKey.
The MatchKey is, to look at, a visual representation of your likes and dislikes - blogwise, in relation to video, musically, filmically and demographically - which learns more about you the more you use it. What it doesn't learn is any private information. It will never know your email address or credit card number, but it will know about the Faith Hill album you hide behind your Arctic Monkey and Fratelli's indie-bloke-pop. And it'll travel with you and use that information to direct you to more media you'll find interesting.
Whoever would have thought it would get to the stage when the humble toothbrush would deserve a tech review of its very own. But when you have a wireless toothbrush that tells you things like how hard you're pressing on your teeth, you have to devote some space to it.
The Braun Oral-B Triumph works like a run-of-the-mill electric toothbrush. Plug in, charge, go. But once you go, interesting things start to happen. The wirelessly controlled Smart Guide tells you which setting - harder or softer brushing and polishing - you're using, how long you've been brushing for and whether you're brushing too hard.
The lovely Kat gets hands on with a couple of Nokia mobiles for your reviewing pleasure.
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Zara abducts the lovely Laura from The Bag Lady to review a handful of the coolest cases they could find.
Electric Baby-, blue bag from $42.50, cord case $12, sweater sleeve from $28
Laptop Stuff- Metstyle bag, £34.99, Melissa Beth bag, £107, Celly Meimei, £29.99
Sony Style--Disney bag, £24.95
The latest partnership between 3 and Skype has seen the release of a mobile handset that also enable free VoIP calls. Watch on to see the verdict when Susi tried it out for us.
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From: New BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing app makes conference calls a breeze