Author: ChipChick.com

The world can rest a little easier tonight knowing that we’re one minute further away from nuclear annihilation then we were just a few days ago. The “Doomsday Clock,” has been moved from 5 to 6 minutes to midnight by a group of international atomic scientists. The scientists say that we owe this additional minute thanks to the efforts of world leaders to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons in their perspective countries, as well as from the global efforts to reduce global climate change.  

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists made this announcement at a press conference in New York. “We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons,” the board said in a statement. “For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material.”

The group has actually adjusted the clock 18 times since it was launched in 1947 in the midst of the cold war. So does anyone feel safer after reading this story? I mean, wow, a whole minute!

(Via the NY Daily News)

Slappa recently unveiled a new line of ladies laptop bags. From that collection we received a review sample of the sleek and sexy Loren bag. The bag’s Designer style, normally found in handbags, merges shape fully with business practicality. Nothing about the appearance of this bag says it is for laptops. It simply says minimalist elegance. It is the anti-type to the blaring pink women’s laptop bags we often spot on the market today. This is a bag that could seamlessly transfer from boardroom to boardwalk.

We say minimalist because there aren’t a lot of frills on this bag. The outside has two pockets, one on each side. One of them a zippered pocket, the other a slide in pocket. Inside there is a large padded plush lining laptop pocket. Opposite of that are a few little pockets for holding various small items. The largest would hold an iPhone and it’s charger. Mostly I found myself just dumping stuff in the vast void space between. There is lots of room there and it is amazing how much i could fit. I actually lost my camera for two days in it.

 

The custom finished faux leather is really quite impressive right down to the feel of it. The bag has an overall sturdiness to it that makes one feel safe to carry a laptop in it. Keeping in mind that this is a faux finish and not real leather, it takes a careful eye not to scratch it and ruin the illusion. The metal pieces are 5 micron plating so that they will not tarnish. Inside is a floral non obtrusive print that is muted.

The Loren comes with two shoulder straps and one attachable cross shoulder strap. I found the two shoulder straps perfectly sufficient though. It sits nicely on the shoulder and the two straps help to spread some of the weight more evenly and prevent your shoulder from dislocating on heavy bag days. It should be noted that this is a big bag. It is larger then my torso. Being made to fit a 15.4″ laptop it is definitely quite a presence to carry. When I have to carry such a large ever present bag, i don’t want to try to balance a purse awkwardly with it as well. It just doesn’t feel right. So i went about combining my purse with my new laptop bag and found that it just wasn’t meant to be. Not enough pockets! It just all ended up in a sad little mosh pit of purse items in the middle, which then resulted in a flustered me, elbow deep into the bag fishing for various items throughout the day vaguely starting to feel like a soccer mom looking for a band aid.

We also received the Slappa white diamond pillow netbook sleeve. The pearly white exterior is a raised soft material and the inside is a quilted silky  material. So it really is like a pillow for your netbook. There is a rear pocket for the cords and a sturdy zipper to hold the computer in snugly. It would fit nicely in the larger Loren bag.

Conclusion:

Overall, the Loren has great appeal as a laptop bag. The size is roomy as can be. Your laptop is definitely protected well. The style is unique and classy. Coming in at $79.99 on Slappa’s site it is a little on the pricey end, but this is a good example of getting value for what you pay for.

The good: Excellent exterior. Well padded interior for laptop. Plenty of space inside. Comfortable shoulder straps. Fashion is easily transferable to many different occasions.

The bad: More purse-like pockets would be helpful. Faux finish is easy to scratch.

Quirky is full of, well, Quirky products with great designs. I’m not sure what I love more, the awesome and unique little products, or the concept behind Quirky. At Quirky.com you can submit your own product ideas and the Quirky community will weigh in on your ideas. With enough feedback and interest you could have the next quirky product, distributing it to thousands of people, and earning good money along the way. Don’t have any great ideas floating around up there just yet? Take a look at everyone else’s ideas and help them out. You can even earn money from just influencing the production of a quirky product. You’re sure to enjoy yourself browsing around Quirky.com. My Quirky Split Stick and DigiDudes certainly came in handy during CES. Split Stick allowed me to keep business from pleasure on one flash drive. One side of the flash drive had hundreds of my CES pictures, while the other side had hundreds of wild pictures from the rest of Las Vegas (and other conventions……). Also, originally I thought the DigiDude just looked like a really sweet keychain, but it certainly served its purpose, extending into a portable camera tripod which enabled us to take some fabulous shots of the Chip Chick team. Now if I only had a PowerCurl and a Beamer I would have been unstoppable over there.

 

The Jitterbug J is a unique cellphone designed for those who are in need of a simple to use phone with big buttons and a display that uses big characters. Samsung has now teamed up with Jitterbug to create the Jitterbug J in red. This special edition of the phone is designed to encourage women to speak up against heart disease. It succeeds in doing this, by featuring health and wellness services and applications like “Daily Health Tips”, as well as a LiveNurse service that connects customers to 24-hour registered nurses offering medical advice and support. In addition, Jitterbug, together with Samsung, has donated $500,000 support of the American Heart Association’s 2010 Go Red Campaign to raise awareness about heart health for American women.

Rusty’s Wired Series is a new line of hooded fleeces that feature HB3 technology, which is essentially machine washable earbuds built directly into the drawcords. It looks like the new line will include fashionable designs for both men and women. Rusty’s design aesthetics tends to be California/surfer style, so we expect the collection’s pieces to be pretty hip. The Wired Series will be available in Fall 2010. Meanwhile check out the video

MusicSkins has just launched a whole line of Beatles skins designed for your cell phone, laptop, mp3 player or gaming device. They offer custom fit skins for basically any popular device. Choose from Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, Yellow Submarine, Let it Be, A Hard Days Night, Rubber Soul or other various Beatles skins. It’s a sticker with an interesting adhesive that leaves no residue and can be removed and reapplied many times while maintaining a strong grip. Not only does it look pretty sweet, but it’s nice knowing I can sell my iPhone on eBay next year nearly scratch free. The skin itself is very impressive, check out our review of MusicSkins here. So if you’re not bold enough to void your warranty with colorware, laser etch your device, or add a bulky case, MusicSkins safely gives your device that customized look without putting much of a dent in your wallet.

Brando has succeeded in coming out with yet another USB toy that we don’t need, but we want anyway. The USB Esc Keypress Light is a giant ESC key that works as a USB soft light lamp. Just press it and the lamp will switch between on and off. The USB Express Key Light retails for $16.

Poor BlackBerry, it may be a super popular phone but it doesn’t have nearly enough pretty cases available for it like the iPhone does. Fortunately, Speck has come out with their stylish fitted cases for the BlackBerry Tour 9630, BlackBerry Storm 2, BlackBerry Bold 9700 and the BlackBerry Curve 8520. These form fitting cases feature a two-piece snap together design made up of an interior soft-touch polycarbonate hard-shell lining and a dapper pattern on the outside in the form of a Tartan Plaid Gray, Black and White Plaid, or Black Pinstripe. The Speck Fitted cases for BlackBerry retail for $29.95.

Muc-off isn’t the most exciting product, but it’s a necessary one for any gadget owner that wants to keep germs away. This Biodegradable Device & Screen Cleaner is safe enough on all types of screens and it will completely clean the device, including the keyboard. It’s formula leaves a Streak Free finish with zero residue, it works quickly and kills 99.99% of all germs. It’s also ammonia and alcohol free. Last but not least, its formula is also biodegradable so it’s good for the environment. Unfortunately there is no word on pricing but Muc-Off should be affordable and it should be available to purchase soon.

iTamTam’s unique hour glass shaped iPod Speaker system is now available in an assortment of colors for their M1 Color model. We’re talking pretty much all the colors of the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, cyan, black, silver, pink and more. The m1 Color series will match perfectly with the latest gen iPod Nanos and it’s able to produce omnidirectional sound with its unique design and 70 Watt Class D amplifier, along with a 3.5mm jack, and a remote control. Pricing ranges begins at $400.

The Simpsons Unleashed is an Adobe Air app that has Homer Simpson keeping you company on your desktop while you work. The app also lets you play digital tricks on your friends and invite them to compete with you to see who becomes the Prince O’Pranks. First, invite your friends from Facebook to download the app. Then compete with each other to see who can send the most pranks to each other’s desktops. You’ll get scored for your pranks and even be able to win trophies. Some of the pranks include “Nuke your neighbor” – Who knew radiation was this much fun? and “Bomb-zai!” – What goes better with computers than soaking them with water? Because the Simpsons Unleashed is an Adobe Air app, it is also both Mac & PC compatible, or in Lisa’s case, it’s Mapple compatible.

Sony has announced a special new feature for Blu-ray discs that is going to first be available with Michael Jackson’s This Is It Blu-ray disc that will be released on January 26th. The feature, called movieIQ Sync essentially extends BD-live to your computer and iPhone. This new exclusive feature lets you easily find updated trivia and filmography related to the movie which synchronizes to the film. But not only does it help you find that stuff, it also lets you play the information on your computer or your iPhone so that your TV screen is freed up.

movieIQ also lets you create playlists from music played in the movie. These playlists can later be shared online via Facebook  and email. Unfortunately as much as this new feature is convenient, movieIQ Sync is hardly an exciting feature, and we can’t imagine how many people would ever bother using it. It seems like Sony is trying to attract more people to buying Blu-Ray discs, but we doubt that this will help all that much. Most consumers will probably just beat it.

Learning a language is something a lot of us want to get around to doing, but software like Rosetta Stone and regular old books are boring to use. Instead, how about having a robot teach you a new language? Talking Robo is a personal robot that can teach you to speak a new language, and it will even speak to you like a native speaker. This little bot features speech recognition and it understands natural language when you speak to it. It will also suggest what topics to talk about for practicing. On top of that, Talking Robo also features face recognition so that when the robot converses with a user, it will recognize the user’s face and be able to understand the user’s profile in order to converse with the user more appropriately.

This robot is so smart that it can even recognize images. So if you show it an image of an airplane, it will provide you with the correct pronunciation of the word airplane. Last but not least, the Talking Robo features a Beam projector for displaying novels and even watching movies, it also has an English dictionary and Encyclopedia, the ability to connect to the internet for updates and making calls, and you can even use it remotely to keep an eye on your home and kids.

Talking Robo is available in many different shapes and sizes, including a Panda type design named Anthony, a robot named Samuel an much more. Unfortunately, Talking Robo is not out yet and there is no word on his release date.

So you’re lying in bed reading and slowly you start to drift off, but before you do, you place your book on your nightstand. The next morning you discover that you ended up losing your page. The Bedside Booklight will make sure that travesty never happens again. This light is shaped like a house so that you can lay it down open on the roof. You’ll never lose your place in the novel again! The Bedside Booklight retails for $64 at Firebox.

Oregan Networks, has launched its applications store  for connected TVs and hybrid STBs that will let folks select and download services and applications onto their TVs. Widgets created by TV brands and retailers that utilize Onyx on connected TVs will be access this content. The store will enable consumers to select and instantly download services and applications on to their televisions. The primary purpose of the Onyx Widgetry store is to offer  content for user-selected download. Twitter, weather, sports, and news, will come pre-installed with Onyx, and there will be two additional sources for new applications. Once downloaded, some of these applications will serve as way to get access to paid content, such as movies and subscription TV services. Onyx Widgetry will offer both free and paid widgets, with pricing expected to vary depending content.

At CES, Covington Creations announced new decorative designs for their Earbud Yo-Yos. These audio cable organizers not only keep your wires tidy, but they also add some flair to a drab pair of earbuds. Some of the new designs include a leopard print, a soccer ball, a camouflage print, a tie-dye print, a zebra print and more. Each of them cost $16.99. (more…)

In an effort  to push the awareness of Project RED and also help fund it, Monster and Beats by Dr. Dre have announced the New Special RED Beats Solo HD.  All the money that RED makes off of these headphones will go to helping people suffering from Aids. Lady Gaga also announced that they are releasing a special Red Heartbeats headphones that will come with an acoustic version of Poker Face. The Red Beats Solo HD will retail for $229.95.

 

From the press release:

…the group announced a new Monster (PRODUCT)RED™ Special Edition Beats Solo Headphone, in which $5 from the sale of each product will go directly to the Global Fund to support AIDS programs in Africa that provide testing, counseling, treatment and other services for those affected by AIDS. In addition, the group announced that a special Heartbeats™ headphone will be developed for (RED) later this year.

Driving around in an unfamiliar place on an empty stomach is never fun. But before you pull into the McDonald’s drive thru, check out the Zagat 2010 America’s Restaurant Guide for your GPS, $29.99, a complete guide to restaurants that installs directly to your Garmin navigation system. The trusted paper back Zagat guide you know and love now comes complete on a SD card with all the features from the book such as restaurants based on price, decor, service, and quality of food. The SD card plugs into your nuvi or zumo Garmin GPS and quickly installs 20,000 of the top rated restaurants in 50 major U.S. cities and regions. What’s great about the guide is that it rates restaurants based on what you find most important; whether it’s decor, service, or cost. Within the nav system, you can save or favorite particular restaurants so it’s easy to revisit them or get turn-by-turn directions to the actual restaurant, rather than trying to remember that little hole-in-wall you ate at three years ago when passing through Reno.

Custom skins for your iPhone are cool, but designing your own case is even cooler. So it’s really a wonder why no one has come out with it sooner. I Make My Case allows you to create original compositions by re-mixing the graphics, designs and drawings of internationally renowned artists. Case-mate uses especial 3D printing process to embed the inks directly within the case, so no scratching or abrading with daily use. I Make My Case is launching for the iPhone specifically. Pre-designed cases will be available for $34.99 and customized made-to-order cases will be available for $39.99 per case.

Ion’s Toasty is truly the bastard child of a snuggy and an electric heating pad. This is the world’s first electric blanket with sleeves. With ION TOASTY, you can read a book, answer the phone, or type on your computer, all while staying toasty warm. Regular electric blankets are made for the bed, but ION TOASTY is specifically made for you to enjoy on the couch, in a chair, or anywhere else!