Retro iPod alarm clock

Over at Firebox.com you can find this really interesting alarm clock that is supposed to remind you of those old twin-belled alarm clocks. The cool thing with this one is that you can dock your iPod into it and hear your favourite songs as wake-up calls. Cool - a bit expensive though ($78).

Teddy USB memory

This teddy bear is nearly as cool as the Barbie topping my The top 10 weirdest USB drives ever. This teddy bear is also homemade and has a standard USB drive inside the body. I bet you have to be careful with this one to not scare the kids, hehe.

Pocket Plasma

Pocket Plasma, it's a funky club light system you can wear on your belt. Hyper-reactive to sound, this brilliant little gizmo pulses with a weird and wonderful web of multi-coloured lightning bolts that radiate from its core. You can either set it to 'On', where it will dazzle with a random network of bright neon colour light, or set it to 'Sound' where it will react to the slightest sound and movement sending out its coloured lightning bolts in time to music or flashing as you speak. The louder the sound the brighter the tendrils of light - it's really quite mesmerising.

Features
Mesmerising Pocket Plasma light system.
It's attachable practically anywhere you want thanks to the built-in clip on the back.
'On/Off/Sound' switch helps you to control your gizmo.
Lightweight design.
Requires 2 x AAA batteries (not included).
Suitable for ages 12 years+.
Size: 7 x 7 x 3.5 cm.
Pocket plasma has got two reacting modes:
'On' mode gives you a random network of bright lights.
When the Pocket Plasma to 'Sound' mode it responds to touch, voice and music.

The Pocket Plasma is an electric device so should be stored in a dry place, avoiding extremely hot and arctic conditions.

the Racing Grannies

Possibly the best wind-up toy ever invented, the Racing Grannies are to geriatric speedway what Ferrari is to Formula One. As anyone who has been on the receiving end of a Zimmer-frame will know, grannies are formidable movers with legendary stamina, and these delightful wind-ups are testament to their endurance. With expressions of steely determination and complete with go-faster cardigans, these two are just a few winds away from the race of their lives. It's time to have your own Gran National!

Features
Set of 2 wind-up grannies.
Clashing outfits, silver hair, droopy breasts and a snazzy zimmerframe.
Adjustable arms so the Grannies can be in 'Stand-up' mode or bent to 'Race' mode.
Made of plastic.
Presented in an illustrated box with witty captions.
Suitable for ages 8 years+.
Size: - Individual Granny: 8 x 6 x 4cm
Presentation Box: 15.5 x 11.5 x 7cm.
Whilst this product is technically suitable for those of 8 years and up, after extensive research (well, the office) we have discovered that the older you are the more hilarious you find this product.

The Gorilla Pod

At last some bright spark has invented a compact, tough and flexible travel camera tripod that actually works. The Gorilla Pod, that comes in both compact and SLR sizes, is an ingenious and versatile tripod that'll support your camera pretty well anywhere.
With three super flexible and yet sturdy bendable legs, it will cling to branches, tables, rocks, and create a stable platform on any surface however rough and uneven. The top of the tripod has a super-slim slip plate that you can keep fixed onto the bottom of your camera or video, and then just click into place whenever you need. The flexible joints in the legs can rotate through 360 degrees to form the perfect shape on any terrain.
Our photographer has worked all over the world on travel assignments (jammy so and so), and he's blown away by the compactness, strength and versatility of the Gorilla Pod, and reckons it's the best travel tripod he's ever seen. Whether you need the mini one for a small digital camera, or the large version for your SLR or Video, this tripod can take the strain, and knocks the socks off any other travel tripod on the market.

Features
A compact, tough and flexible travel camera tripod.
Available in compact and SLR sizes.
A slimline screw attachment so your camera stays connected on even the most uneven surfaces.
Three super flexible yet sturdy legs.
The legs have flexible joints that rotate 360°.
The legs have ring and foot grips to provide extra grip so your pods can cling to branches, tables and rocks.
Suitable for ages 16 years+.
Size:
Compact Pod:12cm leg length
SLR Pod: 19cm leg length.

Lifetimer

Time is so staggeringly elastic. The seconds of terrifying anticipation before your parachute opens stretch ahead of you like hours, the minutes before you have to get out of your warm bed to go to work flash by in a nanosecond. The Lifetimer clock lets you keep track of the important things in life in a wonderfully novel way. The clock face is surrounded by a collection of buttons relating to different aspects of your life, such as your next holiday, your next tea break, your birthday, the time you knock off from work, even the last time you had rumpy pumpy. Simply pressing any of these buttons will give you the number of hours, minutes and seconds you've got left (or that have passed in the case of some) till the event happens. Press, and it's only seven minutes and twenty seconds to your coffee break; press, and you've been in your current relationship for two years, three months, six days, ten hours, four minutes and twelve seconds, etc etc. It's a brilliant idea and great fun - in fact it's amazing quite how much time you can waste simply pressing the buttons to see how much time you're wasting. Watch the seconds left till you can go home from work tick away (backwards of course), or the days since you last made like a rabbit add depressingly up.
The Lifetimer - possibly the most interesting and interactive clock ever invented.

Features
The Lifetimer keeps track of the important things in life, counting up or down to momentous events like 'home time'.
An option to set the clock to 12 or 24 hour clock.
A stopwatch function.
The Lifetimer counts the days until your Birthday, Christmas, next holiday, lunch hour, home time, the weekend, the event of your choice.
The Lifetimer times how long it has been since you started your job, began your relationship, last had sex.
The calendar stretches up to the year 2050.
The Lifetimer is an interactive little thing, pinging away with date reminders and scrolling messages across its back-lit LCD screen.
Ergonomically designed.
Powered with 2 x AAA batteries (included).
Suitable for ages 12 years+.
Size: 8.5 x 9.4 x 8.5 cm.

Orgasmatron Head Massagers

The Orgasmatron sounds like a cross between a film prop from Barbarella and Woody Allen's Sleeper, and well it kind of is. These arachnid looking contraptions will have you tingling all over in a matter of seconds. Using the high conductivity of copper, the Orgasmatron's long and bendy arms pinpoint sensitive pressure areas in the scalp, and however hard you are, once someone gently applies this to your head you'll turn to jelly.
There are two versions available, the Original manual version, and the new Trembler version which is battery powered and has a two-speed vibrate capability for more full-on head massages. We don't really know the full scientific answer as to why they seem to render all victims helpless and crying out for more. It's about pressure points, copper, wobbly wire, nerve clusters and all sorts of other stuff we expect, but none of that really matters. All we care about is when is it our turn to have another massage!

Features
-The Original and The Trembler Orgazmatrons are both designed to gently massage the pressure points located on the head and the back of the neck.
-The Orgazmatrons' copper prongs can be spread out for massaging or pushed back to flat. The Original:
-Copper claw shaped head massager.
-Comes in a sexy red velvet pouch.

Size (when flat): 25.5 x 13 x 1.5cm. The Trembler:
-2 speed switch for soft/intense head massaging.
-Copper ripped claws that act as a conductor, tapping into your body's electrical fields.
-Requires 2 x AA Batteries (included).
-Size: 25 x 14 x 8cm.

Street Mice

Yes they're really quite silly, but despite ourselves we can't help but love these mice. Aside from the fact that they're good quality optical mice (how anyone can use a track-ball mouse is beyond us - all that slow inaccurate scrolling, and fluff in your socket - if you'll pardon the expression) you also don't get stuck with one of those blasted old mouse mats which are ghastly.
Ok, rant over, and we've lost all sense of sentence construction by now so we'll start again. The Street Racer and Tuscan optical mice are lightweight, have - hang on a minute, they've got headlights, nothing else matters. Except that they've got tail lights too! The headlights are always on, and the tail-lights go on every time you move, so frankly what else do they need to do. There's quite a lot of vroom vrooming in the office now - and boy do they look great at night.

Features
-The ever popular Street Mouse and its a racy relative,thesleek,andsportyTuscan Streetmouse.
-The model of the Tuscan Mouse is a replica of the TVR Tuscan car.
-The mice both have alloy-look wheels and blue LED head lights.
-Comes with standard right and left click buttons and a clickable scroll button.
Plugs into computer via PS2 or USB port.
-PC and Mac compatible.
-Colours may vary. Though both red and silver colours are equally attractive.
Suitable for ages 8 years+.
-Size: 12 x 6 x 3.5cm

Cube World

Behold a whole new world. Yes, they may just look like funky little cubes, but inside each one lives a very small person, albeit a two dimensional pixelated one. Nevertheless he's a dynamic, interactive, multi-talented and behaviourally erratic little dude that'll provide you with hours and hours of useless entertainment. Cube World is a terrific concept, a place populated by stick people who get up to all sorts of tricks. Each cube has its own inhabitant, with their own set of tricks, games and general odd behaviour. Slim, Dodger, Scoop, Whip, Handy, Dusty, Mic, Hans, Chief, Toner, Dash and Sparky will get up to all sorts of stuff, like playing basketball, juggling, snake-charming, the list is as long as it is random. Not only can they entertain themselves, they're also interactive and will react to you pushing buttons on the cube, and are motion sensitive - so roll the cube around and they'll crash about too. As well as being an individual blast to play with, they can meet and play with each other. Click the cubes together, side by side or on top of each other, and they'll interact with each other, playing games, hopping from their own cube into someone else's, even having a punch up!
You can connect up to sixteen cubes together in any combination, and you never can tell what the little dudes will get up to. They're deeply cool, compellingly random and you just won't be able to help yourself becoming unhealthily attached to your own little world.

Features
Pack of 2 interactive cubes with LCD displays.
Each cube has its own stick character with their own personality and games.
Each cube contains a motion sensor so when you turn or shake the cubes the characters will react.

Characters available are:
Series One: Scoop and Slim (in one pack) or Dodger and Whip (in another pack).
Series Two: Handy and Dusty (in one pack) or Mic and Hans (in another pack).
Series Three NEW: Chief and Sparky (in one pack) or Toner and Dash (in another).
Cubes can be played with individually or can be connected to create a 'Cube World'.
Once connected the characters can interact, visit each others cubes, play, pester and protect each other.
A maximum of 16 cubes can be played together.
Action buttons start the games and interactions.
Stick games include:

Slim: showing off his pull ups, Dodger: bouncing
Scoop: playing with his dog, Whip: jumping ropes.
Handy: fixing things, Dusty: constantly cleaning
Mic: spinning on his decks, Hans: working out
Chief: in Police Training, Toner: amongst paper pile-ups
Dash: dashing around with parcels, Sparky: putting out fires
100 animations are possible in Cube World, ranging from group hugs to bungee jumping.
A Sleep Mode that self-activates after 4 minutes of no activity.
Sound control for silent or noisy play.
High Score recorder.

Cube colours: -
Slim: purple, Dodger: red
Scoop: orange, Whip: yellow
Handy: blue, Dusty: green
Mic: pink, Hans: turquoise
Chief: blue, Sparky: red
Dash: green, Toner: grey
Suitable for ages 8 years+.
Requires 1 x CR2032 battery per cube (included).
Size: - individual cube: 4.7 x 4.7cm.
Presentation box: 15 x 9 x 9cm.

USB Turntable Vinyl to MP3

The ION USB deck turns the past into the future. A remarkably rapid march of time has seen the media for music transformed from vinyl to tape to CD and now to MP3. In the headlong rush there's a lot of music that's been left behind, which is where this brilliant piece of kit comes in. Whether you've a stack of old 45s, 33s or even 78s (gawd bless you), you can now convert them to MP3s with this USB Turntable.
Obviously it works like any regular turntable, but plug a USB cable into the back of it and then into your computer, and with the software provided you can convert your vinyl into WAV, WMV and MP3s. You can even plug a tape deck into an auxiliary port and convert your old cassettes.
The software makes the transition easy to manage, and is also bundled with a trial version of Bias Soundsoap 2 for cleaning and restoring crackly tracks. It was so nice to get out some of our old vinyls that we hadn't listened to in years, and then pop them into our iPods to take around with us. The conversion of an album is done all in one go, you simply split up the tracks and name them, and you can even record them at double speed to save time and the software will convert them back to 'real' time. It was such a joy to dust off our vinyl and bring it back to life after all these years - we ended up listening to albums we hadn't heard in years.
The ION USB turntable includes Audacity software for Mac/PC for recording as well as a trial of Bias Soundsoap 2 for cleaning and restoring vinyl.
This product is compatible with any software that supports USB audio input sound cards - simply plug it into a spare USB port - it requires no special drivers for Windows (98,2000,XP,Vista) or Mac (OS9 and above).
Features
A super sleek adjustable pitch belt drive turntable.
The turntable includes:

• A slipmat.



• A counterweight.



• A platter (no, not for your dinner).



• A USB cable.



• A pre-mounted cartridge with Stylus.

Includes Audacity software for Mac/PC recording as well as a trial of Bias Soundsoap 2 for cleaning and restoring vinyl.
Line level RCA outputs to connect up to your stereo.
33 and 45 RPM Buttons (78's are played at 33 and then converted by the software).
Adjustable Anti-Skating control for increased stereo balancing.
High speed vinyl recording
A CD with Mac/PC Recording Software.
Full instruction manual.
Suitable for ages 12 years+.
Requires a PC running Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, a MAC running OS9 or higher and a USB port 1.1 or higher.
The USB Turntable is compatible with any software that supports USB audio input sound cards - simply plug it into a spare USB port - it requires no special drivers for Windows (98,2000,XP,Vista) or Mac (OS9 and above).
If you are running Windows XP Media Center Addition, you will need to upgrade to XP Home or XP Pro in order to use any USB Class Compliant device like the USB Turntable.
Please note that the turntable is not compatible with Macs with Pentium chips.
Requires a USB port to power the turntable, alternatively you could insert a UK adaptor plug (not included).

Size: - Product weight: 12lbs
Turntable: 42 x 37 x 14.

Please note: USB Turntable is not compatible with Sony Vaio computers.

By default the turntable converts tracks to WAV (high quality uncompressed) files. To convert the WAV files to mp3, you can download the free software that the program points you to or alternatively we here at IWOOT tend to use Acoustica Plus for all our music file conversions, because it's an excellent multi-format music file converter that works direct through windows explorer, and is well worth the ten or so quid it costs.

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