Smartphone Gaming Controller from HK
You don’t find too many Kickstarter projects emanating from Hong Kong but we’ve found one that truly merits our support. The PhoneJoy Play is a compact, extendable gaming controller developed in HK which attaches to all Smartphones running iOS or Android. Instead of messing around with clumsy touch screen controls - and only being able to see half the screen because of your sausage fingers - you simply snap on the PhoneJoy Play and game away. The MTR crowds will be in awe.
USB Audio Jack Radically Improves Computer Sound
The DragonFly is a USB stick that boosts the sound coming out of your computer to an unparalleled degree. Imagine - you're watching that scene from Apocalypse Now and instead of hearing "DAN, DAN, DAN, DA", you hear "tin, tin, tin, ti." That's not just weaker volume we're poorly trying to express but inferior sound. If you're watching a flick you want to hear the juicy bits. Imagine Jenna Haze without a decent treble range? It's unthinkable - and we haven't even got to listening to music yet...
Chai Wan Workshop
Angry Lane is a custom motorcycle shop in Chai Wan developed by the Barras brothers and another partner called James. The trio have always been passionate about bikes and set up the business on the side about a year ago. To begin with they only sold motorcycle parts but a few months back they started going the whole hog (pun intended) and delivering full builds. You’d have to be very unlucky to run into the Hell’s Angels in HK so it’s a good chance to join the leather brigade without losing a finger.
Iconic Car Reborn in a Bike
Every man loves a Delorean - even the name sends a tingle to your nether regions - and now the iconic car manufacturer has produced a bicycle bearing its hallowed name. Sure, a bicycle doesn’t have quite the same ring as a flying time machine, but it's still pretty cool. Buy one of these and you go from being a limp-wristed cyclist who can't (or won't) buy a car and turn yourself into a Delorean crusader. That’s a world of difference.
HK Video Game with All Star Cast
Sleeping Dogs is a newly released video game for PlayStation and Xbox that's set in Hong Kong and features an all-star Hollywood cast. Key voice-overs come from the likes of Lucy Liu, Emma Stone, Tom Wilkinson and Edison Chan which just goes to show how lucrative gaming has become. The fact is we live in a gamer's world - last year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 took $775 million in five days. It must be turning the school playground hierarchy upside down.
Solar Powered Speaker Starts Shipping
The Etón Rukus Solar speaker caused quite a stir at this year’s CES, and now the eco-friendly portable speaker has started shipping. The gadget looks a little clumsy, and this tragic video of a group of mates hanging out around the device is hilarious, but we think it’s still a winner for summer. A summer, of course, when the Hong Kong sun god shines (where’s he been?) otherwise this gadget won’t get above Volume 2.
An ultra-rare Ferrari has become one of the world's most valuable cars after it was sold at auction for a staggering £4million.
Jambox Gets an Upgrade
The original Jambox is our favourite wireless portable speaker so we’re delighted that Jawbone has unveiled a bigger version called Big Jambox. It’s nearly six times the size of the lightweight version which makes it less portable but more of a party. The number of times Jambox has saved us from awkward silences is staggering, not to mention the number of arguments about which colour looks best. Seriously, we’re that sad.
The latest creation from Porsche Design is a private bar designed in collaboration with Johnnie Walker Blue Label.
Prototype makes maiden flight while the company behind it is raising funds to take the hyrbid into commercial production.
Movie theater on your face
The Epson Moverio BT-100 is a battery-powered movie theatre headset that's marginally less ugly than a pair of glaucoma sunglasses. Fortunately, it more than makes up for its design by providing the type of 3D-capable 80" screen you dream of having after taking your glaucoma "medicine".
Refurbished Polaroid for the 21st Century
The Impossible Project has given a boost to Polaroid lovers the world over by releasing the SX-70 Black. The camera takes us back to a time when you held photographs in your hand, rather than looked at them on a computerised slideshow with annoying music playing in the background that you can’t seem to turn off. We take more photos than ever before, but because of the increased volume, we care less about them. But it’s time for a backlash.
VICE gets inside the largest military trade show in the world where generals chit chat before purchasing weapons to destroy each other.
Cool Chinese Lomography Camera
Lomography is an analogue photographic genre that's just introduced the Diana F+ Cai Guo-Qiang camera. The limited edition snapper commemorates an exhibition by Cai Guo-Qiang in Doha which explores the artist's hometown of Quanzhou, China. We all know how crazy the Chinese go over anything limited edition - witness the frenzy over 'special money' we saw a couple of months ago - so this beauty could light the blue touch paper.
Cool Fridge Disguised as a Speaker
Some products reek of cool and the Marshall Fridge is one of them. It does exactly what it says on the tin (it’s a fridge that looks like a Marshall speaker) and it makes you want to be a rock star. Or at least play Guitar Hero in you living room at full volume with icy lagers pouring out of the fridge, surrounded by gorgeous leather bound women calling you their demi-god.
iPhone Case with a Brain
The Intoxicase is a cool if slightly fanciful iPhone case which combines a bottle opener with an app and some other jolly features. It's handy for junks or trips to the beach but it's also got a purpose at home because bottle openers tend to go missing. Their ever-mysterious location might relate to your state of mind in which you use them, but there's no denying they've got a penchant to disappear.
Disguised Hipflasks for the 7s
Smuggling booze into the 7s is a worthwhile task, not only because you save a penny and skip the mammoth queues, but in the case of Binocktails, you'll have a laugh while you’re at it. Their hipflasks look like every day objects but they’re just shells you can fill with your favourite tipple. An eagle eyed security man would realise your Blackberry is in fact a Bev-Berry (we like) but you’re not going to be taking it through HKIA. And for everything else it works just fine.
Speaker Solves Device's Key Problem
The major flaw of the iPad is its puny speaker. It’s less effective than the UN envoy to Syria but fortunately we’ve come across Zooka. It provides five times the sound of the iPad’s built-in speakers, attaches to the top of the gadget, and sets you up for the most outrageous YouTube sharing sessions known to man. ‘Related Videos’ are the devil incarnate.
No More Key Hassles
Lockitron is a new door locking system that uses your smartphone so you never have to use a key again. We’ve all thought it would be a good invention (locked out on our doorstep with nobody inside) but none of us ever followed through. Critically, if you’ve forgotten your phone the key still works so you’ve got double the chances of getting back in. And apparently we lose keys more frequently than phones so either way you're in the money.
Hollywood Legend in Bike Form
The great estate of the late, great Steve McQueen has joined forces with Triumph to create a limited edition motorcycle that's the epitome of cool. Sure, you might be terrified of a big motorbike - a 50cc scooter in traffic free Vietnamese countryside is all we can handle - but you have to take your hat off to this beauty. There's not only a story behind the engineering but only 1,100 are being built - all individually numbered.
Slick Portable Wireless Speaker
The Jambox is the benchmark for portable wireless speakers but it's finally got some competition from the eSupply EES-SP021 which is classy in all but name. Can you imagine asking your friend if he'd remembered it:
'Did you bring your EES-SP021?'
'No Darth.'
It does actually look like something from Star Wars, or perhaps the sleeve for transporting a nano virus that Tom Cruise, shudder, has to save the world from.
Magic Stones Keeps Coffee at Perfect Temperature
We love the future because we’re living in it. Coffee Joulies are newly released stone-like gadgets which chill your coffee when it’s too hot and then heat it up when it gets too cold. It’s a great innovation because coffee gets colder quicker than a girlfriend spotting you leaving the Crazy Horse. It means the end of keeping your coffee in a thermos or adding a dash of tap water only to forget about it until it’s too late.
Portable Projection Mouse & Keyboard
The Magic Cube projects a mouse or keyboard onto flat surfaces which liberates you from the small buttons on your smartphone or iPad. It’s the stuff of the future and has cropped up in many a pub conversation. “One day, we won’t even have computer screens. We'll just have gadgets that project on to…” This device is the commercial birth of that fantasy. We can only imagine what it means for pornography.
Cool & Affordable Watch Winders
SPIN-R produces watch winders that are green, offer value for money and look pretty slick as well. You don’t buy a smart watch without being able to maintain it but watch winders are also cool in their own right because they appeal to man’s love affair with gadgetry. They’re mechanical devices designed to serve other mechanical devices (watches) and what could be more masculine than that? Or more confusing to the opposite sex.
Portable Personal Clean Energy Generator
The nPower PEG Personal Energy Generator is as handy as it gets. Powered by passive kinetic energy, you simply carry the device in your pocket while it charges up to power your own gadgets. The amount of times you're watching a film in transit but your iPad runs out of battery just as Bruce Willis is about to apply the coup de gras is phenomenal; making this perhaps the simplest solution to a very new age problem we've ever seen.
Hopefully you’ll have been well behaved this year because come Christmas time you’re going to want a lot of this stuff. You don’t actually need any of it but you’ll want it so much you'll feel like you do. So, in no particular order, here are a few things you should forward around the world with an eye on the 25th.
Video gaming has been around for decades but in the last few years the industry’s revenue has outgrown Hollywood’s and left bodies in its wake. Real bodies. We discovered what gaming has become.
