An iPhone to Match Your Kicks

Here's a fashion tip that's certain to turn heads. The tight slide and smooth glide of an iPhone 'Incase' is a must have if you're all about gadget protection. Pulling off a classic mix-and-match affair with your iPhone case and a new pair of Nike Air Max is certain to land you a top spot on VH1's 'Tool Academy'.

Sporting this copper and fluorescent green matching combo will instantly transform your look from bland to blammo! From nerd to... WORD! Or maybe something even better.

It's been rumored of late that certain iPhone case makers are working closely with sneaker manufacturers to release branded cases with color palettes matching their latest designs. Creating a Mac-tastic pairing impossible for any true iPhone fashionista to resist. Just add a coordinating belt and a you'll be rockin' 1980's retro chic.

$34.95 by Incase [photo credit] [Style Guide: Space Invaders]

Roll n' Pour: A Rocking Chair For Your Gallon Jugs...........Really people??

If you came here looking for rocking chairs for your gigantic boobs, sorry to disappoint. This gadget "takes the worry out of pouring liquids from gallon jugs, half-gallon jugs and 2-liter bottles."

The weak and enfeebled can now pour liquids safely and confidently—without annoying spills or stress to shoulders and elbows. It's available for $16. [Amazon via BookofJoe]

Aaaah, College: Russian Beerbong Roulette ....... i must own this!!!!

I remember one time in college I got so drunk I thought the electrical cord to the mini-fridge was my belt. Long story short: the milk went bad. Anyways, beer roulette: not as fun as beer darts, but how can you compete with the excitement of potentially piercing a friends nads (you can't!).

You fill the barrel in the center with beer (it holds up to two liters) and then you take turns with your companions at pulling out the bottles underneath it. The right bottle will unleash a torrent of amber pain into the unfortunate puller's gullet.

Amber pain? More like amber pleasure. And do you automatically win if you pull all the bottles at once? Yes, you do. Glug glug, bitches, glug glug. Also, that guy in the picture fails at proper bonging technique. But I do like how the chick in the back is drinking wine straight from the bottle. Marry me?

Russian Roulette Beer Bong Only Good for Irresponsible Frat House Fun [uberreview]

Rubik’s Cube Goes Touch Technology

We're having a tough time recalling the last year in which not one, but two new Rubik's Cube spinoffs were launched, but sure enough, the Rubik's TouchCube is gearing up to join the Rubik's 360 at the American International Toy Fair. Christened the "first completely electronic, solvable Rubik's Cube," this one maintains the shape of the original but replaces the colored stickers with actual lights. Users ready to engage their minds simply hit the scramble button on the cube, and then rearrange the blocks by swiping their finger. There's no mention of when this will take store shelves by storm, but we're pretty sure it'll be around for the pre-Christmas rush. Oh, and you know you can't wait to hack one, which was darn near impossible on the analog version. In-action video is just past the break.

USB Plasma Heart spectacularly displays your love......LAME!!

Is there a love burning so deep inside you that you feel the need to express it in the most ostentatious way possible? Look no further than this USB Plasma Heart from Brando.
Set this up beside your computer and it'll serve as a constant reminder of the flames of desire that consume your heart like an inferno that can never be quenched. Your coworkers' comments of "Oh, one of those plasma balls. Neat," may not capture the depth of your torturous emotions, but when you touch the surface — and the pulses from the center erupt to meet your fingertip — you'll know that the $17 you spent bought a priceless window into your soul. More importantly… she'll know.

Workflow charts finally put to good use, show fundamental Men Vs Women Differences

It's Friday. You are the office, watching another Powerpoint by Jimmy, the product development bozo. "Stupid Jimmy," you think, "these are the only three workflow charts we need after this long work week." UPDATED

Now my question is: Is it really this way? Because one of the most delightful, smartest, and sexiest woman I've ever met was drunk after three hours in a bar drinking beer with orange slices in it, while that night I was drunk with cocktails and my drinks matched my shoes. And I pee sitting down. At least at home, because it's more comfy, but that's another story.

60% Of The Time, It Works Every Time: Anchorman's Sex Panther Cologne

Now you can buy officially licensed Sex Panther cologne from the movie for only $30 per 1.7-oz spray bottle. No word if it's made with real panther bits or smells like gasoline, but if I had to guess, I'd say wear Old Spice. You'll remind women of their grandfathers. And that, dear reader, will leave more chicks for me. Thanks, suckers!

Product Site

The scent of a man

To attract a woman by wearing scent, a man must first attract himself

HE very word “perfume” has feminine overtones to many male ears. Men can be sold “deodorant” and possibly “aftershave”, but the idea of all those dinky little bottles with their fussy paraphernalia is too much for the sensitive male ego. Yet no industry can afford to neglect half its potential market, and perfume-makers are ever keen to crack the shell of male reticence. Now they may know how to do so.

Craig Roberts of the University of Liverpool and his colleagues—working with a team from Unilever’s research laboratory at nearby Port Sunlight—have been investigating the problem. They already knew that appropriate scents can improve the mood of those who wear them. What they discovered, though, as they will describe in a forthcoming edition of the International Journal of Cosmetic Science, is that when a man changes his natural body odour it can alter his self-confidence to such an extent that it also changes how attractive women find him.
Click here to find out more!

Half of Dr Roberts’s volunteers were given an aerosol spray containing a commercial formulation of fragrance and antimicrobial agents. The other half were given a spray identical in appearance but lacking active ingredients. The study was arranged so that the researchers did not know who had received the scent and who the dummy. Each participant obviously knew what he was spraying on himself, since he could smell it. But since no one was told the true purpose of the experiment, those who got the dummy did not realise they were being matched against people with a properly smelly aerosol.

Over the course of several days, Dr Roberts’s team conducted a battery of psychological tests on both groups of volunteers. They found that those who had been given the commercial fragrance showed an increase in self-confidence. Not that surprising, perhaps. What was surprising was that their self-confidence improved to such an extent that women who could watch them but not smell them noticed. The women in question were shown short, silent videos of the volunteers. They deemed the men wearing the deodorant more attractive. They were, however, unable to distinguish between the groups when shown only still photographs of the men, suggesting it was the men’s movement and bearing, rather than their physical appearance, that was making the difference.

For Unilever and other manufacturers of men’s scent, this is an important discovery. The firm’s marketing of its main product in this area, a deodorant called Lynx, plays up the so-called “Lynx Effect”—which is supposed to make men irresistibly attractive to women. Dr Roberts’s experiment, however, suggests that the advertised “Born chicka wah wah” of the product may have nothing to do with a woman’s appreciation of the smell, and everything to do with its psychological effect on the man wearing it.

Nor is this the only example of science illuminating the true role of perfumes. How they work to make people attractive is, as this example shows, not as obvious as it might seem.
Born chicka wah, ker-ching chicka ching

There are three broad theories of perfume use. One is that people employ it to mask body odours that they perceive as bad. The second is that some perfumes contain chemicals that mimic human pheromones—elusive, mysterious (and possibly mythical) substances believed by some to play a role in mating. The third is that people use it to heighten or fortify natural scent, and thus advertise sexual attractiveness or availability.

All three theories could be true. In particular, the role of perfume as an olfactory disguise is obvious. Even here, however, there are some subtle twists. Bad smells are not just a matter of poor hygiene. Illness and old age both bring characteristic odours of their own, and neither state makes people more attractive. Perfumes may spoof these messages. Hence the marketing of a new scent called Ageless Fantasy, by Harvey Prince, which claims its product disguises the “odour of ageing”, suggested to be caused by the breakdown of a particular fatty acid in the skin.

As to pheromones, whether humans have these is questionable. A pheromone is a chemical that elicits a specific behavioural response at a distance. Some insects, for example, can release sex pheromones that will attract a mate from many kilometres away. The most likely human candidate is a substance called androstadienone. This is a derivative of testosterone that is found in men’s sweat and is known, from brain-scanning studies, to promote activity in parts of women’s brains. That this results in changes in behaviour has not, however, been clearly demonstrated.

Terri Molnar, a spokeswoman for the Sense of Smell Institute, a research organisation in New York tied to the fragrance industry, says of human pheromones, “I think we believe they exist but they do not function as an attractant. They will elevate one’s mood but not attract a mate.”
The fallen sons of Eve?

The most interesting area, though, is the interaction between perfumes and natural scents that carry messages but do not have the specific properties of pheromones. Odours co-ordinate a wide range of human behaviour. Mothers can recognise their children by smell. Children can recognise each other. Relatives can be distinguished from non-relatives, even to the extent of understanding who is genetically different enough from the smeller to be a good choice of mate. The sexes themselves smell different, too, and women can glean information about a man’s social status from his smell alone.

As long ago as the 1950s, a perfumer called Paul Jellinek noted that several ingredients of incense resembled scents of the human body. It was not until 2001, however, that Manfred Milinski and Claus Wedekind of the University of Bern wondered whether there was a correlation between the perfume a woman preferred and her own natural scent. They found that there is.

The correlation is with the genes of what is known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). This region of the genome encodes part of the immune system. It turns out that one of the most important aspects of mate choice in mammals, humans included, is to make sure that your mate’s MHC is different from your own. Mixing up MHCs makes the immune system more effective. The MHC is also thought to act as a proxy for general outbreeding, with all the hybrid vigour that can bring. Fortunately, then, evolution has equipped mammals with the ability to detect by smell chemicals whose concentrations vary with differences in the MHC of the producer.

That means people are able to sniff out suitable MHC genomes in prospective partners. A woman, for instance, will prefer the smell of T-shirts that have been worn by men whose MHC genes are appropriately different from their own. Dr Milinski and Dr Wedekind also found an association between a woman’s MHC genes and some of her preferences for perfume. Perception of musk, rose and cardamom is correlated with the MHC. Perception of castoreum and cedar is not.

Women, it seems, choose not the kind of smell they would like on a partner, or even one that might mask a nasty odour of their own, but rather something that matches their MHC. In other words, they are advertising their own scent.

There are many useful inferences that might be drawn from this research. One would be that a woman’s choice of perfume will resist the vagaries of fashion. This may explain why most innovation in the industry involves changes in packaging and marketing, producing all that fussy paraphernalia, rather than changing what is in the bottle.

Another implication, says Dr Roberts, is that it is probably best that people choose perfumes for themselves rather than for someone else—unless they happen to know what the recipient likes. If you have made a good genetic choice of partner (ie, someone with a significantly different MHC), then the theory suggests that you should not be able to choose something that smells nice to them based on your own preferences. You might, though, have better luck choosing for a close relation, because she would probably have an MHC similar to your own.

The research also raises the question of what so-called unisex perfumes are for. In any genetically successful love match, one of the partners ought to hate a unisex perfume. Perhaps, in a world of olfactory fakery, this is one tip for the wise. If your partner has a strange knack of being able to pick out all the right perfumes, this may not be a good sign at all. And that, of course, means that the best you can hope for this Christmas is that he has bought you a perfume that you absolutely hate.

Benny Gold's

One of our industries most prolific and visible designers, Benny Gold’s work is now readily available in the form of protective MusicSkins. Two styles are available, the “Argyle” and the “Trusted” which are applied over a number of different functions. From the conventional forms such as iPods and cellphones comes new applications to things such as Guitar Hero and Rockband controllers. The items are available now at MusicSkins.com with a 20% discount upon using the “HOLIDAY” promo code.

The Votes Are In: BlackBerry Storm Sucks

Though Verizon says the Storm is its fastest selling handset yet, the touchscreen phone is also generating more negative buzz than any BlackBerry before.

Consumers and journalists are beating the Storm to a bloody pulp, with very few defending Research In Motion's response to the popular iPhone.

The most vicious review on the Storm comes from New York Times columnist David Pogue. He ripped the Storm to oblivion last week, calling it the "BlackBerry Dud." And on Thursday he published some reader responses that couldn't agree with him more.

"Having tried the Storm on two different days to make sure it was really as bad as it seemed the first time, I too find it unbelievable that these are for sale," a reader wrote to Pogue. "Verizon should just box all these Storms up and send them to Toys R Us, who can sell them in the Brainteaser section, right next to the Rubik's Cubes."

Verizon and RIM unleashed the Storm on Nov. 21. Sporting a 4-inch touchscreen, the handset is Verizon's attempt to compete with Apple's phenomenally successful iPhone. The resonating complaints about the Storm suggest the handset is not going to pose a threat to Steve Jobs' revolutionary phone.

Wired.com's Danny Dumas wasn't too pleased with the Storm, either: His major complaint was the operating system is a piece of garbage that doesn't do justice to "a piece of hardware this gorgeous."

And a quick Twitter search doesn't display much love for the Storm.

"Coworker just got a new Blackberry Storm," tweets Jeff Casemier. "It is a wonky P.O.S. Just F.Y.I."

The complaints are likely only to get worse and more widespread: The phone's only two weeks old, and Verizon says the Storm is selling as fast as bacon-wrapped hot dogs outside a bar.

We're eager to hear what Gadget Lab readers have to say. Any of you out there with a Storm? How's it treating you? Let us know in the comments below.

Dr. Dre-approved Monster Beats in-ear headphones roll deep for $150

Seriously, we feel a little more street just by lookin' at these things. The followup to the smashing over-the-head Beats headphones are here, and yes, they deliver sound so big, you'll think you've got speakers in your ears (Dre's words, not ours). They also feature what's touted as the planet's first "tangle-free earphone cable," in-ear noise isolation and a trio of cone tips to ensure the most comfortable fit for every gangster's ear. Get your "ding ding dong... ring-gading ding ding dong" on in one to two weeks for $149.95. Holla.

NIXON 2008 WINTER HEADPHONES COLLECTION

Launching this month, the Southern California watchmakers will release a collection of premium headphones including three models featuring stainless steel exteriors, durable nylon, and custom molded foam.

The Master Blaster (an over-ear studio quality headphone), The Nomadic (an on-ear travel headphone) and The Wire (an in-ear headphone) were all built from the ground up after two years of research and design, with retail price points between $40-$200 USD.

Umbuster Brass Knuckle Umbrella Now For Sale

The internet design concept phenomenon known as the Umbuster has finally jumped out of that nightmare you have about an old man beating you to a pulp in the street into cold, hard reality. That's right—you can start using this knuckle-dusting umbrella to bust up rainclouds and jawbones right now for the equivalent of $287 (assuming that it is legal to own in your area that is).

Will Verizon stop blue ballling me please!!!

BlackBerry Storm Priced at $200, Delay Caused by Software

According to the deep throats at Verizon, we will have to wait a little bit longer to buy the BlackBerry Storm. The original November 14 launch date has been delayed as we'd heard because of a "software glitch." It also looks like it's now headed on direct collision course against the iPhone, specially for businesses: "The price will be no more than $89.99 for companies," with a 2 year contract. Seems like Research In Motion and Verizon are feeling the heat as the iPhone keeps pushing up in the enterprise. But how much would it be for the rest of us and what is the "final" release date?

It will be available for $199.99 with a two year contract. For companies the price will be no greater than $89.99, also with a 2 year contract.

Snowball Blaster means mutually assured destruction for your wintertime enemies

In the snowball fighting arms race, this is getting close to a nuclear weapon. The Snowball Blaster combines slingshot technology with a trio of special forming chambers, and the result is a snowball weapon that might upset the balance of power in your neighborhood this winter.

We can see a formidable snow warrior wielding one of these catapults on each arm, terrorizing all challengers no matter how impregnable their snow forts might seem. Let's hope you're not flinging ice balls at close-range targets, because this snow cannon is said to sling its projectiles 50 feet.

If you're going into battle with two, at least make it a somewhat fair fight by investing $29.95 in one Snowball Blaster for your enemy, too.

Wow..i might become thatblackberrystormguy.com

Incase Curated By Arktip - Parra

The second installment of Incase’s “Curated by Arktip” series was announced today. Parra, the Dutch artist known for bright colors and illustrated fonts, gets the nod. Just a teaser for now, though full details are set for release on October 24, 2008.

Zune Phone Concept Could Rescue Microsoft

Zune Scene Magazine says; "Finally! A phone that's ugly enough to be called a Zune".

The 'Zune Contact' phone was designed to offer a small glimmer of hope to the throngs of Mircrosofties suffering from Vista disorder. The latest mock-up design will serve as a perfect fantasy to distract faithful Zuniacs from the reality that the new Seinfeld "Shoe Circus" advert is still on the air.

Zune Contact offers 32GB of storage with a wide touch screen for heavy petting. The 5 megapixel camera is an epic addition to this wafer thin work of art by Adam Huffman. So epic that's it's written in over-sized numbers on the back. The rendering features a soft cushy thumb rest that looks like a functioning large white home button, but it only takes up space.

The Zune Contact is a well thought out mock-up that should drown Zune fans in a puddle of fresh drool. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Hate Vista but Love this phone, I command you!

Incase 3G iPod 2009 Spring Collection Prevew

Although the lack of a physical QWERTY keyboard has all but been the deciding factor in shying away from the 3G iPhone (and iPhone itself), the aesthetics has for the most part revolutionized the look of cell phones as it becomes a comparison point for many. Even the Blackberry Bold itself was called iPhone-ish itself upon its preview for its roundish shape. Regardless, much like many Apple products, the iPhone shares those familiar clean undertones. jeffstaple had a chance to preview an upcoming 2009 spring piece which includes with brushed aluminum shell