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Gadget express rolls into Gizmoville

Tasty kit

Tech Digest Certified gadget obsessives Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny scour Gizmoville for the oddest digital goodies, while Bayraider keeps tabs on the best and worst of eBay. Read on in wonder:

Obligatory iPod Accessory of the Week: Noreve's iPod Love case

iPod Love caseWant to pay six times more for your iPod case than you did for your iPod? Noreve's iPod Love case is a limited edition leather case (just 20 are being made) with a velvet interior, a white gold heart encrusted with 44 WSI quality diamonds and a 25 day wait (while they put one together specially for you). Each one is signed and numbered by S. Schaming of Saint-Tropez Schaming Jewellery (who? should I know this?). They're also available in black, white, grey, beige, baby blue, ocean blue, or red. There's a word to describe cases like these. It starts in V and ends in ulgar.

Traditional 'how did that get on eBay' Story: Jet Powered surfboard

Surf's up? Surf's revved up more like. Cool though the idea of a jet-powered surfboard is, we can't help but wonder if it's a bit... cheaty? Forget all that guff about catching the right wave - with this gizmo, you just have to flick a switch and hunker down. Even less gnarly for purists is the fact that you can use it in swimming pools. Pah. It's powered by rechargeable batteries - you get 45 minutes off one charge - and comes in single or dual-propellor models. Its top-speed is 4km/h, although that compares poorly to, say, a Great White shark's 24km/h. Not to worry you.

Cool Gadget finally reaches the UK story: iChair

iChairPresenting possibly the greatest bachelor pad accessory since the La-Z-Boy, gadgeteers Boys Stuff has revealed the latest in sedentary technology: the iChair. Infused with tactile sound technology, allegedly the stuff that is used in theme park rides and air-force simulators, the chair has speakers built around the head that couple with a transducer to turns low level sounds into stomach-shaking vibrations.

The chair connects to any home cinema/stereo system that has a phono output and is also compatible with Scarts too. It is expected to be available from 21 May for the hefty price of £599.

Green Gadget of the week: Pure Water Waterex

WaterexThis sounds so similar to the food replicators in Star Trek - spot the geek - that I'm almost convinced it's a wind-up. It's a water cooler that apparently makes water from the air - a kind of dehumidifer with a filter. I'm going to suspend my disbelief for a minute, though, to tell you that it's capable of producing 38 litres of water in 24 hours, that it has five filters to make the water taste nice and that it has an overflow protection sensor for when it's full.

My favourite boast is that it "provides water much like crystal-like dew only found on mountaintops." If it's real and it works, it's a brilliant idea for places where plumbing's hard to install. It's called the Waterex and is being sold in the UK by Pure Water Technology for £1000. Pure Water says one cooler should provide enough daily water for 10 people.

Cool retro Gadget of the Week: Rolleiflex MiniDigi camera

RolleiflexThis delightfully cool camera, a modern digital remake of the classic Rollei Twin Lens Reflex snapper features a 2-megapixel sensor that produces the same square shaped pics as its predecessor. It also has a pop up LCD viewfinder you look down into and an SD slot. Apparently, it's got a "colour crushing" effect that should make photos look more like the originals. It's very pricey for a 2-megapixel digital camera, at $429, but I can't quite stop myself wanting one. But with a hand crank that you turn to ready the next shot, who wouldn't want one?

Quick Picks:

iRiver H10 – Pretty impressive iPod mini rival with top notch 260k colour screen lands in the UK.
No wind up – Eton’s indestructible hand wound radios hit the stores.
Sony DCR-DVD7E – Possibly the oddest looking camcorder so far. Looks more like a frisbee than a video camera.
Vertu Ascent – The mobi for stupidly rich suckers now comes in pink.

Loads more of this stuff at Tech Digest, Shiny Shiny, Green consumer blog HippyShopper and Bayraider which delves into the dark side of online auction sites.

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