Change the tune: Cool Office Music Gadget
I really wish we had this in our office!
Archive for: gadget
Gadget Combination: Modern MP3 Player but with Retro Record Player Feel
There are a lot of people out there who still think vinyl is a million times better than digital music in terms of sound quality. Martin Skelly believes that digital music is lacking in the tactile satisfaction department. To remedy this egregious problem, Skelly designed the Playlist Player, a delightfully backwards sort of music player.
The Playlist Player looks like a record player but works like an MP3 player. After creating playlists on your computer, you load the lists into the player via a memory stick. Each of the color-coded “records” represents a different playlist. Setting a “record” onto the player activates the playlist associated with that color.
Universal iPod Dock
Classics, 
Nanos, Shuffles, Touches – Apple have made so many different shapes of iPod that you need adaptors for practically every accessory you can buy. Apple likes things to look sleek and neat, so having fiddly bits of plastic to swap over for each of the many iPods they would like you to buy (you couldn’t possibly take your 60GB classic jogging with you!) is not acceptable, and so for all the neat freaks and must-have-it Apple fans, they’re developing a universal dock to accommodate all different shapes and sizes. They’ve filed a patent for, as they phrase it:
A dock for supporting a plurality of differently-shaped electronic devices, the dock comprising: a housing; a connector coupled to the housing; and a compressible support layer positioned at least partially about the connector, wherein at least a portion of the compressible support layer compresses to the shape of at least a portion of an electronic device that is attached to the connector.
featuring:
A method for supporting a plurality of differently-shaped electronic devices in a dock that includes a compressible support layer positioned at least partially about a connector, the method comprising:attaching an electronic device to the connector of the dock; compressing at least a first portion of the compressible support layer with at least a portion of the bottom of the electronic device when the electronic device is attached to the connector; and supporting at least a portion of a side of the electronic device with at least a second portion of the compressible support layer when the electronic device is attached to the connector.
Which translates to a standard iPod connector in the middle of a squashy or springy surround, which you compress part of by pushing your iPod into, the uncompressed part supporting the sides of the device, perhaps a bit like one of those pin-art pads that were fashionable around when the Lawnmower Man came out. I’m a little unclear as to why you’d need one, my iPod sits on my hat on top of my computer, but then I use a PC and have been known to eat cereal at my desk – hardly the action of a stylish Mac user. Perhaps it makes your music sound better.
