A fascinating marriage of oddly divergent design concepts, remobeads take me back to my Catholic childhood and memories of saying penance for my sins. (I used to confess to teasing my little brother nearly every week, just to have something to say to the priest in the booth.) I found it soothing, back then, to run the rosary beads through my fingers as I said the prescribed prayers... and TV can sometimes be soothing too. OK, there's one connection.

So here's what remobeads do: By pressing gently on the beads, you can move from TV channel to TV channel. In the picture you can see that each bead has a channel number or logo. If this product comes to market, in these days of cable and satellite, we're going to need a pretty long string of beads. Or maybe we're just supposed to add our favorite channels to the string. Anyway, the beads glow, so you can find them in the dark, probably much easier than finding a remote. And according to the designer Dima Komissarov's Web site, "as an option, you can add a sound - enjoy listening to your favorite mantras while switching the channels." This is getting downright ecumenical.

[Via SCI FI Tech]