One of the coolest gadgets appearing at the Digital Life Press Preview last night was the unique FUNKit DJ (left) from KNG America. You place your iPod in the dock, hit play and suddenly your iPod is a DJ at the turntable with headphones and all. The DJ dances to the beat and scratches the records--it's hard to look away. Plus, like any self-respecting music personality, this guy's got bling! (close-up on right). It's quite a novelty--I'll be interested to see how it sells.

What you can't see in the picture, is that if you have an iPod with video, you can also watch videos while listening to music and being entertained by this funky dude. He totally needs a hip name like P.Diddy or Flava Flav.

The second coolest thing I saw last night was that our Cheap Geek, Ben Gottesman, and our camera geek, Terry Sullivan totally coordinated their outfits. (Below) Aaaah, geeks with a fashion sense.

Finally, Blogging Molly got to try out a really cool gaming chair--the Hotseat Racer GT. Carol Mangis snapped a photo while I was racing in a Mercedes. I was in first place until the flash bulb blinded me and I hit the enbankment. That was the end of that. But the chair is very cool. It's got Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound with a subwoofer attached to the bottom of the chair so you can feel the bumps and vibrations for a complete gaming experience.

Alienware showed off their Superman desktop and notebooks at the Digital Life Press Preview, and they look hot. The paint job is done by DC comics and Alienware will have a select number of systems available before they become a collector's item. The notebook specs include an Intel Core Duo, ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 graphics, and RAID configured hard drives. The Desktopswill have Pentium D processors up to a 3.46Ghz, ATO Radeon X1900 graphics, and up to 1 terabyte of storage capacity.

Prices start at $1,899 for the desktops and $2,399 for notebooks.

Summer Gadgets Countdown #14: Floating Pool Thermometer with Remote Digital Display

Let's face it, technology is great, but it can make us way too lazy!! But sometimes, you just don't want to experience shock when you stick your toes into the water and feel 50-degree water. With this device, you'll know the temperature before you even step out of your house.

Design: Made by Sharper Image, the Floating Pool Thermometer comes with a wireless transmitter, allowing you to check your pool's temperature from 100 feet away, without having to go outside.

Features: A 433MHz wireless transmitter that displays the following: water temperature plus room temperature, humidity, high/low temperature alert, and temperature-trend indicators.

How It Works: The thermometer floats in the pool while the transmitter displays the temperature without you having to go in to the pool. It runs on 2 AA-batteries (not included).

Price: The Floating Pool Thermometer sells for $69.95.

Lovin' Factor (1-10): 7

Now, everyone can be Phil Spector. No, I don't mean going on trial for murder. What I'm talking about is Phil Spector's career as a music producer of the great girl groups of the 1960s and the mastermind behind the Wall of Sound. With the aid of M-Audio's new PC-based software, Session, which the company demoed last night at DLPP, everyone can use their PC to create audio recordings, MIDI tracks, sound loops and more. To run the software, you'll need M-Audio's Fast Track USB recording interface, which you'll use to plug in your guitar, bass or whatever instrument you want to plugin, although I wish it had a MIDI port as well. But Fast Track USB costs only $129 and the software is bundled with the interface.

M-Audio obviously isn't the first company to market music production software for the masses. The most notable and successful has been Apple's Garageband, which is no where nearly as complex and confusing as other music creation tools like Cakewalk's Sonar 5 or Propellerhead's Reason 3. Of course it doesn't offer all the options those apps do, but many musicians don't want them. They want to get lost in the music, and not in a software application. Session seems to follow Apple's lead. But I'd love to see some free tutorials from M-Audio on using the software, preferably right on their website.

But with GarageBand, you had to buy a Mac. M-Audio's Session is for PC owners. Indeed, Session's clean, uncluttered interface reminds me of GarageBand, which is a very good thing. For example, when you start a new song or track, the program asks you what kind of music you want to make and then guides you from there. Higher-end programs require you to choose the settings yourself (although you can also automate these settings). I really like M-Audio's attempt to keep things simple and not intimidate the user: the layout of tracks, setting up effects, virtual controls and preview functions all appear targeted for the novice. 

But I want to point out that when I'm talking about a novice, I mean the novice computer-based musician, which would include most musicians, even pros. Like me, these folks want to get right into the nitty-gritty of music making. Not playing around with code and settings. So, for those who want to follow in the specter of Phil, minus the guns, of course, M-Audio's Session software maybe the way to go. For more, see Bill Machrone's review of Session on PCMag.com

There were a lot of iPod case vendors at the DLPP, including the well-respected Invisible Shield guys. Their clear, thin plastic iPod and cell phone covers take some time to apply -- the Motorola RAZR cover comes in six pieces and takes 25 minutes to put on, for instance -- but they're pretty much unscratchable, and they don't bulk up your device the way other cases do.

But the cases that made me go "wow" were from Mophie (at left). They make little rubberized cases that actually do stuff. One case is a headphone splitter (so two people can listen to your iPod.) One is an FM transmitter. One is a battery pack. One is an RF receiver with a wireless remote control. Mophie's cases are cute and bouncy, and I like the two-birds-with-one-stone approach of combining something to protect your Pod with something to enhance it.

To continue from Jen DeLeo's earlier report: It seemed a lot of the participating vendors at last night's DigitalLife Press Preview were holding out until the show in October for product announcements; a lot of what we saw wasn't brand new. Still, I did come across a few things that were new to me, at least, and had fun shmoozing with fellow press and vendor reps. And the cheese was swell!

I enjoyed checking out the spy gear for kids from new company Wild Planet; shown at left is a rep wearing the Digital Spy Camera sunglasses. The lens swings out from the side of the sunglasses, and you click a handheld remote to take a surreptitious shot (640 by 480, sadly). They also had a Spy Video Car, and RC care with a build in video camera and "infrared night vision," along with a headset screen on which you watch the action; just guide the car into the room you want to spy in and hope no one pays attention to it. The Spy Camera will be around $29.99 and the Video Car will go for around $99; they'll be available in time for the holidays.

The iFrogz iPod case display was very eyecatching (at right, click to enlarge). You go to to the company's site and choose from a huge variety of color combinations and screen covers to create your own case. The case (called Wrapz) is $24; the band that goes around the edge is $4; and the screen cover kit is $6.

Also for iPod protection, as well as for many other gadgets, is the InvisibleShield: It's made of very tough, thin, transparent plastic that's precut to fit your device and keep it free from dings and scratches.

Parrot was there showing off several of its Bluetooth-enabled devices, including the Photo Viewer (shown at below left); you can beam photos to it from your cell phone (or laptop), and it holds around 100 shots; the high-res LCD looks great. These go for a hefty $274.80, but if you've got disposable income, they're very gee-whiz.

Finally, this isn't a gadget, but it's kinda cool: United Online, a "consumer Internet and media service," is offering free Internet phone numbers; they recommend you use these numbers for those occasions when you don't want to give out your home or cell number. You can check your voice mail from any phone or from a Web message center. If you want, you can get SMS alerts when a message comes in for you. Caller ID and call blocking are included. If there's a catch, I couldn't find one. I'm signing up!

I spent a good chunk of my time at the DLPP talking to Jon Melamut, VP of sales at Pepper Computing, about the new PepperPad 3 Web tablet. Melamut said that Pepper has learned from the problems with the first Pad. Firefox runs 3-4 times as fast, he said. I tried the user interface and it was a lot more responsive than the original Pad; Web pages came up more quickly, movies played in full DVD quality on the 800x480, 7" screen, and the pad switched between e-mail, Web browsing, and movie applications easily.

The big change is the AMD processor, Melamut said. Although it only runs at 520 Mhz compared to the 624 Mhz Intel processor in the first Pad, it's much faster, with a more efficient system architecture.

Meanwhile, desktop Linux applications written for the X11 windowing system will run on the Pad without alteration, opening up a huge developer community for the formerly application-starved Pad. Pepper decided to ditch their former platform, MontaVista Linux, because it was "going towards cell phones" rather than supporting full-featured devices, Melamut said.

But still, Pepper has to get past several hurdles to make their Pad successful. Melamut plugged the Pad as a way to watch movies -- but there's no legal or easy way to get movies onto the Pad. (You have to illegally rip and transfer your own DVDs from a PC.) And in the larger picture, no Web pad has ever been successful in the US marketplace. American consumers simply don't seem to desire a portable way to surf the Internet on the couch, especially when it costs as much as a laptop.

I'll be getting a Pad in here this summer for review. We'll see.

Major League Baseball is crying foul when it comes to place-shifting baseball games via devices like Sling Media's Slingbox. 

According to News.com, George Kliavkoff, executive vice president of business for MLB Advanced Media, said "[Sling Media's] interpretation of the (cable and satellite user agreement) is wrong." Kliavkoff went on to say that people using a Slingbox to place-shift MLB games "are violating the scope of their user agreements."  Cable networks pay large sums of money to broadcast MLB games in a specific geographic location.  If a Slingbox user records a game in New York then watches it in San Francisco (as business travellers commonly do), then that's a violation of the rights of the broadcaster in San Francisco, even if the user paid for the broadcast (via a cable bill) in New York. 

This appears to be a mounting problem for Sling Media.  CED Magazine reported that HBO CTO Bob Zitter, during a panel at the Summit on Intellectual Property and Digital Media in late May, refered to place-shifting devices as taking advantage of an "analog hole," which could infringe upon network copyrights.

This is completely absurd.  If I pay to receive a broadcast of a particular show and record it, I should be able to view my recording anywhere I want.  The MLB and HBO need to wake up and realize what decade we're living in.  With this kind of attitude, shouldn't they have been pursuing rogues carrying VHS copies of Baseball games on airline flights back in the '80s? 

All I know is HBO's Bob Zitter has nothing to worry about when it comes to the season finale of the Sopranos.  It was so bad, no one would want to watch it, no matter what city they live in.

What has DIYer Ryan Brandys always wanted to do? Install a Mac Mini into his DeLorean of course! He calls it the "carputer". Not only does his DeLorean have a Mac Mini installed, but also a drivable drive-in movie theater, Airport Express Wi-Fi, and a power inverter. Gee, why didn't Doc think of that? Maybe Hollywood should create another Back to the Future film with a souped-up DeLorean.

While building his dream car, he faced several engineering challenges:

1.) How do you access the Mac Mini Boot button on the back of the computer?
2.) How do you reliably power the Mac Mini?
3.) Where and how do you run that mess of A/V cables that the car just wasn't designed for?

4.) And how do you really get a decent-sized screen?

Ryan explains that many carputers today don 7-inch screens from either Liliput or Xenarc. But he felt that running a Mac on a 7-inch screen at less than 640x480 resolution and adding video projection on a 37-inch screen was way cooler.

I don't want to go into any further details of the technical aspects of this project without sounding like an idiot, so I'll just point you to the DeLorean Mac Mini site so you can check it out.

Now all Brandys needs is the Flux Capacitor.

[via engadget]

No explanation here. Just some good stuff for the Techy Dad.

Techy Dad obviously has a digital camera, and he'll want to show off his pics. But not just on the computer screen, but on his huge flatscreen TV, of course. Give him an easy solution with Sandisk SDV1-A Digital Photo Viewer with Remote - Memory Card to Television Transfer Device ($29.99). Yes, it's a complex title for something that's supposed to simplify things. Dad can stick his camera's SD card into the player, hook it up to the TV, and flip through his pictures with the included remote. (Even better - in his gift bag, include an SD card with photos already on it!)

Techy Dad also has an mp3 player, of course. So let him listen to music in style with the iBeat Illuminating Headphones ($29.97). "Beat earbuds with battery-powered EL-illuminated wires flash and blink to the beat of your music or provide a steady neon glow." The color names may be a bit trendy for Dad (Groovin' Green, Pop Pink, Acid Aqua), but he'll sure look fly. Or just stick to blue or white.

Techy Dad also spends a lot of time on his computer(s), and he'll have lots of files to transfer. So give him a leather-cased USB stick. This thing is just plain good looking, but beauty comes at a price: $65 for 512 MB or $105 for 1 GB. But I'm sure your dad totally deserves it.