A mug that turns white when it’s on

Introducing the On Off Mug. At its empty state, it’s black with the white letters saying “OFF.” When you pour hot beverage in, the mug changes to white with black letters saying “ON.”

Here’s a video with the mug in action:

You can find this cool mug on CharlesandMarie.com for $25.00.

Sony Type P transit ads and display photos

On my way to buying a new hard drive for my Mac Mini, I saw some transit ads and a little booth demoing and promoting the Sony Type P.   Positioned as a "Pocket Style PC,"  it's supposed to fit in your pocket.  I still have to say, you need some big pockets.  

I did fiddle with it.  It's small compact and light.  The keyboard seems like a reasonable size to type on.  I think the screen size is still to small to do computing personally.  I say, drop the keyboard and make the screen multi-touch.  Kinda like a super-sized iPod touch.  Cough... Apple.  

Photos below:

Woo, the white one!

It's supposed to fit in your pocket.  If it does, you sure don't want to sit on it.

The ads.

They had a TV there playing some ads and stuff.

Simpsons' take on the Apple Store

There's an hilarious episode of Simpsons that has a parody on Apple.  Below is a segment from YouTube.

You can view it on Hulu, and buy the episode on iTunes here.

A portable speaker with a strap

Saw these while shopping the other day. It’s called the I-Dear Stone Speaker. It’s a portable rectangular shaped speaker with a strap so you can attach it to your cell phone or use it as a key chain.

Features:

• It comes in white and black
  
• It’ll take a 3.5 mm audio cable as input
  
• It’s rechargeable and comes with a USB adapter to recharge the speaker
  
• one charge lasts about 5 hours

You can find it at NVshop, a Japanese online gadget shop for 5,750 yen (around $60).

Some iPhone apps I’m using: Air Sharing and Things

These following are paid apps that I’m testing currently. Since they are paid and I haven’t really used them extensively, I am not yet recommending them.

Air Sharing
I use this app to transfer files to my iPhone. It’s really a temporary solution until Apple gives me a way to access my MobileMe iDisk from my iPhone. I still can’t believe I can’t access my iDisk files with my iPhone...

Air Sharing – link to iTunes


Things
This is a relatively pricey app. It costs $9.99. I use the Mac version and iPhone version. Though it works quite nice, I still need more time with it to see if I can recommend it. For me, it does get a very important thing done for me, which is keeping all my tasks and todos synced and in one place.

To sync, you simply launch Things on the Mac and iPhone, and it’ll sync via wi-fi. But having gotten spoiled by MobileMe where everything is synced automatically in the background, I’d wish I didn’t have to sync Things manually... Hopefully it’ll have MobileMe support in the future.

Learn more at Things’ website. The Mac version is free to use until January 2009.

There is another set of task management applications that does have MobileMe support. The app is called Omnifocus, and it is at a higher price point. The iPhone app is $19.99 and the Mac version is $79.95.   Find more info on their website here.

Recommended Japanese iPhone Apps: Sankei News, Sora-Annai, TV Listings, Currency

For those living in Japan and can read Japanese, here are some apps I recommend. Please note links open up to the Japanese iTunes store.

I recommend the following:

• Sankei News (Sankei Shinbun) - If you read Japanese, this is a very cool app to get. You basically can read the newspaper of the day for free, and the interface is well executed. You can pinch in and out smoothly. To see the app on iTunes, click here.
  
  
• Sora-Annai – Weather info for Japan.  Link to iTunes here.
  
  
• TV Listings – Know what’s on TV in Japan.  Link to iTunes here.
  
  
• Currency – For me, this is how I can find out how bad the dollar is against the yen everyday. Link to iTunes here.
  

Make your desk smell nice with Aroma USB DX

There are a lot of odd USB devices these days such as fans and cup warmers.  Here's one that caught my attention - an USB powered aroma diffuser.  

It's called the Ultra Sonic Aroma USB DX, and it's made by a Japanese company called Elaice.  Fill in your preferred aroma oil and plug it in your computer.  

The portable aroma diffuser is available in pink, black, and white. Elaice is selling it for 2,200 yen ($24)  on their website (Japanese).