LEGO-Style MP3 Player

This playful little LEGO-style MP3 player is offered in five different colors and supports microSD flash memory cards up to 2GB in size.

To transfer files (supported file formats: MP3 and WMA) and to charge the player, simply connect the brick to your computer’s USB port using the provided cable. A full charge gives you 6-10 hours of playback.

The Brick MP3 Player ($48.99) measures 29 x 17 x 58 mm and is available in yellow, white, blue, red or green from the GizFever.com website.

Business giants install 'power nap pods' to boost productivity of workforce

The benefits of a taking a power-nap have been preached by advocates such as Winston Churchill, Leonardo Da Vinci and Albert Einstein - but they never tried anything like this.

Looking like a cross between a science fiction prop and a dentists chair, the EnergyPod has been designed to offer office workers a relaxing spot to take a mid-day nap.

The odd looking device has been installed in UK offices and is even being used by the Lawn Tennis Association to help tennis players like Andy Murray achieve peak performance levels.

It is designed to isolate the user from their environment with lights and music and angles your body to take pressure off the heart.

Once asleep, the device continues to soothe you before waking you up with vibrations, lights and music at the optimal time, normally after about 15 to 20 minutes.

Makers MetroNaps say the length of your nap and the way in which you are woken are key to leaving you feeling rejuvenated and full of energy.

Spokesman Marcus de Guingand, said: "The benefits of napping are many and varied, NASA and Harvard studies say a nap can increase productivity by up to 34 percent.

"The EnergyPod has been designed specially as the ideal environment to take a mid-day rest.

"It was the idea of a banker who saw his colleagues taking naps in bathrooms or store cupboards and thought 'there must be a better solution.'

"After a two-year research programme they came up with the pod and it has now been installed in offices around the world.

"The fact is taking a mid-day nap will benefit everyone so there is no barrier to where they should be installed."

Companies which have installed the £300-per-month pods include, Proctor & Gamble, Google and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

De Guingand added that napping can help both your health and productivity levels.

"It has been scientifically documented that a short nap during the day boosts alertness, memory, creativity and mood," he said.

"Also sleep is the third pillar of health along with Cardiovascular Fitness and Nutrition sleep-deprived individuals succumb more frequently to illness and are more likely to experience poorer long-term health."

The Messy USB Home Pregnancy Test

Alright, this obsession with using the USB ports on your computer has just gone too far. I’m sorry, but when did plugging something that was just urinated on into your computer ever sound like a good idea?
The worst part, plugging it in to the USB port actually offers up a useful function, namely displaying more data regarding what was found in what you just leaked onto the thing. Sure you can get the standard results of any other home pregnancy test right off of the electronic surface of the stick, but if you plug it in you get charts and graphs, all sorts of useful stuff.

The name is absolutely horrid too, PTeq, really? That’s the best you’ve got for $17.99 a pop? So you pee on it, plug it in to your USB port and that starts the whole mass spectrometry process informing you of hCG, hCG-H, and LH hormone levels with a 99% accuracy, and yes, it works with Macs as well as Windows machines, and Linux kernel 2.4 or higher. For the $18 you get the unit and 20 test strips, lets hope you don’t have 20+ questionable encounters before you lose this thing, you can pick one up at ThinkGeek.

Retro Style USB 2.0 Webcam

Remember that cool looking retro style webcam from last year. Now you can get the same type of web camera, but with a brushed metal design.

Features:

* Sensor: CMOS hardware with 13MP, 1/3-inch CMOS image sensor
* USB 2.0 interface
* Resolution: 288L
* Manual external focus adjust
* Brightness: auto-detect control
* Picture format: 640×480, frame rate: 30 fps (320×240), 15fps (640×480)
* Supports CC2000, Netmeeting, VVQ, ICQ, Skype, MSN and YM etc.
* Features snapshot button
* Retractable USB cable
* Operating system: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
* Size: 1 x 1.4 x 0.6 inch

The Driverless Webcams 1.3MP retails for $11.21 a pop (minimum order: 20 units) from the Wholesale Products website.

8-LED Macro Ring Light for Digital Cameras

This LED ring from Marumi will allow you to take better close-up pictures with your compact digital camera. The ringlike form provides a smooth and shadowless illumination of your object from every side.

This ring light unit provides an illumination akin to daylight. This results in brighter colours. The ring light has two steps of light intensity. You always can choose the matching light intensity for the actual ambient light.

You can attach the ring light to any camera which has a tripod thread. By the help of the flexible bending arm you can adjust the ring light to any camera type. You just have to bend the bending arm so that it is positioned in front of the lens of the camera.

Features:

First ring light for compact digital cameras
Smooth illumination from every side
No object shadowing any more
Eight LEDs
Two steps of light intensity
Illumination akin to daylight
For any camera with tripod thread
Flexible bending arm for the LED-ring
Needs three AAA-batteries
Case included

The Marumi LED-8 LED Macro Ring Light for Compact Digital Camera is available from enjoyyourcamera.com for 79,99 EUR (about $126 USD).