MP3 Aloud

The Imo Resonance Speaker is kind of false advertising, it is, for one, not a speaker at all.  The Imo is an MP3 player with 2GB of memory.  The speaker part of its definition is understandable though, with its one special gimmick.

The Imo can play music aloud whenever it is placed on a solid surface.  Pick it up and the sound goes away, but it back on your desk and the music begins again.  Pretty novel actually.  At a little over $45 it’s kind of pricey for only 2GB, but that doesn’t diminish the fun factor.

The New Guitar

Guitar Hero is old, not too old, but there are other guitar gadgets on the market now too.

Take Paperjamz for instance.  These guitars are made out of paper but allow you to play actual cords accompanied by background music included with each guitar.  There are five different guitars from a Stratocaster to an Explorer.  Depending on the model you get you can accompany anything from What I like About You, to All Star.  There not the sturdiest instruments I’ve ever seen but for $35 they are some of the most affordable.

Listening like a Doctor

Antrepo Design has gone where I’m surprised no one has gone before.  The company has recently introduced stethoscope headphones.  The headphones come in three fluorescent colors as well as classic white and black.  Instead of actually having a stethoscope head on the phones that portion plays as the headphone jack for your MP3 player.  Nice design.  I don’t know how well they’ll stay in your ears if you use them during workouts though.

Audible Outfit

In general tech fiends, nerds, and comic book fans prefer a t-shirt and jeans to ties and jackets, but if ties are required they might as well be nerdy too.

The sonic fabric necktie is a tie made from 50% audio cassette tape. If your retro enough to still have a tape player hanging around the house rubbing the tie against the play heads will produce sound recorded in the NYC subway system. Not that showing off that particular trick would go over well at parties where ties are required, but just knowing it’s a possibility is fun. It’s like Clark Kent with his Superman costume on under his suit.

Musical Screen

Sonos (the home music system) just got even better.

I’ve already written about how I love the system at my house, but as time goes by you begin to notice the little problems and hiccups that come along with any good thing. Well, the Sonos wireless controller is less than convenient all the time. The click wheel is simple, but not always very fast. So to keep me, and everyone else happy, Sonos has developed a new touch screen controller.

There’s no price yet, so hopefully those who already have systems can still afford to upgrade. But, despite price, there’s no way anyone can say a new controller is a bad idea.

Beatle Mania

At the E3 gaming conference this June Rock Band unveiled it’s “The Beatles: Rock Band” to rave reviews. The game won’t be available until September, but it sounds like it will be worth the wait.

It doesn’t just have to be a new set of songs with this game, but a new look with a new base, guitar, and drum controller. The drums look the most exciting with add on cymbals and a classic Ringo Ludwig design. The other instruments are also modeled after those used the Beatles. You can play anything from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “Day Tripper” and loads more. The venues are all Beatles inspired as well; The Ed Sullivan Theater, Abbey Road, and Shea Stadium (to name a few). Even without the upgraded instruments the game sounds like an excellent add on to any pre existing band set.

Deliciously Musical

The new ipod shuffle is small and kind of lacking in Apple’s usual showy design department.  A small silver brick that you could lose just as easily as you can buy one.

While much has been said about the design and the problems related to the ipod shuffle the fact is the bland little baby opens itself up to the design creativity to everyone else outside of the apple network.  Chocoshuffle is just one such bit of designer brilliance.  The ipod case is just as delicious as the name makes it sound.  Basically you can dress your ipod as a lovely little piece of chocolate rather than as a sleek silver glob (this is much more cute).

The Chocoshuffle comes in dark chocolate, white chocolate, and strawberry chocolate.  Just remember, just because this makes the new ipod shuffle a bit more interesting it doesn’t make the thing any less easy to lose.

Play Music

Lego has really hit the ground running with it’s digitized products recently.  From mini speakers to cell phones the brick look just never gets old.

Now there are two new brick modeled gadgets on the market.  The lego MP3 player and the lego boombox.  With 2 GB storage and color display the MP3 players are pretty cute (especially with a $39.99 price tag).  They look just like you could have put them together all by yourself.

The boombox on the other hand isn’t quite as builder friendly, as it’s designed to look like a singular brick in and of itself (though a rather large one).  It plays both the radio and CD’s and has a digital clock.  Priced at $39.99 as well the only decision you’ll have to make is whether you need your music to travel with you or not.

Virtual Concert Lighter

I kid you not. In the good ol’ days, concertgoers would flick their lighters to pay homage to favorite songs in swaying harmony with thousands of others. Now with smoking bans, etc. the lighter has been replaced by cellphone screen lights.

Welcome to the next generation–the virtual concert lighter for iPhone and iPod touch. This app which is KISS-customized is the first of what will be a whole category of iPhone applications.

Features of the KISS Virtual Concert Lighter include:

* Free upgrades for life – new features will constantly be created for the Virtual Concert Lighters
* Fully customizable with a choice of 24 full-color official KISS lighter cases.
* Unique scrolling text marquee
* Realistic flame sways and moves as you move your hand
* Dynamic sound effects and musical riffs

Launching in May 2009 in time for the mega-band’s 35th anniversary world tour (seriously?!), the application will cost .99 and be available in the iTunes store. It was designed by Spark of Blue, a tech company that specializes in bite-size games and entertainment for smartphones and other internet-connected devices

Look for virtual concert lighter for The Who, Poison, and Lil Wayne later this summer.

Play it Outdoors

Summer’s coming and it’s time to examine the new music scene outdoors.  Household music systems aren’t quite as rugged (or as exercise enticing) as a basketball hoop.

Spalding has recently released its iHoop .  It’s a combination basketball hoop and outdoor stereo system. Though the name obviously caters to ipod users the sound system should work with most MP3 players.  The hoop contains an ipod compartment and control center in the hoops base, where the built in speakers also reside.  The only catch is that the music is not battery powered, so an outdoor outlet is necessary to fully enjoy some warm up music before a pick up game.  It makes more sense than trying to practice free throws with any MP3 player clipped onto the waist band of your shorts.