I’ll admit it.  It takes 2 alarms to wake me up, and still, I have a tendency to continue sleeping.  This is not a good thing. Especially on weekdays when I usually blame traffic for my lateness to work, when instead it should be my lazy, sleepy butt not getting out of bed.  To help people like me, iLuv has created the iMM178 Vibe Plus dual-alarm clock with one unique feature.  A thing that looks like a mouse, connected to the device, that rumbles when the alarm goes off.  The iMM178 Vibe Plus is going for $99.99.  Just put this “rumble pack” under your pillow before you sleep and hopefully it’ll rumble your head enough to wake you up. If that still doesn’t wake you up, then place a bucket of water above you but on top of the rumble pack before you sleep.

Key Features:
•    Bed shaker vibrates a bed or a pillow to wake up the heaviest of sleepers and includes a 3-level volume control
•    Built-in speakers featuring jAura acoustic speaker technology allow you to hear your music with depth and clarity
•    Dual Alarm function for 7-5-2 everyday, weekday or weekends wake options
•    Time-sync function that synchronizes time for your iPhone & iPod
•    Large easy to read digital display with 10 level LCD dimmer control
•    2 Way volume control – from the main unit or from the shaker
•    Integrated universal dock for your iPod plays and charges your iPhone and iPod

Digital Dual Alarm Clock Capabilities:
•    Dual alarm clock function allows a couple to wake to separate alarms
•    10-Way to wake up including to iPod, FM radio, buzzer, bed shaker, iPod + bed shaker, FM radio + bed shaker, buzzer + bed shaker

Radio Functions:
•    FM stereo
•    PLL digital tuning technology improves the radio signal clarity
•    Programmable presets for 10 radio stations

*Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPhone, iPod Touch 2nd generation, iPod Touch, iPod Nano 1st – 5th generation, iPod Classic, iPod with video, iPod 4th generation, iPod mini

More info at iLuv

During the Apple keynote, Steve has done what he’s always have done.  Talk about their past accomplishments.  It’s like the appetizer before the main course of a very good dinner.

• Apple has sold 250,000,000 iPods since 2001.  That number looks bigger than Steve.
• There are now 284 Apple Retail Stores
• 50,000,000 visitors to their stores last quarter. (That’s funny. I haven’t seen anyone walking around with a counter when I go to the store.)
• 140,000 Apps in the App Store. (I wonder how many of them are just dupes of apps we have seen.  Like the flashlight app.)
• Apple is not the largest mobile device company in the world. (Thanks to the iPhone.)

 

During CES, Andrew and I actually had some time to walk the show floor between our appointments.  I say “actually” because scheduling appointments within 30 to 45 minutes of each other was a bad idea and one of the lessons I have learned from the event.  While on the show floor, we saw these cute USB drives.  They were so cute that we were actually sucked into the booth and took pictures of FruitShop’s products.

Unlike most plastic USB drives where the animal or character’s head has to be stretched to consolidate for the USB port, these USB drives use silicone.

More info and products at FruitShop

Update: Fixed the link

While walking the show floor at CES, you tend to see the same thing over and over again.  Sometimes you find gems and other times you find the iPod hat or visor. This thing is supposed to give you a personal theater like experience from your iPod or iPhone wherever you go all while making you look like a weirdo or a guy wanting to watch his porn everywhere he goes.

Fancy a bit of pocket blasting fun? Well today we’ll be looking at another game from the venerable Handmark games studio Astraware, Police Range. As the name implies it’s a game based around blasting targets in a Police shooting range, a nice simple premise that really fits the form and function of the iPhone and iPod touch.

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Freddy vs Jason, King Kong vs Godzilla, The Donald vs Rosie. Some of the most recognizable names in history have also sparked some of the greatest rivalries of all time. The engineers at Apple and Microsoft are no different, going toe-to-toe many times over the past few decades. Apple creating their iPod line and Microsoft creating the Zune line. Now the two similar foes do battle in our arena; The Apple iPod touch 32GB vs. The Microsoft Zune HD 32GB.

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So as you all know, or at least those who are interested know, today held an Apple music event. Rumours were rife, with everything from an iTablet (not yet), Beatles on iTunes, cameras in touches/nanos and the death of the iPod classic amongst other things. As noted before, certain market analysts were speculating about Steve Jobs return to the stage. Well they were spot on as a clearly emotional Steve Jobs addressed an equally emotional audience to talk about his health and the donor register (of which I’ve been a member for years thanks to a special someone in a past life). After the two-way loving was done, Jobs proceeded to confirm and dash rumours and bust out a couple of surprises.

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Coming straight from Steve Job’s mouth (YAY! HES BACK!) during today’s Apple Keynote, the rumors have been confirmed.  To compete against the growing Flip video camera market, Apple has added video recording to their new iPod Nanos as well as FM tuning, a Pedometer (not PEDO – Meter), and Voice recording. Starting today, the 8GB nano will cost $150 while the 16GB comes in at $180. More photos from the keynote after the break.

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Something tells me new iPods are coming later today, you know, maybe with cameras and crazy things like that.

Invites have gone out to the tech journalist community today, for an Apple event entitled ‘It’s only rock and roll, but we like it’ for 10:00 PST on September 9th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (mirrored via satellite in London as before). It’s obviously going to be a music event, which isn’t a surprise to anyone who follows Apple’s event and release schedules, but whether we’ll be getting iTunes 9 with added social, iPods with cameras, demise of the iPod classic, Beatles on iTunes or event massive iPods/tablets is still up in the air. Analysts have also been speculating about the return of Steve Jobs to the stage for the keynote. Will he be joined by some ageing rockers as the caption hints, or is the Jobsian keynote as we know it deceased? You’ll have to tune in on Wednesday week to find out.