Champagne Parachute

First off, this won't work if your ceiling is too low. So it's advisable not to try this in your HDB flat unless you fancy potholes in your ceiling. But all in, we just love its utter silliness, which makes firing that cork into the air (after giving that bottle of bubbly a good shaking) just that much more fun. Instead of ducking, your guests will applaud you when that parachute opens and the cork comes drifting gently down to planet earth. Best of all, it's reusable. Cheers to a flight of fancy that's found its true flight path!

For a closer toast

Price: US$7.18
Availability: I Want One Of Those
Device: Airborne device
Basic specs: Reuseable champagne parachute, rocket 9 x 7 x 3.5cm, extended chute 23 x 21cm

Polaroid's a good chap

Now who wouldn't like championing for a good cause, especially when it involves a dash of kinky pink. Polaroid's toting out four digital shooters decked in shades of femininity in support of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Unfortunately, charity comes with a location since you can purchase these cameras only at Circuit City, Target and Walmart in the US. Still, that shouldn't stop you from making an online purchase. Remember, it's all for a good cause.

Click here for more information about the cameras.

Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Watch coming

Wanna own a Sony Ericsson-branded watch? Well, no, the Swedish-Japanese partnership isn't diversing into timepieces (yet). Instead, the company is exploring other vehicles aimed at adding "extra dimensions to your mobile life". In this case, a Bluetooth-enabled Quartz timepiece that, by the way, tells time just like any regular wristwatch.

So what, you wonder, would you need Bluetooth in a wristwatch for? According to the media release, the MBW-100 is designed to enable control of your phone's music right from your wrist, from Play to Pause and Skip. Although given that your phone has to be close enough for playback through the loudspeakers to be effective, this isn't so much a useful feature as a nifty idea.

Probably more handy is the watch's ability to alert you to who's calling, with the Caller ID displayed on an OLED panel beneath the watch place. And if it's someone you'd rather not connect with at the moment, there's a helpful reject button. There's also an SMS/MMS alert feature.

Specs-wise, this timepiece is rated for a standby Bluetooth time of up to seven days, analog time-keeping of up to seven additional days, and is compatible with the Sony Ericsson K610, K610i, K618, K790, K800, V630, W710, W850, Z610 and Z710. It's also resistant for up to 30m.

The company had a little help from watch maker Fossil in coming out with analog timepiece. The 187g MBW-100 isn't going to win any design prizes, and it's too chunky to appeal to the female demographic. However, if you fancy being well-connected, the good news is the MBW-100 will be shipping to Asia in Q4. No local pricing was given, but Sony Ericsson has priced it at about 300 euros (US$381). Available in silver, with limited editions in black.

Meanwhile, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides lending a hand, or wrist, with the MBW-100, Fossil will be introducing its Abacus MobileWear and Fossil Caller ID watches. These will seamlessly link to most of Sony Ericsson Bluetooth-enabled phones. No further details were available on these at press time.

Click here for more information on Sony Ericsson's latest handsets and accessories.

Fujitsu launches A-line

The new LifeBook A series from Fujitsu targets budget-level consumers with a choice of Intel or AMD dual-core processors.

According to the Japanese manufacturer, the A series is "designed to cater to the requirements of corporate, home office and value-conscious consumers". However, there are few bells and whistles included in this lineup, making this budget offering more suitable for simple computing tasks.

Both the LifeBook A6010 and A3110 are 15.4-inch midsized notebooks, with the former sporting an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and the latter with either an AMD Turion 64 X2 or Mobile Sempron chip. Read more

Sony Ericsson unveils the W830i, K320i and Z558i

The Japanese-Swedish mobile maker today announced three new handsets--the W830i slider, K320i candy bar and Z558i clamshell--for the Asian market. The W830i slider offers a similar design and features as the W850i announced earlier, but sheds the onboard 3G for EDGE support. According to the company, the W830i will be configured out-of-the-box for the PlayNow 3.0 direct music download service which features Sony BMG artists as well as operator over-the-air (OTA) music download services.

The Z558i is the first non-Symbian handset from Sony Ericsson to sport a touchscreen with Chinese, Thai and English text recognition. It also comes with one-touch SMS access, 262K-color screen, a memory expansion slot and 1.3-megapixel camera. Finally, the K320i is a triband model designed for both work and play, with features such as automatic Bluetooth pairing, PC synchronization and support for push email. Also onboard are a camera and media player.

The three new phones are due to roll out in the fourth quarter of 2006 in selected markets. Get the full coverage of the new handsets here.

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