Circular Kitchen

Here's a kitchen you can take with you. Ok, so maybe you'll need a couple of well-muscled jocks for the job. But other than that, designer Alfred Averbeck's Circular Kitchen packs a lot of design punch into a very tiny space, claiming to contain the equivalent of 12 cupboards from a conventional kitchen. Behind the slatted sliding doors, you'll find a stainless steel sink, waste bin, drawers, lighting and electrical sockets, with the option to specify a fridge, dishwasher, microwave, fully integrated coffee machine, ceramic cook top, built-in microwave/oven combo and range hood. Access to the various components is cleverly done by rotating the central core 180 degrees and the top unit through 360 degrees. Though with initial investments starting at US$6,500, it might be far cheaper to ta pau (do takeaways).

Click to see how the Circular Kitchen fits into an apartment here

Price: US$6,500 to US$15,000
Availability: CC Concepts
Device: Space-saving kitchens
Basic specs: 1.8 x 0.8 x 2.1m, 3-year guarantee

Sanwa Rechargeable USB Flashlight

Talk about a flash thumbdrive, literally. Sanwa's flashlight in a keychain thumbdrive form factor powers up its internal cell via USB connection. The mini LED light is rated for 4 hours and even sports an on/off switch so you don't get digit cramp holding down the on button. Unfortunately, it takes almost as long--read 4.5 hours--to recharge, and is good for apparently 500 recharges only. After which it joins the rest of the scrap residing in that tech junkyard in the sky. A pity Sanwa didn't incorporate a real flash drive with this.

Price: ¥1,344 (US$12.90)
Availability: Japan, Sanwa
Device: USB thumbdrive
Basic specs: 5VDC 20mA charging power, charge time 4.5 hours, about 4-hour usage, 26.1 × 109 × 19.5mm, 30g

Pantech PH-L4000V camcorder phone

Time to toss away your camera-phone, folks. Pantech's announcement of its camcorder-phone is likely to leave phone aficionados panting deliriously to get their paws on one. Unfortunately, the handset's CDMA support puts paid to the idea of even parallel importing a set into Singapore. Amazingly, Pantech has stuffed a 2.1-megapixel sensor, swivel screen, onboard flash and optical zoom into a phone form factor, and word is it's using the miniSD card format. We're crossing our fingers and toes at CNETAsia that there'll be a GSM version in the pipeline... soon!

Price: N.A.
Availability: From February, Korea
Device: Camcorder phone
Basic specs: 2.1-megapixel CCD sensor, 2x optical zoom, flash, miniSD card slot, MPEG-4 support at 1,244 × 1,632 resolution

Wind-Up Sushi

These aren't anything like the USB Memory SushiDisk quality-wise, and the price reflects it. But Japanophiles will probably want to collect this set of wind-up sushi or get them as cheap gifts for colleagues. If anything, you can relieve the occasional work tedium by getting a few laughs out of seeing wound-up plastic sushi scuttle across the desk.

Click to see close-up

Price: US$12.99
Availability: Office Playground
Device: Wind-up toy
Basic specs: About 2 .25 x 1 x 1.5 inches, hard plastic, pack of 12 of 6 designs

Splashpower universal wireless charging

Imagine recharging your phone, digital camera or any portable device simply by dropping these onto a mouse-like pad? No more wires, no more cables, no more adapters. The brains behind this vision-soon-to-turn reality are Splashpower founders Lily Cheng and James Hay, two Cambridge University engineering students who have devised a SplashPad charging base and SplashModule power receiver. The idea is to fit, say, a cell phone with the receiver module, and drop this onto the SplashPad. The latter generates an electromagnetic field which is picked up by a SplashModule. This then converts the field into usable power and pumps it into the depleted battery of your cell at whatever voltage is required. After three years in the petrie dish, fruition is finally at hand as Splashpower looks to rock and roll before year-end. Now all we need is one for notebooks, and life's perfect.

Price: N.A.
Availability: Est. to roll out this year
Device: Power-charging device
Basic specs: Magnetic power induction, universally interoperable, delivers power to multiple devices simultaneously, no need for alignment of receiving module and charging base, thin, flexible and customizable power receiver

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