The Griffin Woogie. Your kids will never give your iPhone back again.
Griffin Technology today announced a partnership with ScrollMotion, makers of the Iceberg Reader. The result? The new Griffin Woogie.
The Woogie is a soft and huggable iPhone enclosure that is part stuffed animal and part protective case. It has two built-in speakers1 to play with Iceberg Kids eBooks, music, videos, and more. The Woogie’s six appendages are made from soft, non-toxic fabrics and allow for easy carrying and tuck underneath to prop your iPhone up for handsfree viewing.
If the bright screen and fun apps weren’t enough to keep your kids fixated on your iPhone, stuffing it inside this fuzzy green asterisk from Teletubbyland will certainly ensure that your phone will soon be indelibly regarded as theirs. But at least it will keep them quiet.
The Woogie, $19.99 USD, is now available from Griffin’s website. The free Woogie Sesame Street Sampler is available in the App Store. Additional apps and content from Iceberg Kids are available in the App Store.
- powered by included AAA batteries [↩]
Photographer skins his iPhone 4 as a Leica M9
San Francisco photographer, Joey Celis ( @joeyjoeyjoey ) has turned his iPhone 4 into a Leica M9 with this ingenious skin. I had to look this up, not being a photography geek, but the M9 is “the world’s most compact full-format digital camera system” according to Leica. So, I would imagine that this skin would be highly sought after by every iPhone-4-using Leica fan.
With this skin, the photographic “business end” of the iPhone 4 is quite convincing as the compact M9 at a passing glance and can actually take pictures…although, not from the Leica’s lens. If you follow along with Celis’ iPhone 4 Leica M9 conversion photo set on Flickr, you’ll see how it looks in the wild as well as its humble beginnings as a Photoshop document.
While, at first, Celis had no plans to produce the skin for sale, response has been so positive that he posted this along with the picture you see above hinting that ordering information would be on the way soon:
Been getting lots of emails on when I’ll be taking orders for the Leica M9 skin and I think I finally settled on how I would like to release this and it will be in the form of donations to NF1 .
I’ll post information here and here once I skin the other phone.
Stay tuned and thanks for the support!
- Neurofibromatosis [↩]
Teleport …and a Feat of Geek Strength
If you don’t know about Teleport from Abyssoft, you should. It’s a donationware application that allows you to use one keyboard and mouse to control many Macs—a virtual KVM switch of sorts. In the video below, I show how I am able to drag a single folder from one iMac across the screens of two other Macs to a fourth Mac situated across the room from the mouse I’m using to control it.
You probably have no use for such a Feat of Geek Strength, but one situation where I’ve used Teleport with great success is when I’m sitting at my desk using my iMac for some serious video rendering while my MacBook Pro sits in front of the iMac’s screen. I use the mouse and its built-in keyboard to control the MacBook Pro and also use them to control the iMac. With Teleport configured to let me move my mouse to the top of the MacBook Pro screen as the portal to the bottom of the iMac screen, the interface is slick and seamless.
I have to admit and caution that, when using Teleport to control another iMac to control a MacBook to control another MacBook as I did in the video, it can become very easy to lose your cursor and become confused as to which Mac is in control at any given time. But, hey, that’s why they call them Feats of Geek Strength
Have you accomplished any Feat of Geek Strength? Let me know in the comments. Better yet—challenge me!!
No Flash? No problem—click here!»Inception explained for Mac users
From JonahRay comes this awesomeness:
Well done… well done.
MacBook Air transplanted into Mac Keyboard/Magic Trackpad combo
What you see above is a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo Mac with 2GB of RAM and 80GB hard drive. Don’t believe me? I’m not so sure I believe it either but here’s a look at the innards.1
As the story goes, Bart Reardon ( @bartreardon ) was given a broken MacBook Air.
Bart had seen the motherboard for the MacBook Air way back when Steve Jobs first held it up at the announcement keynote and thought it should fit in one of those old white plastic Apple keyboards. Now he had his chance to find out!
You can follow Bart’s progress on his blog.
Tell me; is this Mac awesomeness? Would you dig a Mac/Keyboard combo? Leave a comment and we’ll chat.
- yes, that’s black duct tape …aka gaffer’s tape [↩]
Awesome Mac-based video guestbook for your wedding
This is how fast I’d like to be able to bring you the awesomeness on my constant quest for it: I literally just saw this tweet by @LelaNewYork and I had to share this very cool idea with you.
.
For $99 US, Thrilled For You sells software for a customized themed video guestbook. You install the application and run an iMac or similarly iSight equipped Mac in kiosk mode at your wedding or reception. Then, as the emotion moves them, your guests, your family, your friends, your former lovers will take turns standing in front of the camera and expressing just how happy they are for you… or how drunk they are.
It’s a brilliant idea and you can download a demo for free. [Via Lela New York Wedding Blog]
Marks on your coffee table? There are coasters for that—iPhone App Coasters
I want to give a shout out to @Daynah for tipping me to these awesome iPhone Apps Coasters. I’d seen them on the periphery… I’d even seen some on Flickr… but now, for £19.99, I can see them on my coffee table. They are available in three different sets — The Core» , Home» , and Media» — each set featuring 6 of Apple’s default iPhone apps.
Do you love iPhone Apps and their icons enough to make them a part of your home decor? Leave me a note in the comments.
Star Wars Cantina HD… Diner Dash with blue milk
Have you ever wanted to run your own wretched hive of scum and villainy? Have you ever wanted to utter the words, “Hey! Your droids—we don’t serve their kind here.”? If you’re an iPhone or especially an iPad user, your dream has come true with Star Wars: Cantina HD.
Star Wars Cantina HD by THQ Wireless is a Star Wars themed Diner-Dash-style game where you play the beehive hairdo’d Nia Adea and do your best to keep the never ending rush of customers (jawas, moisture farmers… the occasional Hutt) happy. It’s all about speed, accuracy and meeting the daily quota.
As you progress through career mode, you’ll be given the opportunity to make upgrades to the cantina, bringing in more tables and customer-attracting decor.
As I write this, it occurs to me that the game is not particularly Star-Wars-like. Yes, it takes place in the Star Wars Universe and, if you like these kinds of games, it’s fun enough. But when I was running around in my backyard with my friends, beating each other up with brightly painted cardboard tubes from the cores of my Mom’s Christmas wrapping paper rolls, I was Darth Vader or Han Solo, maybe Luke Skywalker. None of us was calling dibs on getting to pretend to be the bartender. This is the kind of stuff that made Luke all whiny and long to join the rebellion.
I must admit, there is a struggle between the forces of good and of evil in the cutscenes of career mode where each day brings a new challenge. It’s just that it’s not the epic struggle that is the Star Wars trademark. I’m not hearing John Williams’ score playing as I imagine Nia Adea gazing whistfully at the twin suns of Tatooine. It’s just not there.
Fun, nice to look at, but not a blockbuster for me.
Still, at $4.99, it’s better than Phantom Menace.
Which Star Wars character did you always pretend to be? Were you the bartender? Leave me a comment below.
The iPod too small to need a case, now has a case
There’s far from anything revolutionary about silicon iPod cases anymore. This one only merits comment because it’s for the new iPod shuffle: a device so small, it doesn’t need a case. The iPod shuffle is barely noticeable at all and has only one port and one switch to defend, so the Sumajin 3rd Gen iPod Shuffle Silicone Case seems a bit much.
For USD$14, you get 2 flip-top sleeves to prevent your shuffle from getting scratched or dinged. The cases come in 6 colors plus “glow in the dark” which may be the most useful one–it might help you find your shuffle if you lose it!
Freeverse shows off video of upcoming Days of Thunder iPhone game
I had the pleasure of meeting with the the guys at the Freeverse booth at Macworld last month and one of the games they showed me was Days of Thunder, a joint venture with them and Paramount Digital Entertainment, that will be coming out very soon.
I’m not much of a gamer but I found the iPhone accelerometer-based steering of this game to be very natural–so much so that I think I probably tuned out everything the Freeverse folks were telling my while I immersed myself in the game.
Here’s a video to give you an idea of what is to come.
Note:
