Not long after the last event (Think iPod Touch), Apple has already scheduled their next event for… Tomorrow - 10AM London time! Of course (for once) the Americans aren’t having it so easy. Even if you’re on the Eastern time zone, that’ll mean you’re forced to wake up at 5AM to get live coverage. Hawaii gets luckier, though, with it working out at 11PM today (their time). So what are we expecting to be revealed?

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the European handlers for the iPhone will finally be announced, and extortionate UK pricing wouldn’t be unusual. It’s possible that iPhone unlocking will be mentioned, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that T-Mobile will be making an entrance at some point or other. I’ve personally got my fingers crossed that Orange will be the UK carrier and whilst it wouldn’t be unusual, they’re sure up against some stiff competition.

Possible new MacBook rumours, in the few hours the leaks have been circulating, are possible, though I wouldn’t put my money on it.

16GB iPhone? I’d like to think so… Not too far-fetched, in all fairness.

Just dug up now - a UK phone site is offering sim-free Vodafone and O2 iPhones for use in the UK. Interesting, indeed…

In other news (Muhahaha!) - another tooth is severly wobbly, and three Brando packages arrived at my door today for review. MP4 Watch, 7″ Digital Photoframe and a new USB Missile Launcher. w00t!

You figure it out, but from the looks of this patent, a possible iPod Touch Nano could be on its way. Rumour mill; enjoy!

It looks like the iPod Touch, smells like the iPhone, feels like it could be alot thinner and smaller, with touch/pressure sensetive controls running along the back of it too, for sliding through menus. You’ll notice the infamous iPod clickwheel makes its way onto the touchscreen, too - virtual style. The diagram in the top right clearly shows a number pad with a ‘dial’ button, suggesting that this could infact be the iPhone nano, however I’d like to point out that whatever we’re looking at is (at the very least) several months away.

In other (unrelated) news, a few photos I took have been added to the Slappa review post, and I’ve finally found a BF:2142 gunship buddy and clan. I should be buying the Northern Strike expansion tomorrow and finally another one of my remaining ‘baby teeth’ has fallen out. Still got four left - one on the right, three on the left. Rock on!

Laptop bags come in all shapes and sizes… The fat and the thin. The big and the small. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The other day Slappa delivered me a Velocity MATRIX laptop backpack to try out and review and admittedly, I was pretty darn impressed. Some of the gadgets we’ve trialled haven’t been up to standard, others have blown me away. Whilst strictly speaking not a gadget in itself, the MATRIX definitely falls into the ‘extra-ordinary’ category… Let’s get cracking…

Features

In all fairness, I’ve never seen a bag with so many pockets.

Front pocket
Main pocket - enough room for a small MacBook, better suited to magazines/books.

Front compartment
Main pocket - Enough space for a change of clothes, perhaps a sandwich or two.
Device holder one - Space for a large Blackberry/iPhone/iPod.
Device holder two - Space for a ‘normal’ sized mobile phone.
Inner-pocket one - Ideal spot for a wallet.
Inner-pocket two - Same as above. Maybe money/plane tickets?
Front compartment clip - Attach your keys, smart-card, key-fob, etc.

Middle compartment
Main pocket - space for a 17″ laptop, accessories.
Side Net pocket - Paracetamol/other medicines. Very discrete.

Main compartment
Main pocket - The extra thick high-density padding tripples itself, providing a special 17″ laptop safe-keep spot sealed by HUGE wad of velcro.
Main pocket - Space for a few days worth of clothing, gadgets, laptop accessories, chargers, etc.

Back section
Main pocket - Totally sealed off from the main bag areas, feels ’super-waterproof’. Good for beach clothes/wet umbrella. Large enough for 5.
Back pocket - Also potentially doubles as a ‘temperature control’ compartment for keeping cold things cold and hot things hot. You get the picture.

Misc.
Clip-on device holder - Presumably intended for a mobile phone, I won’t be using the device holder. Whilst the rest of the bag looks totally innocent, clipped onto the shoulder strap, the would-be phone holder shouts ‘Mug me!’ in every aspect.

Durability & Value For Money

I’ve grouped the two sections together, primarily because in the case of the Velocity PRO MATRIX, it’s clear that a hefty chunk of the price you pay goes straight into the high-quality material used. The outer-shell of the bag is held in place by a specially molded rubber exoskeleton, whilst the enclosure’s outer layer itself is a special BuckBlast Suede, tearproof, punctureproof & rainproof skin. Diving straight within to the ‘Core’ protection, the extra-thick high-density padding keeps everything snug in place and out of harm’s way.

This is a bag that’s made to last (not like the cheapo £30/$50 bags you can grab from Asda/Walmart) - offering excellent value for money when stacked up against market competition (just take a look yourself!)

Design

Aside from all the super-fancy materials, you can tell that they’ve been put together well and that the design team really thought about what they were doing. Hard-plastic runners lining the bottom of the laptop comparments to protect against any shocks/unexpected falls. The zippers are an etched alloy with locking heads and caps to prevent tearing. The hydro-repelent BuckBlast Suede not only lasts long and performs well, but it also looks rather good.

In fact, the only downside I feel with the whole bag is its sheer weight. In the UK, hand luggage restrictions on planes cash in at 5KG, and the bag itself weighing 1.5KG doesn’t help matters. Based on how heavy your one (or two) laptops are, you should be able to get away with it and a decent amount of clothes, which is useful in the case of business travellers not wanting to hang around for a bag to whiz along a luggage belt, but just walk off the plane and into the office.

Value for money - 9/10 (Pricey, but worth it, especially when stacked up against competition)
Features - 10/10 (I’m still finding them! )
Durability - 10/10 (Excellent quality materials - clear winner)
Design - 8/10 (If not for the weight - would have been an easy 10)
Overall - 9/10

It’s a clearly well thought out, designed, planned and built (how often can I say that?) product, with the value for money conversion not turning out all too shabby either, cashing in at £70 or $110 based on which side of the pond you’re reading this from. At Slappa (in the UK at any rate) there’s a free shipping deal temporarily on, and using the coupon code ‘techzi’ at the checkout will save you an additional 10% on all items, except for the D2i CD-cases.

Verdict? (For once…) Highly Recommended!

The first (supposed) ‘out in the open’ shot of the Optimus Maximus. Some have claimed it’s a mock-up or a render, I’m not so convinced this time. Aside from the christmas-tree colour scheme, it looks like the real deal. For those of you who aren’t in the know, or who’ve been busy with other things for the past six and a half years, the Optimus Maximus is a $1,600 OLED keyboard.

I also managed to grab a few ‘in action’ shots of the keyboard. Take a look yourself…

Notice the difference? Capital letters and a arrow-keypad in shot number one, and then lower-case letters and a numberpad in the second shot. You just hit the shift button and the letters… Well. Shift. In realtime. Same applies to num-lock, caps-lock, etc. The fancy thing with such dynamic design, is that potentially, the keyboard could support any number of languages, key settings. I could (at the touch of a button) turn my keyboard into a photoshop colour palet. Change my English (UK) layout to an American layout. Maybe even just hotswap to Chinese for a quick moment whilst I sort out an office feud. Truly versatile, and the possibilities are incredible.

These new photos though, whilst not much to look at in themselves, are enough to make the majority of us drewl. If not, take a look at this glossy, high-res shot. Tomorrow, expect a product review and (w00t!) a special coupon code. No, not for the optimus, but for a good ol’ ______. Stay tuned!

Boy, oh boy! The late 70s in their glory. Star Wars public service announcements…

Because friends don’t let friends drive drunk, even in galaxies FAR away! Whilst we’re on the topic, time to resurect and old favourite.

Enter… Star Wars Kid! /STILL/ the single best source of online entertainment.

Introducing… Wake’n'Bacon! I for one am not a fan of noisy, high-pitched alarms, and I’ve seen them in all shapes and sizes. The small, annoying, little boxes that sit on a table, whilstling till you crack your heck, hit your head on the radiator then fall out of bed, only to scramble to your feet and find it’s batteries have run out and you need not have left your bed. The large, plastic/padding footballs, that won’t shutup till you throw them against a hard surface. The wall suffices, but rebounding plastic in the eye isn’t the prettiest site at 5:45AM.

Waking up to the smell of bacon? I’m lovin’ it! (Oh sue me…) Mathlete’s Wake’n'Bacon promises to do just that. The night before, lay a strip of frozen bacon in the silver tray within the piggy-faced clock and set the time. Go to bed (peacefully) knowing that the first thing your hear when you wake up WON’T be your alarm screeming at you, but rather next-door’s cat attacking your hedgerow. So here’s the deal… 10 minutes before you’re due to be woken up, the bacon-sizzilng master-device turns on it’s bright halogen panels and starts cooking your bacon. 10 minutes later, a small buzzer goes off and the lil’ piggy’s nose starts flashing. Simply ingenious…

WHAT: An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell and sizzle of cooking bacon.

WHY: No one likes to wake up, especially by an alarm. This clock gently wakes you up with the mouthwatering aroma of bacon, just like waking up on a Sunday morning to the smell of Mom cooking breakfast. Unless you’re Jewish.

HOW: A frozen strip of bacon is placed in Wake n’ Bacon the night before. Because there is a 10 minute cooking time, the clock is set to go off 10 minutes before the desired waking time. Once the alarm goes off, the clock it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked the clock so that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power two halogen lamps that slow-cook the bacon in about 10 minutes.

What can be said? That’s one schaweet alarm that I’d actually ENJOY waking up to! Check out the official Wake’n'Bacon site for more photos!

When Sony BMG and Universal put their heads together - you’re never sure what to expect. A new, decisive decision to stamp out music piracy once and for all? (Again?) Maybe even an out of order goat decapitation. Whatever the case, you can be sure something’s going down, and it aint’ gonna be pretty. I didn’t wanna be the one to break the news, but it seems the idea of stuffing bonus content onto a CD is apparently ‘new news’ to the marketing folks at Sony. Whilst iTunes continues to eat away at music (and now ringtone) market share, the record labels are running around frantically, trying to come up with new ways to revive their beloved CD.

Take CDVU, Disney’s feeble attempt to ‘reinvent’ the CD. Much similar to the Ringle idea being put forward by BMG and Universal, CDVU attempted to entice users into buying CDs over digital versions of the songs, by offering ‘exclusive content’. Band photos, interviews and lyrics - all stuff that we know can’t be got on the Internet for free, naturally. Not to mention the music…

Either a crude spin, off the CD ’single’ or a bad attempt at mimicing the pringle franchise (see picture), the Ringle seems doomed to fail from day one, only being formed as a last resort, due to a failing iTunes/Universal relationship. Get this, though. The Ringle is 3 songs, with a wallpaper and a ringtone. The catch? It’s $6. Whilst not much, when I can go to iTunes and buy three songs for $0.99 each - then freely make them into ringtones using the bits of my choice (not the stinky bits chosen by some music editor), without having to cart my butt off to the retail park and then pay twice as much again - Why should I? When you consider that wallpapers are the king of all freebies, too, it seems like little consolation.

If you can’t beat them, join ‘em. Or not, as seems to be the case… “We’ll see you at the funeral, boys.” via EnGadget & BGR

I’m not a big fan of posting videos constantly, but I figure this one offers more entertainment than any amount of me attacking random companies can.

Complete mayhem and destruction. THrowing a 70″ TV down stairs, explosives, setting flamethrowers on trees, etc. You get the picture.

Carnage, just the way I like it.

It was no blog or video blog today… Lotsa homework.

iBuy Therefore iAm Confused.

Not sure I’m getting that video - where’d the nazis come in? Anyhow - it’s incredible what Apple can do. Even the spice girls can sound good accompanied by an iPod, phatty or not!

Then there’s the official Nano UK advert. I sorta wish my iPod multiplied like that.

Last but not least, the iPod Touch, touch, touch, touch.

Only in the UK. I’ve been waiting a year and a half to hear that, when not being used in context talking about a price-hike, and boy does it feel good. The capital of customer service and ludicrously expensive lattes, Starbucks, now lets net-connected web-browsers order their drink direct from their laptop, sat down on the otherside of the café, without having to leave their seat (and their laptop) alone. Although clearly designed only to ‘remind’ users they should be handing over their money to the coffee-giants, I can’t help but marvel at the simplicity of such an effective scheme.

- Users (I mean ‘Customers’) stay topped up.
- Starbucks increases profits.
- No waiting in line.
- Just ordering online.

Plain and simple, I love it. Coffee on demand… Seeing as you can now get yourself music from iTunes in-store too, I can see ’starbucks spawn camps’ popping up all over the UK. Coffee (caffeine for late nights), iTunes (to keep you rolling), net connection (the lifeblood of the operation) and a shop fully of hippy-geeks smells like trouble. Just wait till someone dubs it ‘Coffee 2.0′ and then we’ll officially know it’s safe to jump of a cliff and not just an irrational, premature thought. In all seriousness, buzz-words are driving me mad. Let’s just stick to ’spiffy’ and ‘phatty’ for now. Double posting today for no particular reason - and the possibility of a few product reviews coming up, aside from the iPod Touch. Stay tuned!

via CrackUnit