Coosh headphones and headsets boast comfort and wear-ability along with full-bodied sound so it was time to test them out.

Contained in a reusable jar, the Coosh headset already looks promising and when removed, the soft flexible silicone earrings certainly strike you. The original silicone design is durable and is so light weight that I hardly feel as though I’m wearing a headset at all. For the fashion conscious out there, the silicone earring is detachable and interchangeable so if you want to change the colour of the earring or just use the earbud by itself, then the choice is there. Not only are the earrings detachable and interchangeable but they are wearable all day long and actually fit securely, whatever activity you may be doing. The Massive Monkees, a dance crew crash test them to prove the security.

Using the Coosh headset during a regular mini trampoline work-out, I thought the sound quality would be affected but surprisingly they work nearly as well (slight off balance on the right hand earbud) as when I was nodding off to sleep while listening to the ‘slow cheunes’ album on my iPhone. The use of the headset with a mobile phone is enhanced by the in-line mic and the ease of the ‘push-to-answer’ button which can also be used to switch between music and phone calls. The design of the clip keeps the mic and cord firmly in place but has a rotating device that prevents the clip from pulling off from where you clip it. Brilliant.

Techno Stuff

• Impedance: 34Ohm
• Freq-esp: 65Hz – 20kHz
• Sensitivity: 95 dB
• Max Input: 10mW
• Max Output: 120,5 dB
• Cable Type: TPE
• Cable Length: 1.2M

The headset is compatible with 2.5mm or 3.5 mm for use with music phones and iPods/Mp3s and the actual jack housing is positioned at a right-angle to prevent sudden removal from your phone or music player. A random piece of plastic below the clip which is moveable along the cord baffled me at first until I figured out its purpose- to adjust the length of the cord according to your needs. And if that wasn’t enough there is a bonus. In keeping with the attempted eco-friendly world we are now living in, the cord is made from eco-friendly material.

Overall the product does what it promotes, the Coosh headset does stay on and it does feel good, if it feels all. If your active and on the move and need sound, these are ideal but not so if you’re after the ultimate in sound quality.

You can buy a Coosh Headset from coosh.com or amazon.com retailing at $24.99 or Headphones at $19.99.

Let’s face it. The Sports Deluxe is a Wii Knock-off. There’s no denying it. But that’s not a bad thing. The SDGC has a wireless interface and, similar to Wii Sports, you play such games as baseball, boxing, bowling, golf, and even tennis on it. And you can work up quite a sweat while doing it. And the specific sports aren’t half bad, with the exception of baseball which is fairly limited to pitch and hit. I found the most fun was had bowling and playing tennis. Boxing is boxing and some just aren’t thrilled with that. Although it does let users employ the “katana” extra that plugs in via USB to record the activity or your other hand. The best sport, though, hands down is tennis, followed by Golf. But the funny thing about the Golf game is that there’s a lot of spelling errors in the notes that the game sends you. For instance, you end up hitting the ball in the water, you’re hitting a water haZRad. Pretty funny.

But while this console has Wii functions and comes with a Wii like sport package, that’s where the similarity ends. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Don’t go looking for stunning, realistic graphics on this bably. The simple matter is that for around $70, what you get is late 80s, early 90s CGA/EGA graphics and audios that will you of the days of dropping a quarter into the nearest Donkey Kong machine. It’s almost as if the makers of the SDGC reached into the past and grabbed a popular sports game and adapted it with Wii capability.

The other difference is that it’s battery powered. And that’s the only way you can power the console. Powered by 4AA batteries – you’re going to want to use rechargeables – plus two Aas for each wireless controller unit.

That’s not a bad thing either. This makes the SDGC extremely portable. Kids can use it in the car, or in a hotel while on vacation. And should the SDGC become trashed or lost, the cost of the unit is a heck of a lot cheaper than bringing your Wii with you.

Is SDGC up to par with the Wii? No. Not in the least. Think of it like a disposable camera. You don’t want to use your best DSLR while you’re white water rafting, so you drop about $15 on a water proof disposable just to you can get prints while in the water. And if it sinks, you’re only out the $15. Well, this portable Wii Clone is great since if you leave it in the hotel, you’re really not out that much money.

And even though today’s gamers are rather demanding and sophisticated about graphics and performance, kids just want to play games. And if this gives them something to do while you and the Mrs are trying to unwind after a day at Disney World, I say it’s well worth the $80 you’re paying for it.

When we broke the news at Coolest Gadgets of the AudioVox Homebase at CES last year, I thought this was perhaps the coolest home kitchen idea to make family life easier. The idea was simple. A digital frame wrapped around an acrylic base which also serves as a whiteboard for notes and digital recorder for voice messages. The LCD screen looked to show pictures from SD cards and promised slide shows and other options that would make looking at digital stills quite enjoyable.

Then I got the real McCoy to test last week. By the end of the afternoon, I was ready to pack it up and send it back. Not because it’s easy to use, which it is, or that it’s design is a lost cause – which it isn’t. But because the parts AudioVox used in building the Home Base are just plain disappointing. The LCD screen resolution is around 1st generation digital frame quality and the microphone which is used to record the digital memos makes playback sound like the drive-through at Jack in the Box. And on top of that, AudioVox seems to think that using sponge tape to affix a three or four pound electronic device to an refrigerator door that opens and closes is going to be a secure system for protecting it from falling and breaking into thousands of pieces. Well sorry, but that’s a recipe for disaster. These kind of shortcomings only prove the old adage that designers don’t work on their own cars.

But in this case, designers don’t use the stuff they design. And they should, if they plan on charging $200 for them. If AudioVox is willing to put a little more into this design to make it both safe and high quality, even if it costs $10 –20 more, I’m sure people would pay the difference to get what Audiovox first promised. And therein lies the hope, because it’s just a great idea for digitizing people’s busy life.

I’m a bit behind the curve on this one – Monster Cable teamed up with rapper Dr. Dre a while ago to introduce the "Beats by Dre" headphones. I’ve been giving them a bit of a workout over the past few months, so how do they stack up?

First impressions

In typical Monster fashion the Beats are very well packaged. Opening the box reveals a carrying / storage case containing the headphones and a variety of accessories. The beats fold away into the case and have a very solid feel to them, with a well padded headband and a great polished black finish.

They’re not what I’d call "Portable". They do fold away but they’re very much styled around more traditional hifi headphones rather than something you’d go jogging with! They’re also battery powered – this is presumably because of the active noise cancellation function which reduces background noise.

Accessories

Included in the box are a standard headphone cable and a dedicated iPhone / blackberry cable with built in microphone. You also get a 1/4" headphone adapter (the larger size is more commonly used in non-portable hifi equipment) and an airplane in-seat adapter. They even included a cleaning cloth to look after that polished finish.

Sound Quality

Disclaimer: I’m a bit of an audio nut. Now that’s out of the way…

It’s hard to describe sound quality objectively, since our impressions depend so much on what we’re used to and what we’re measuring against. Descending into audiophile-speak for a minute I’d describe the beats as "Clinical". What that means in general terms is that you can hear every nuance of the music. I heard subtle details I’d never heard before, even in music I know well.

There’s oodles of bass on tap too and it’s very well reproduced. "Good" bass is hard to do; it’s too easy for the bass to overpower everything else and lead to a very muffled sound. There’s none of that with the Beats; the bass is clean, clear and very deep.

This clearly lends the Beats to reproducing a certain style of music – bass heavy rap and modern pop music comes across with brilliant clarity. If your tastes run more towards classical or jazz you may find something lacking – although there’s masses of bass and treble on offer it sounded very "discrete". I could hear every instrument individually, but I didn’t get a sense of them blending together.

Like I said, it’s a fairly clinical presentation and whether this is a sound that works for you is very much down to personal preference. To be honest, the fact that I can start nit-picking about the presentation means the overall sound quality is very good.

Isolation

The active noise cancellation seems to work very well on low frequencies but leave high frequencies largely untouched. I would have thought this would work well on an aircraft – it should pretty much kill the constant drone of engine and cabin noise (although I haven’t had a chance to test that).

If you don’t plug any headphone cables in you can still use the headphones are pure noise cancellation devices – in fact there doesn’t seem to be a way to bypass the cancellation, it’s active all the time the headphones are powered.

Gotchas

Because these are powered headphones they don’t work without battery power. Once while testing I inadvertently forgot to switch the headphones off when I’d finished, resulting in a dead set of batteries the next time I came to use them. It’s not the end of the earth but you do have to get into the habit of turning them off when you’ve finished with them. I’d like to see an "auto off" option in a future version that would turn them off after a period of inactivity.

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for spending $350 on a pair of headphones I’d put these on the shortlist for an audition. The sound won’t be to everybody’s taste but if you listen to modern bass heavy music I think you’ll like them.

There are many accessories for a camera that are considered must haves. The extra set of batteries, the backup memory card, a Skylight filter for protection, a tripod and even a long range flash for those zoom shots in low light. But if you told me that I’d make the Storm Jacket one of those must have things for the camera bag should the weather go south, I’d look at you like you grew a third head. A raincoat for a camera? But it makes perfect sense.

Think about it. Your camera gear can cost up to thousands of dollars. And bad weather than not only ruin your shot, it can create condensation that will wreak havoc with the circuitry. The Storm Jacket keeps your rig nice and dry while you’re getting soaked trying to capture that “Kodak moment.” Depending on the size of your rig, the Storm Jack can come out of your pocket and be affixed to your camera in as little as 5 seconds. And that’s not hype, either. Keeping the SJ in your back pocket and whipping it out at the first sign of rain can quickly save your gear from potential water, snow or even dust damage. It’s made of light weight, waterproof Aquanylon material and includes top openings to accommodate camera straps.

And when I say it’s lightweight, well, the SLR size weighs a hefty 1 ounce. For camcorders news gathering size, 4 ounces. And it’s adjustable closures make for a tight custom fit to keep the rain trickling down to the ground away from your camera. Colors come in Red, Black, and Yellow, and the cost ranges from $36-65 depending on your camera size and length. Works for both SLRs, digital cameras and Camcorders. It’ll even handle those professional news cameras.

With colder and wetter weather coming right around the corner, the Storm Jacket is one thing you want in your pocket when the Mother Nature refuses to cooperate while you’re getting the shot.

Computing outside can be a real pain in the thumb drive. The ambient light blaring up against that LCD screen can make it darn hard to see. Sure, you can try using a bellows, or even some sort of screen shade, but as the light shifts throughout the day, sooner or later you’re going to find yourself playing cat and mouse trying to see, unless you bury your head inside the bellows and then it’s darn near impossible to read, much less type like that.

But if you like doing your business outside and don’t want to lug a tent around with you, the LapDome may be an ideal solution as it gives your laptop a literal home to live in. In fact, I shouldn’t have used the term tent, because that’ what the Lapdome reminds me of. But it’s more than that, because it’s also a bag that collapses around your laptop. When in use, simply release the Velcro and the LapDome pops up around your laptop for shade that’s darn near 360 degrees around. And an additional case that clips onto the Lapdome provides protection for your AC adapter, CDs, or even files. It’s an ideal system for someone who spends a lot of time outdoors but still needs to be connected online.

The Lapdome is made of padded high quality lightweight material that is also lined with what appears to be steel guage strips that can cause the bag to collapse into a handy bag when traveling and the “pop” into it’s dome shape once the Velcro straps have been released. It takes a minute to get the design, but it becomes quickly apparent that the black nylon sheet affixed to the inside is designed to prevent ambient light from reflecting into the the dome and onto the screen. It actually “hovers” between the keyboard and the screen and is never in the way, doing its job while you do yours.

It’s great for laptops, portable DVD players or even television sets. And at a cost of around $80, it’s very competitive with an average laptop bag that it replaces that can’t provide the light protection the LapDome does. The Lapdome does require some out of the box thinking because it does look like something you’d take camping so your pet can have some place to live. But so what? The point is that with this padded tent of a carrying case, your PC has a home away from home that keeps the sun outside so you can view your work “inside.” And one cool feature is that corporate logos can be custom sown on all three sides for advertisement or synergy.

Comes in personal rambler, business, collapsible and junior models.

I place this in the “must have” column for anyone who needs to do computing in the outdoors.

Before we get to that though, a quick overview. The BACTrack is designed to detect the presence (and amount) of alcohol flowing around your bloodstream. The value it gives is in the form of a Blood Alcohol Concentration (or BAC)%. It does this by measuring a sample of your breath.

Even a small BAC% can impair reaction times and judgement (try playing a video game after you’ve had a few beers if you don’t believe this) but the real danger is that you may feel OK to drive “the morning after the night before”, whilst still having a level of alcohol present in your system.

Packaging

The BACTrack is a stylish, portable unit about the size of a mars bar. In the box you get the BACTrack, a handy protective carrying pouch and a comprehensive manual. As well as operational instructions the manual also includes information on the effects of alcohol at various %BAC concentrations and the current drink-drive limit in the US. You’ll need to find a pair of AA batteries, they’re not included.

Operation

Press the button. Wait for the beep. Blow hard into the shiny blue light. There’s not a lot else to say, it’s as simple as that. One thing worth mentioning is that there’s no direct contact with a mouthpiece so it’s possible to share the unit around a group of people – or prove to your friend just how drunk (s)he is when they insist on driving home!

The manual also mentions the need for recalibration every 12 months or so to keep the unit accurate. Calibration costs $19.99 and the unit reminds you when it’s due by flashing a sign on the display.

So how well does it work?

This is where things get interesting. I don’t make a habit of getting systematically drunk but down to the local bar I headed, complete with friends to double check readings and notepad to record results:

- Throughout the evening our readings rose and fell as expected and broadly in line with each other. In other words, the device was consistent.

- After a drink (and the requisite 20 minute wait) we registered .001 – i.e some alcohol in the system.

- After a few more drinks – waaaay past the time I’d think about getting into a car – the unit only registered .004% This is theoretically inside the “safe” drink drive limit in both the UK and US yet there’s no way I’d have considered driving.

- At the end of the evening (again waiting about 20 mins after the last drink) the reading was 0.12%. According to the manual there would be “Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgement” amongst other things. Which, from my dim recollection of events sounds about right!

- Taking readings at various points after this showed a steady decline in BAC%, but even 7 hours after the last drink (i.e the next morning) it still showed .001% before finally reaching zero an hour later.

Conclusion

For the most part it seemed to work as advertised and getting the readings hours after the last drink was certainly enlightening. If you make a habit of late drinking and early starts you should definitely look at one of these (or change your drinking habits…).

I don’t know what happened in the middle though. We all thought we were way past the UK limit for driving but the BACTrack showed us safely inside it. The only thing I can think of is that we may not have waited long enough between drinking and taking a reading, so the alcohol was still in the process of entering the bloodstream and the BACTrack couldn’t read it.

Or – and this is also possible – the UK/US limits are simply too high!

The Ion Audio ITTUSB turntable let’s your mom and dad’s old vinyl albums to your PC and hear what they were groovin’ to during the Summer of Love. Now sure, this unit has been around for awhile, but Ion has turned things up to eleven with some very notable improvements. First off, they’ve added two additional models which bypass the PC altogether and allow users to rip directly to either their iPod or burn straight to CD. That’s an awesome feature that’ll make it easy as pie for the convenience oriented consumer just lookin’ to preserve their old favorites without having to shell out an additional $20 for CD or $10 for downloads.

Those who don’t mind the nostalgia that comes with the cracks and pops of playing the album while capturing can look to the LP Dock or the LP 2 CD models for convenient digital transfer. However, those audio obsessed who wish to clean up the recording and play “sound engineer” can simply get the ITTUSB model and capture the album all at once using the included open source software called Audacity. Audacity does take some getting used to, however, and is not for the weak of heart. It’s open source development make it free to use (you can download it on the Internet), but the learning curve may be steep for the “blinking VCR crowd.” Still, the journey will be worth taking and your patience will be rewarded as you learn to clean up those old albums and restore them to practically new but in a more updated digital format.

Thankfully, Ion also includes some notable utilities that can make the process more automatic and streamlined. EZ Vinyl Converter 2 for PC (EZVC2) and EZ Audio Converter for Mac (EZAC); the best way to record and convert vinyl directly to iTunes. EZVC2 features Gracenote® MusicID technology, which analyzes your vinyl and automatically retrieves album, artist and song information for you. EZAC also lets you easily enter track information.

The Ion Turntables are completely plug and play and you can pick up a refurbished model for under $100. The LP Dock and the LP2CD models, however, will run you a bit more, around $250 for the iPod model and $400 for the LP2CD (which isn’t bad considering it has a CD burner built in).

Is it easy to use? Absolutely. Especially the LPDock and LP2CD which will rip and record directly to digital with no worries of connection or humming issues. And when you consider the cost of replacing all those LP3 to CD or even MP3 download, the investment is more than worth it. And considering that many classic albums (like those recorded in 78 RPM) simply aren’t available in a more current format (like those Japanese bootlegs you have hidden), the ability to rip those old albums to mp3 become even more important.

Consider investing in these, and it’s sister product the Tape2PC – which will rip cassettes to mp3 tracks as well.

Too bad there isn’t an 8Track2PC available. I’ve got hundreds of cartridges just waiting to be digitized!

If there’s one tech company that completely “gets” the whole fair use thing, it’s Ion Audio. First they came out with the ITTUSB turntable which allows users to rip old vinyl albums (what are those?) to mp3 and now they have done with same thing for cassette tapes thanks to Tape 2 PC.

Now sure, audiophiles will say you can simply hook up your cassette player to your sound card’s RCA plugs and do the same thing, but you’d need a preamp (which the Tape2PC has built in) and how many PC sound cards come with RCA plug ins anymore? The Tape2PC is easy. Plug into your USB 2 port, install and run the open source Audacity recording software, hit play on the deck and record on Audacity and you’re on your way. Simple connections, simple recording. That’s the idea.

But is it simple in practice? Indeed it is. The most difficult part may be learning one’s way around the open source Audacity software (which detractors say is already available on the Internet) it takes some getting used to. But then again, it is free and it isn’t mandatory to use. If you have other audio capture software you prefer, the beauty of the Tape2PC system is, YOU CAN USE IT! (yes, Mac users, that means you too). But give it a try. Since most people will simply hit record and then save, the other more advanced features are largely irrelevant unless one wishes to learn them and that can happen over time. So therefore, Audacity is fine for the simplicity of ripping the cassette to mp3. Mac Users will run into the issue of needing to download additional software called EZ Tape Converter, but it’s available from Ion’s website. Then again, one could just plug the unit into the MAC and use Garage Band, couldn’t you?

Is the Tape 2 PC the best unit around? No. But it’s a good solid device for what it does. Sound quality is nominal, but then again, the vast majority of us don’t have the super hearing that could tell the difference between mp3 and lossless, so that isn’t really the point. The sound quality is excellent for the average iPod user and that’s good enough for me.

Audiophiles will already have their own solutions for ripping their favorite cassettes to lossless quality. But for the average user looking to save those precious mix tapes that the love of their life made in those magical 70s or 80s and play them on their iPod, the Ion Tape 2 PC is a one stop shop for getting them done.