Oh, tech manufactuers… why do you think that making a phone or a hard drive look like a powder compact is the way to our hearts? Nothing makes me more annoyed - except covering everything vaguely girl-oriented in pink, perhaps.

As Engadget gleefully reports, Samsung has designed a concept compact hard drive that looks similar to a piece of make-up - and this picture shows it surrounded by make-up, to prove the point. You know, ‘cos we women are so crazy about cosmetics, we’ll buy anything if it looks like we have the ability to paint our faces with it.

So far though, this is just a concept - and maybe it should stay that way. I think the design is sleek and all, but I don’t concur with making tech designs gender specific. (Don’t small, sleek designs appeal to men, too?)

How about letting us all buy what we want, whether we’re male or female?

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Oh, tech manufactuers… why do you think that making a phone or a hard drive look like a powder compact is the way to our hearts? Nothing makes me more annoyed - except covering everything vaguely girl-oriented in pink, perhaps.

As Engadget gleefully reports, Samsung has designed a concept compact hard drive that looks similar to a piece of make-up - and this picture shows it surrounded by make-up, to prove the point. You know, ‘cos we women are so crazy about cosmetics, we’ll buy anything if it looks like we can paint our faces with it.

So far though, this is just a concept - and maybe it should stay that way. I think the design is sleek and all, but I don’t agree with making tech designs gender specific. (Don’t small, sleek designs appeal to men, too?)

How about letting us all buy what we want, whether we’re male or female?

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The socially awkward have a new tool at their disposal: a service called Slydial (available only in the US) allows you to call someone’s voicemail, bypassing any chance of ever having to talk to a real person.

The possibilities are endless: that old friend who keeps calling, but you can’t stand to speak to? Give her a Slydial. The boss who scares you but asked you to ring him with some info? No problem! And that relationship that wasn’t going anywhere but neither of you dared to admit it? Well, it’s cruel, but Slydial comes in handy there, too.

Just don’t forget that all those people can also use Slydial to clog up your voicemail with their abuse…

Via Shiny Shiny.

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I remember the Japanese Pokeman characters from an addictive cartoon show which featured the just-too-cute-for-words yellow Pikachu, but as my daughter became older, he lived primarily on her DS. She should have entered the Pokeman Video Game showdown; she’s been playing it long enough.

Over the past two weeks, more than 1,000 Pokemon fans swarmed Los Angeles and New York, for the chance to become the ultimate Pokemon Video Game Champion. From as young as 6 to 43, contestants vied across the nation for their title, with the decision to be made in Florida.

Competing on Pokemon Diamond or Pokemon Pearls Nintendo DS ( who wouldn’t want one of those?), the Japanese finalists will take on the American winners August 16th at Orlando’s Disney World.

Winners receive: A trip for four to Tokyo, New York, or Oahu (Hawaii); a custom Nintendo DS game system, and a Pokémon prize pack. Valued at $10,000.

My cuddly 5′ tall Pikachu doll would have enjoyed the trip.

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Peepholes are all very well, but you actually have to leave your chair to find out who’s calling, and that’s never good. Thankfully, there’s now a more high-tech option for the sedentary (or peephole-lacking) among us.

The Secure Sight records all your visitors, whether you’re in or out, so you can see who’s calling right now as well as who came by when you were at the market. (Better than TV!) You fit the camera to your door and put the viewer wherever is convenient.

Personally, I’d also put a sign up to let people know they’re on candid camera, so you don’t get any pesky accusations of eroding civil liberties… and also I’d consider upgrading to 4GB with an SD card.

Via Apartment Therapy.

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While most of us would agree that Apple designed products are aesthetically beautiful, as well as functional, every once in a while you may want to spice up clean lines with some fun colors.

You can accent the sleek look of all your Apple products with SeeThru cases from Speck, candy-colored translucent hard plastic cases, like the one for the iMac or this one for your MacBook, available in nine colors.

Maker of the popular Pixel Skins, Speck consistently comes out with practical yet fun cases.

And we’ll be giving away a Speck SeeThru set, including one for iMac ($49.95), MacBook ($49.95), and iPhone 3g ($29.95) to one of our Popgadget Drop email subscribers, so sign up already.

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Crave reports that a Brazilian designer named Bruno Oro de Abreu has been working on a Bluetooth-enabled teddy bear aimed at reducing isolation and improving socialisation for kids with cancer, or who have to spend long periods bedridden for other reasons.

The bear has a holographic display that can be used to surf the Internet, play games, attend remote classes, and make friends with other kids who have a Dilus. It also comes in a range of designs. At the moment, this is a graduation project, but Bruno Oro de Abreu hopes to have it on the market by 2010.

I’d hate to rain on his parade, as this seems like an ingenious design with very noble goals. It’s just that… well, I still find talking teddy bears in loud designs as creepy as I did when I was 10. (But today’s kids might be braver than me!) Also, there needs to be some way to monitor exactly who your kids are talking to…

I can’t help wondering if a cute little Asus Eeepc is a better option. What do you think?

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Yes, yes, yes. Bioshock, one of 2007’s most critically acclaimed games and spiritual successor to System Shock has just gotten a big 50% price cut and is down to $15.00. The game is available in choose regions only including USA, Australia, and the United Kingdom and is only limited to the Computer version of course.

The sale is only for this weekend!

[Thanks!]

Tags: Bioshock, online-store, Steam, System Shock, Valve

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Jake just let me know about a new site called Scour that lets you search the internet like you normally would but adds a few different things to the mix:

• Get results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN all together
• Rate search results instantly
• Get rewarded by searching with Scour

Why does it seem to be so hard for me to consider using any search engine other than Google as my default? I’m sure that’s exactly what Google is wanting me to think though isn’t it?

I like the concept, but one thing I immediately noticed that I don’t like is that this is the URL you get when you click on the results to a link:

http://www.scour.com/view/result/?URL=http://www.bnpositive.com/blog/

The reason is because there’s a little comment bar on the bottom of the page that let’s you rate the page and give more information back to Scour about what you think. You can click on the “X” to shut it, but that’s annoying to me. Not sure how else you’ll get the feedback they’re wanting though.

The idea of making some money for doing what we’re already doing by searching the World wide web. According to their site, here’s the type of money you could potentially be making with getting more people to sign-up under you and get a little kick back from their search results too.

Give Scour a try and sign-up now for their beta. Of course I’d love for you to sign-up under me so just click on one of the links above and sign-up. If I make enough money to retire on a private island in the Caribbean, I’ll let you know.

Tags: comments, feedback, Google, make money, MSN, ratings, Scour, search, search results, Yahoo

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I wrote about my iPod Touch woes the other day. I finally got my iPod back the other day. Hooray!

I’m really happy about the customer service that Apple provides. It’s also in part through the great Apple Reseller here in Manila, DigitalHub. They processed my iPods repair. My iPod was diagnosed, sent to Apple, replaced with another unit in less than a week. They traced the problem to faulty WiFi. It was a hardware problem so they needed to send the unit back to Apple.

I’ve finally been able to fully experience the 2.0 software. Sure there are some problems to it. I kinda feel it’s a bit slower than 1.4 but the apps and app store make up for it.

Remote rocks. This is one of my favorite apps that I’ve gotten for my iPod Touch. Best of all it’s free.

Another app that I found useful is Mocha VNC Lite. It’s the free version of Mocha VNC. I used to use TouchPad Pro when my iPod was still in the previous version but since I haven’t jail broken my iPod Touch 2.0 I tried to look for an substitute. So far Mocha VNC Lite is working well.

Some of the other apps I’ve downloaded are New York Times, Facebook AIM and Super Monkey Ball. All of it are great.

So I’ll be writing more about my iPod Touch experience in the days to come. I really wanted to try Mobile Me but from the horror stories I’ve heard, I’ll give it a few more weeks for Apple to iron out the kinks.

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