Crave

There's something of a generation gap at Crave, but we try not to get into that whole skiers-vs.-snowboarders thing. Even those of us who have never set boot in a board can appreciate the concept behind the "Snow Drive" USB storage keys. Pclaunches says ACP-EP Memory designed the drives in conjunction with top snowboard makers, as well as endorsements from such athletes as X-Games star Eddie Wall, who has lent his name to a special signature series. But if you're not into winter sports, you can wait till summer to break out a "Surf Drive&… Read more

We're continually surprised at the things we learn while assembling material for Crave. We had no idea, for example, that Karl Lagerfeld was such an iPod fanatic. So much so, in fact, that he has more than 100 of them, according to Sybarites, and has even designed an iPod trunk for Fendi. (Maybe he needs one for each new recipe he concocts.)

But if you're a simple person and just want an individual case, the uber-designer has created one made of leather and velvet with Fendi's trademark Zucca print. Regardless of whether it's your color, we'… Read more

--ONLY IN SEATTLE: 2007 New Year's fireworks at the Space Needle (YouTube)

--HELPFUL HINTS: Hangover Soap (ThisNext)

--WIKIALITY: No, Wales & co. did not ban Qatar (Wikipedia)

--ONLY IN NEW YORK: Cabbies track cell phone reception, drive cabs (Gizmodo)

--THE INDUSTRY: The wild card of 2007 on the Web: Disney.com (HipMojo)

--GAMING: Bungie gets U.S. Army to beta test Halo 3 (Kotaku)

--GREEN TECH: Wal-Mart's Solar Dream (Treehugger)

Leave it to the Japanese, makers of the Tamagotchi and offshoots like the "Otoizm," to bring the piggy bank to virtual life. The programmable "The Bank of Life," from Takara-Tomy, bears an LCD screen with information that reflects life in modern Japan. Spluch's description says it best: "A little Japanese man living in the screen starts off by living in a shoebox home and gradually upgrades to a luxury apartment reflecting on the amount of money in it." Call us old-fashioned, but we'll stick with the porcine variety.

'Tis the season to get sick, and Crave wants to do its part to help keep you healthy. We could list various types of bacteria-resistant and washable equipment on the market, but we've learned of another gadget that claims to detect and zap germs even before touching a piece of potentially infected hardware.

Hammacher Schlemmer says its "Handheld Germ-Eliminating Light" can "eliminate 99.99% of E-Coli, staphylococcus, salmonella, and germs that cause the flu and the common cold." The miracle gadget supposedly works with the same type of ultraviolet light and nanotechnology used to sterilize … Read more

UPDATE: For a complete hands-on evaluation and new pricing information on the George, check out the CNET review.

Macworld isn't until next week, but the cavalcade of new iPod accessory announcements is already getting started. Meet George: he's a high-end iPod speaker system with a built-in AM/FM clock radio, and he's the debut product from Massachusetts-based Chestnut Hill Sound. But what sets George (or is it "the George?") apart from the litany of similar products is its wireless remote. More than just a standard clicker, the George remote has a free-spinning knob and a … Read more

Maybe the New Year is making people reminisce, but for some reason lately we've been seeing more products than usual that convert cassette tapes, LPs and other historical artifacts to digital form. One such example is Hammacher Schlemmer's "LP to CD Record Stereo," which does exactly what its rather prosaic name indicates: It records albums onto discs, allowing you to pause or change LPs along the way if some tunes are just too embarrassing to preserve.

In addition to standard 33 albums, Chip Chick says the machine can record at 45 and even 78 speeds. Now … Read more

As fellow Craver Erica Ogg noted while wearing another of her many hats recently, domestic appliances are getting hipper than ever. And one of the more popular household items to get a makeover is the lowly vacuum cleaner. (No, we're not talking about the Wiimote-controlled Roomba.)

Industrial designer Karim Rashid has applied his considerable talents to transform the "Dirt Devil," of all things, into a cone-shaped functional sculpture, according to Popgadget. The tarted-up cordless appliance, which comes in six colors, has a vertical design to save space as well. If nothing else, it proves that a vacuum … Read more

Does LG ever take a break? We could practically devote this entire blog to tracking its latest mobile phones alone.

Like the much-hyped Chocolate, its newest model is another slider handset, but we're not sure what this one has to offer over its popular cousins. Akihabara News calls the SB190 a "small phone," but its photos indicate a thicker handset with such fairly standard features as a 1.3-megapixel camera and an MP3 player.

Maybe it's designed for a particular submarket of South Korea, where SK Telecom is introducing it. Or maybe LG just had some … Read more