cuteness

Google has a new Gmail labs add on for emoticon fanatics. When flipped on it adds an additional 1,200 or so to Gmail's emotion selector tool. New categories include things like national flags, more animals, road signs, and animations.

There are 13 categories in all, up from the two that come with the standard Gmail, which means it can take longer to find what you're looking for. All these additional emoticons actually come from Japanese phone carriers, each of which has its own set that works across all handsets. In Gmail's case, your recipient does not … Read more

In the realm of adorable iPod speakers, Lanchiya Technology's Speakal line has to take the cake. You can find the accessory shaped as a ghost, a panda, even a flower pot. But perhaps even more endearing than all of these is the iPig 2.1 Stereo iPod Docking Station, which takes the form of--you guessed it--a portly piggy. Not everyone will be able to get past the cutesy design of this $130 audio accessory, but those who do will be rewarded with surprisingly good sound quality and an array of handy features.

Read the Speakal iPig review.

For the slew of companies creating speaker docks for the Apple iPod, distinguishing their products from the masses can be a bit of a challenge. Creating an eye-catching design is just one of the many ways to tackle this issue, and an increasing design trend is the animal-inspired speaker. Such is the case with the Vestalife Butterfly, a funky speaker dock that every iPod-toting 11-year-old girl will be scrambling to obtain. At $79, the Vestalife Butterfly is priced fairly, given the neat design and fair amount of features, but sound quality is definitely not its strong suit.

Read the Vestalife Butterfly review.… Read more

The freeware PDF writer opts for ease over customization with a one-step conversion app that works its will over any printable document. Once installed, pressing Print and selecting CutePDF Writer as a printer choice allows you to save the newly-made PDF anywhere in your file system. While we found the process flawless, advanced users who enjoy rolling up their sleeves for configuring greater DIY control should keep looking. Folks whose needs are more basic have in CutePDF Writer a fine choice.

You've got to hand it to Samsung's marketing people. When it comes to selling stuff on the Internet, cute animals seem to work, and that's exactly what the company's loaded its latest viral vid with. It's several little fluffies taking part in day-to-day activities using the large screens of Samsung phones as support. They use them as a PC monitor, a movie screen, and even to play back an image of a romantic fireplace, though the inference of the one kitten making the sexy moves on the other kind of creeps me out. I'm … Read more

This is one of the few gadgets that I think would actually be enhanced by the presence of a cute, anthropomorphic face. The MailMate shredder, as featured on Outblush, is hungry and will only be satisfied if you feed it lots of junk mail! Wouldn't it be satisfying to feed all those credit card offers, sweepstakes promotions, and what-have-you into the mouth of an adorable, anime-inspired monster? If Domo-kun could eat my junk mail, it'd make my day.

What makes the MailMate special is that it won't just chomp up paper. It also likes to snack on … Read more

There may be hope after all. After years of suffering under Hello Kitty ubiquity, we may have found someone to enlist for help in a counter-insurgency: "Mashimaro." The M808 phone pays homage to the animated rabbit with a package of goodies that includes the character's trademark toilet (don't ask) as a charger. It has various features, including games, that also continue the Mashimaro theme. We may be looking at a new day in Japan's kawaii wars.

Here's a bright idea that we found on The Gadgets Weblog: if people can't figure out how to conserve energy, maybe showing pictures of cute animals conserving energy would help them get the idea. Indeed, it's being implemented in an ad campaign by a French electricity company--see, the penguin is turning off a computer, and the meerkats are installing solar panels on the roof! As you may know already, I have a thing for penguins, so of course I think this is a cool idea. And seriously, how cute are those meerkats? (Bigger versions of all the … Read more