wooden

The Oree keyboard is a wireless wooden wonder

The aesthetics of the modern keyboard reminds me of the U.S. car industry several years ago: uninspired.

Enter the Orée wooden keyboard, nearly made in full out of Mother Nature's greatest asset. French entrepreneur Julien Salanave came up with Orée and works in collaboration with a small design team in southern France to produce the wooden Bluetooth 3.0 wireless keyboard. … Read more

Exclusive interview: The Wooden Birds

If you haven't heard of The Wooden Birds, maybe you know Andrew Kenny from his other band The American Analog Set. Or perhaps Matt Pond from Matt Pond PA?

If you haven't heard of any of these guys, well, you have some catching up to do on your indie rock. The new quartet stopped by the CBS Interactive studios to share some thoughts and tunes from their new LP "Magnolia." The lineup features Andrew Kenny on lead vocals and guitar; Leslie Sisson on vocals; Sean Haskins on drums; and, unexpectedly, Matt Pond on guitar.

Check out … Read more

Ornate jewelry box or custom PC?

Consumer electronics makers looking to find their way into consumers' living rooms could learn a thing or two from Japanese custom PC manufacturer Universal Roaming.

Sony in particular has gone out of its way to make PCs and gadgets that blend nicely into the living room decor without being too gadgety. The result has been, well, mixed. See the Vaio TP25E (that weird round one) and the sleek Vaio LT29U all-in-one.

Universal Roaming takes a different approach, creating the Ryou PC series of small and lovely desktop PCs that appear more akin to decorative art than computers. They're not … Read more

Loving: Babygadget.net holiday gift guide

If you're the kind of parent who spends $245 on red wooden stilts for your child (and who isn't, really?), you have got the check out the Babygadget holiday gift guide--this is the "big things" installment, but there's a link to the whole shebang in there, too. OK, I'm underselling it. Even if you're not going to spend $245 on red wooden stilts, it's fantastic and, I'm betting, largely lead-free reading. I love, love, love the polar bear rocker, too, and it all makes me far less furious than reading … Read more

Natural look may not flatter the iPod

Given the countless ways that have been devised to encase the iPod, we're surprised that it's taken so long for the latest trend to reach the ubiquitous music player: lumber.

As wood has become popular for everything from computers and laptop cases to TVs and cameras, it seems no-brainer to apply sylvan designs to iPods and MP3 players, as Tokyomango notes that Japanese toy maker Asuka Kobo has done. Then again, maybe it has something to do with the way they look. Somehow, wood just doesn't seem appropriate for the sleek design of the media player, no … Read more

LCD TVs come out of the woodwork

Speaking of weird experiments, we have an update to last week's item on a wooden plasma TV being developed at LG. BornRich points out that Sweden-based SWEDX has beaten LG to the punch with the "world's first" LCD TVs embedded in natural wood, in 40- and 46-inch sizes and 1080i resolution, no less. Crave apologizes, for we should have known better: In another life, we actually pointed to sylvan products made by SWEDX and other manufacturers earlier this year.