Turntablists rejoice in USB gadget

Those of us who hammered out high school papers on this doodad called a typewriter used to listen to these shiny black things called records. Sometimes we'd even have to hike 10 miles in the snow just to hear a little Joni Mitchell! Times were tough.

Thankfully, our sister site CNET Asia has alerted us to a little gadget that makes it surprisingly easy to transfer those dusty LPs straight to a digital music collection. Just plug the 12-pound Ion USB Turntable into a USB port, fire up the Audacity software for Mac or PC, and start porting in that Ted Nugent! No special drivers needed. The USB turntable has a DJ-compliant pitch slider and an anti-skate mechanism for those older albums that are sitting around reminding you just how long it's been since you slow-danced to "Freebird." The turntable also includes a trial of Bias Soundsoap 2 for cleaning and restoring vinyl.

There are, of course, a number of other solutions, such as the Teac GF-350, for converting LPs to CD or MP3, but the plug-and-play turntable is just so simple and compact. It will, however, cost you about $150 online, more than other USB tchotchkes like heated slippers or USB missiles.

This item originally appeared on CNET's new gadgets blog, Crave, which covers the hottest and coolest gizmos around. Other recent postings include egg-shaped speakers that take over the world, and the super-spooky ghost mouse from Switzerland.