Awesome Tech

Inspired by this gadget, the Most Useless Machine not only reaches new heights for futility but has us waxing morose about the pointlessness of our own lives. Happy New Year, friends.

Jaybird’s Sportsband hits a small, but underserved niche; ideal for fit multitaskers, the headphones sport an adjustable band, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR/A2DP, button controls, and microphone.

LipsonRobotics’ Speaker Bot will crush lesser docks with ease; this one-of-a-kind robot is made from reclaimed parts and packs a speaker in its torso and iPod Dock in its base.

Using a PlayStation Eye and the open-source structured light scanning project, Kyle McDonald’s 3D Capture at 60fps is a work in progress but still mind-blowing; more: DIY, videos.

Add a bit of class to your desktop with SLC’s Mouse Pad; it’s topped with full grain leather that is riveted to an inner neoprene pad and features a no-slip, non-scratch suede bottom.

Atila Rossito’s LOP concept is a 21st century version of the disco ball: it not only serves as a party-sized iPod speaker and dock, but streams movies and images along its surface.

YouTube’s Pantless Knights spoof Lonely Island’s I’m On A Boat with I’m On A Mac ft. PC-Pain and two Jobs; it may be pro-Apple, but it’s more a reason not to be a fanboy of any camp.

No, your phone is not haunted: Mac Funamizu’s Floater Phone concept features a curved bottom that lets it sit up by itself or wobble whenever it receives a call or text message.

It ain’t no Swiss movement, but the Makerbot Watch is the ultimate wrist-mounted geek accessory; it’s build-it-yourself Arduino-driven timepiece that uses concentric LEDs to tell time.

Lenovo’s Multimedia Remote may not look like much, but that’s the point: it’s a 2.4 GHz Windows-compatible wireless remote that includes a track ball, mini keyboard, and USB dongle.

Pedal Brain is like Nike+ but for pro cyclers; it uses ANT+ to link sensors with your iPhone or iPod Touch, resulting in real-time position and performance data for riders and coaches.

Part tablet PC, part e-book reader, the enTourage eDGe weighs just 2.75 lbs yet packs a 9.7″ e-Ink screen, 10.1″ color touchscreen, Wi-Fi, media playback, and Linux with Google Android.

Literally listen to ear-splitting music with these Japanese-made in-ear Crazy Earphones, which are available in painful (katana, arrows) and quirky (mushrooms, ears) flavors.

Samsung’s 14.1 MP CL80 is a Wi-fi enabled camera, with Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube uploading; it also features a 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen, 7x optical zoom, and 720p videos.

Nils Volker’s slowly crawling Lightdrawing Robot seems more like the half-shell Da Vinci than the real one; still, there’s something charming about painting with LEDs and long exposures.

Ideal for pro-users, Acer’s Travelmate Timeline 13.3″, 14.1″ and 15.6″ notebooks each pack a CULV Core 2 Duo and 8 hrs. of battery but weigh at most 3.5 lbs and measure 1.1″ thick.

Boldly chat where no geek has gone before with the Star Trek Webcam; the 300k USB camera is shaped like the original Enterprise with red LED nacelles and a gooseneck mount.

Santa keeps current thanks to Peter Terren’s 30 foot Tesla Christmas Tree; it was shot by rotating a rod atop a Tesla coil while switching color filters (the star is 10 dead flourescent tubes).

No, it’s not an excuse to tailgate, but Art Lebedev’s Transparentius concept is a simple (although pricey) way of seeing around a truck: a camera up front projects video on the back door.

Available 1/2010, Dell’s 10.1″ Inspiron Mini 10 gets a full makeover with a streamlined case, Atom N450 CPU, optional HD accelerator, HDTV tuner, GPS, Wi-fi, and 6-cell battery.

Workwear maker Carhartt teams up with Vestax for a special edition Handy Trax; the portable turntable includes a dynamic balanced tone arm, built-in speaker, and tough plastic casing.

Magico’s Ultimate II speakers are impossible to miss, visually or aurally: the 5-way horn-loaded system stands 7.5 feet tall, weighs 800 lbs, and sports woofers with 2000 watt amps.

Ivan Poupyrev’s Lumen gives new meaning (and feeling) to multi-touch: the device features tactile pixels that not only light up but move up and down, letting it “display” 3D shapes.