iHome iP76 LED color-changing speaker indulges your love for pretty colors

Music just isn't the same without a host of flashing colors to go with it, right? iHome, at least, seems to think so. Its first Glowtunes speaker tower, the new iP76, comes packed with LEDs in seven different hues that can fade, pulse or strobe as your playlist requires. The three-foot iP76 sports a dock for your iPhone or iPod and packs four speakers with Reson8 technology. There's also Bluetooth for streaming from other devices. The iP76 will go on sale for $200 in July. Already dreaming about all the sonic light shows you'll host? Jump past the break for some press info to tide you over.

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RAHWAY, N.J., May 17, 2012 – Adding a spectrum of colors to home audio systems, iHome today announced the iP76 LED Color Changing Speaker Tower with Bluetooth technology. Available in July 2012, the décor-enhancing showpiece is packed with 16 multi-color LED clusters to create exciting light effects; four high performance speakers in Reson8® speaker technology for towering sound, and the latest in Bluetooth technology for an untethered audio experience.

"Our Glowtunes line continues to evolve and offer a wide range of speakers for today's most popular multimedia devices," said Evan Stein, Director of Marketing, iHome. "We're very excited to release our first speaker tower and believe the design and array of features will make the iP76 stand above the competition."

The three-foot high iP76 LED Color Changing Tower Bluetooth Stereo Speaker System livens up any room with its vibrant color palette, ability to stream music from Bluetooth-enabled devices; charge iPhones and iPods when docked, and send video content from your device to your television via the built-in component video outputs. The unit can be customized to feature your favorite color and boasts a variety of options such as color fade, pulse to music and strobe effect for the ultimate music and light show.

Source: http://www.engadget.com

Forget the iTV, Steve Jobs wanted an iCar

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs apparently envisioned an Apple-made automobile as a future project ahead of his death.

Audi's menu system with an Apple iPod plugged in.

(Credit: Apple/Audi)

Televisions weren't the only product late Steve Jobs wanted to revamp. According to one of Apple's current board members, Jobs was eyeing automobiles too.

That tidbit came during an interview with J. Crew CEO and Apple board member Mickey Drexler at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored conference in New York last month. The outletreleased a video of the interview late yesterday.

Switched On: And smartplayers for all

A few weeks ago, Switched On noted the challenges that even wildly popular, highly penetrated devices such as MP3 players and portable GPS devices have faced in the era of the converged device. Some of these devices, such as digital cameras, still hold on because of genuine advantages such as better image quality or optical zoom. For others devices, though, such as MP3 players and portable GPS devices, the grim news is that one of the main reasons consumers use them is to save smartphone battery life.

Distro Issue 40: the battle for smartphone dominance continues and we go hands-on at CTIA 2012

Having trouble with the barrage of smartphone news in recent weeks? Don't worry, we've got you covered in this Friday's edition of our e-publication. The focus this week is the on-going quest for the ultimate smartphone champion. In our search, we take a look at the recently outted Samsung Galaxy S III while putting both the AT&T HTC One X and the Sprint Galaxy Nexus through their paces. While he's a fan of their thin frames, Darren Murph demands better battery life in new laptops and his editorial offers some thoughts on the matter.

Connecticut dad builds gadgets for ghost hunters to honor late daughter Read more

Gary Galka knows better than most that a father's love lasts forever.

The Granby, Conn., dad lost his daughter, Melissa, eight years ago in a car crash. Galka says that his connection to Melissa remains strong, and that he constantly feels her presence. That connection led the electrical engineer to design what he says is a digital device for paranormal exploration -- or ghost hunting.

"I've created over 30 different products for paranormal research," Galka  recently told The Hartford Courant. He and his family were featured on a Travel Channel show called "Ghost Adventures," which explores paranormal phenomena. Using one of his devices, a voice is heard on the show saying, "Hi Daddy, I love you."

Project Sputnik: Dell's Ubuntu-based XPS13 laptop for developers

An internal innovation fund at Dell is helping create project Sputnik, an Ubuntu-based laptop aimed at developers. The hardware is Dell's XPS13 Ultrabook, and the OS is the latest version of Canonical's linux distro, Precise Pangolin 12.04 LTS. So far the image contains drivers and patches for hardware, key tools and utilities (emacs, Vim, Chromium etc.,) and a native tool for github repository integration is incoming soon.

Toshiba made $898.8 million dollar profit, could manage to lend you twenty bucks

Toshiba isn't going with the flow this financial season, bucking the trend and posting a healthy (albeit reduced) net profit of 73.7 billion yen ($898.8 million). Whilst down from $1.7 billion in 2010, the company points to the European debt crisis, Japanese Earthquake and high oil prices as the barriers to further success.