Pod It
 Dressed in his familiar plain black shirt and blue jeans, Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled the latest generation of ipods last week. Essentially the nano gets fat and a colour screen; the ipod becomes the ipod classic and gets big with 160gb of storage. The hottest item though is surely the new ipod touch. Essentially an iphone (rumoured to be coming to HK in early 2008) without the phone, but with WiFi (and possibly Bluetooth), the massively sexy widescreen model comes in two sizes 16gb ($3200) and 8gb ($2400) and is available from 28th September. We lament though the passing of white: white characterized the original ipods; a perfect colour match to the ipods clean industrial design – but no more, white is passe. |
Those who get all fired up about rockets, Catherine wheels and Roman candles don’t have to wait long for their next hit of pyrotechnic magic: Wynn Macau’s 19th Macau International Fireworks Display Contest explodes over Macau’s skies between September 15 and October 1. In this contest organized by the Macau Government Tourist Office, teams from the USA, Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Portugal, the UK, Japan, the Philippines, France and China will try to out-dazzle each other from 9 to 10pm on each of the five days. To watch, best get a spot early in the evening on the waterfront near Macau Tower. For more information, go to www.macautourism.gov.mo/en 
Three years after it launched the Chinese version, ebay finally “responds to local community requests” - take that to mean it has taken thirty-six months for corporate America to realize that not everyone in Hong Kong can read Chinese - and releases a beta English language version of ebay.com.hk Given that the first and only time I registered an ebay account it was banned for no given reason within 20 minutes (is that a record?), read the precautions and horror stories before you sign up. ebay is a good marketplace, but if you’re a buyer or seller do your homework first.
Shake it, babe! That’s the way to change the music with the Sansa Shaker, a different kind of MP3 player. Load the Shaker with your favourite tunes then share them with a bunch of friends through the built-in speaker or with just that special one via the twin headphone jacks. It comes with either 1gb or 512mb memory and it is all yours for $498 in pink or blue – go to www.sandisk.com/
Products/Catalog(1253)-SanDisk_Sansa_ShakerMP3_
Players.aspx for more information. 
“… at one minute before 3pm, you’re together with me. Because of you, I’ll remember that one minute.” As a pick-up line those words from Days of Being Wild get an extra punch when you can point to the illuminated digital clock across the front of your t-shirt as it strikes the very minute. It is powered by a battery pack that can be unplugged for washing and you can switch the time display on and off at will. Medium (100cm) and large (120cm) sizes go for $435, both now available at www.iwantoneofthose.com/lifestyle-home/time-t-shirts/index.html 
