Home

One of Crave's primary missions is to keep you on top of the latest trends, and there's one that has barely been noticed: loud alarm clocks. (We didn't say they'd be good trends.)

It started a couple of weeks ago with the "Sonic Bomb," which blasts you awake to the tune of 113 decibels and bed-shaking vibrations. That item, which proved surprisingly popular among readers, was followed by a retro version of said clock. Now, thanks to Gadgetizer once again, we find out that there's a "Sonic Boom Love" edition available … Read more

Much has been made of how the PS3 is Sony's not-so-secret weapon in the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war. But I actually held out some small hope--call me naive--that the PS3 might be able to breathe some new life into Sony's near-dead, high-fidelity audio format, SACD (Super Audio CD), which competes with another near-dead, high-fidelity audio format, DVD-Audio.

In case you hadn't heard, the PS3 supports playback of SACD discs. There aren't a whole lot of SACD discs out there, but I happen to own five of them. I made an effort to find them the … Read more

No matter how hard we try to avoid it, bargaining with our children eventually creeps its way into parenthood for many of us. For example: You let them watch TV only if they've read for a certain amount of time. The problem for us, however, is that we promptly forget to check the clock.

That's why we need the "Mark-My-Time Digital Bookmark," as featured on Chip Chicklets. Not only does it help you keep things on schedule, but it also helps children learn to tell time. After all, what better incentive do kids have than figuring … Read more

So much for playing Mozart to your unborn child. Instead, some companies are trying to introduce babies to music with MP3 players designed for the crib. The trend has resulted in partnerships such as one between Creative Technology, maker of the "Zen," and Playskool, maker of "Mr. Potato Head" (and countless other toys). TG Daily says the two companies have joined forces to market such products as the "Made for Me" line of MP3 players, which come preloaded with songs for babies that can be replaced as they get older. We, however, will draw … Read more

The age of the digital kitchen has arrived. Not only are "smart" appliances finally making their way into homes (and not just Tomorrowland exhibits at Disneyland), but they're multitasking as well.

Take, for example, the "Intelligent Oven" by TMIO: It can refrigerate and cook in the same space, which can be controlled over the Internet or cell phone. And lest you think all this is some cheap parlor trick, Gizmodo says the uber-oven employs "NASA-based command and control engineering," as well as "green" technologies developed by the space agency. If you'… Read more

Mood-ring offshoots have become a staple of the retro-tech trend, but this is one of the sillier--and most expensive--examples of the genre we've seen. The "Therapie" is a canvas wall lamp that was "inspired by color and light therapy theories which give it a soothing aura to reverse bad tempers," according to BornRich. To us, it just looks like a plasma TV displaying different colors.

We woudn't mind the idea so much--many of us at Crave have a fondness for the '60s--but the price is downright offensive: $1,100. At that level, you'd … Read more

We appreciated the "Easy Desk Aluminum" laptop stand because it suited our hopelessly slothful lifestyle, but we're not so sure about the "Ergopod 500" by Office Organix that's featured on Neatorama. It's not that we doubt its usefulness--as the company indicates, the setup can be used by bedridden individuals or others who can't use computers in any other position. What would concern us is the precarious-looking configuration of the equipment, as shown in this accompanying picture with the large monitor hanging over the guy's head. We wouldn't want to be … Read more

When I first saw the pictures of this house on Make Magazine's blog, I thought they were straight off the sets of one of the Lord of the Rings movies. Seriously, doesn't it look like the kind of place where you could open the door and expect to see see Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan inside sporting prosthetic foot fur? But, no, it's actually a "low-impact woodland home" in Wales that was built at a total cost of 3,000 pounds (a little under $6,000) and 1,000-1,500 man-hours over a period of … Read more

About a month ago, we wrote about the HomeStar Pro Planetarium, which uses LEDs to project the night sky on your ceiling. Here's another one for the astronomy buffs: Laser Stars, a projector that beams star and cloud formations onto your wall or ceiling of choice with laser technology and holographics. For those of us who live in brightly lit cities where we can't really see any real stars at night, it's a cool idea.

The Laser Stars projector looks to be less for nuts-and-bolts astronomy buffs than for people who just like to look at a … Read more