Designer Chris Owens has come up with a fashion phone that’s even slicker (and lacking in features) than the LG Prada or the Samsung Armani phones. The design’s appealing because it’s got a giant screen on the front (much like the Prada or the iPhone), but has an illuminated glass dialpad that slides out from the bottom. Yes, it looks like you can pretty much only call or text message people with the phone, but fashionistas don’t bother with emails. Video “demo” after the jump. [Chris Owens via Yanko Design]

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The rumor is official. Onkyo was notable for being one of the few hardware makers outside of Toshiba that planned HD DVD players. Also, I apologize for so many of these posts. It’ll be over shortly. [Onkyo]

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After about an hour of playtime with the final version of the squishable $180 Wi-Fi widget ball chumby, I want one on my desk. Is it essential gadgetry? No. It’s not meant to be. Until you’re addicted to it.

If you’re not familiar with the basic premise, chumby is a Wi-Fi gadget with a touchscreen centered around widgets. Think little snippets of the internet that it automatically picks up after you’ve subscribed to them, kind of like mini-channels. Like Chuck Norris facts. Or the weather, or MySpace, which has a pretty rich widget actually—you can add or delete friends, check out pictures or whatever. You don’t pay a monthly subscription for access, BTW.

My favorite (weirdly) was a clock that uses numbers clipped from Flickr photos. (It’s even kind of pitched as a brilliant desktop clock, ironically.) Streaming video, like for the Letterman Top 10 is a little better than YouTube. You could stream a whole half hour program and get through it, but I don’t recommend it.

Best of all, it’s not a totally closed device—it’s Linux and Flashlight 3-based running an ARM processor, and totally hackable—they’ve even thrown up the schematics online. So it’s easily to program new widgets or really dig into it to do something entirely different. The catch is that for now, you’ve gotta use the Chumby Network, which, as Saul points out, isn’t quite as open, and some widgets have ads.

The interface was designed by Susan Kare, who did the icons and fonts for the first Mac. It’s a great actually—clean, bright and attractive—only hampered by the slightly fidgety nature of the touchscreen. It responds better to taps w/ the back of your finger, but some of the widgets do scrolling, which isn’t as smooth as it is on the iPhone. But stil, fairly good.

Other than the touchscreen, there’s a button on top which sort of does everything. It’s easy to feel through the fabric, though I kind of resent it being there at all. Not really used yet are the mic (it’s developer candy) and the accelerometer, though I played a game that makes use of it which could kill hours of productivity time.

The squishability is ace, and I think kind of key to its appeal. I’m not big on the current color selection—black white and tan, but I was promised more were coming. I suggested green and blue, at a minimum, but they wanted to avoid giving off a kiddy vibe at launch.

The big question: Who is this for? Well, us, you. It’s for people with a “rich internet life” who “already have all those other things” like an iPhone. It’s supposed to sit on our kitchen counter or on our desk, bringing in little digestible bits of stuff we’re already neck-deep in, the morsels we “really care about.”

I’m not sure if they’re going to get people to care about chumby though. If you already have one, I could see it quickly becoming embedded in your personal sphere, something you look at constantly and regularly—but I think it’s going to be a challenge to get people to add another internet gadget to an already crowded desktop. [chumby]

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Awesome. Young Optics Inc. has announced that it will release a Pico projector by the end of this quarter or the beginning of the next, which would make it the first such product to hit the market. The device will be based on Texas Instruments technology and utilize a DPL chip and RGB LED light module that will display up to 7 ANSI lumens brightness using only 1 watt of energy. No product name or pricing information has been made available. [Digitimes via AboutProjectors]

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Things just get worse and worse for Everex’s Cloudbook, previously thought to be a competitor to the popular Asus Eee PC, as the first company to actually ship the mini laptop has ceased selling it. ZaReason says they’ve lost so much money in shipping out refunds (due to bank transaction fees) that it’s no longer profitable for them to sell it. Why would so many people want refunds? Because the laptop’s kind of a crapfest, according to last week’s Laptop Mag review—partially because the touchpad is placed in a horrible, horrible spot. But if you really want one, Wal-Mart’s got it listed on their website. [ via Cloudbooker via eeesite]

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I got a chance to see first hand what the newly announced Zune gaming platform could look like. It’s important to keep in mind that this announcement is still in the early stages of development, and we won’t see any finished products, on the business or creative side, anytime soon. But this quick video walkthrough gives us an idea of what to expect in terms of development, API integration and wireless gaming.

Microsoft isn’t trying to compete against the Sony and Nintendo with the Zune games. The demo they showed us, a Galaga style arcade game, was closer to an iPod game or a highly polished cellphone game. Games requiring the Zune Pad on 2nd Gen Zunes won’t be able to work on Zune 1, and Microsoft is still working out how to approach this discrepancy between the two models.

Also touched on was the possiblilty or API integration, where stored media on the Zune could be used in games, and wireless gaming, opening the possibility for internet or ad-hoc connectivity. While no commercial distribution model is in place, the early SDK will be available to anyone with a XNA Creators Club membership and created games can be shared amongst members. [Zune Games on Giz]

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I’m not quite sure how you would actually play a game of Tetris with ice cubes, but if you put a little food coloring in there and pop them into a glass—you will have yourself a frosty drink that can only be compared to the lego ice cube tray in terms of sheer geekyness. Unfortunately, that wont happen anytime soon—these are only concepts at the moment. [Martin Zampach via NOTCOT]

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Made in Italy by Parafernalia, the Falter 2D is a flat piece of metal that converts, in just four easy steps, into a pen but also a ruler, and a envelope opener, and a device to kill people a la Calo killing Don Licio Lucchesi in the Godfather III. How-to video after the jump.

The Falter 2D hand-made flat pen is hand-made in Italy, from a design by Albert Ebenbichler developed by ATOdesign in Florence. The question now is: who hand-mades the hand-made hand-made pens? I sense a time-space galaxy-destroying paradox coming up. [Parafernalia]

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Paramount’s PR department is slower than the rest of the industry. They’re officially Blu-ray as of today. So now it’s totally and completely finished: All of the major studios, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best Buy and Netflix are full steam ahead on Blu-ray. If you haven’t digested the fact that HD DVD is gone by now, maybe it’s time for some Tums. And counseling. [Reuters]

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It’s a day some of us never thought would come. Art Lebedev’s Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard is finally shipping to everyone who pre-ordered it. Icing on the OLED cake, the Configuator software is available now, too. If you bought one w/ passive keys, you’ve still got another month though. [Optimus Project]

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