Anita Leopold has a little surprise for anyone who thinks vending machines were created to dispense lightly salted snack food and sugar-laced temptations.

The top treat in the sleek, high-tech machines operated by her company and ZoomSystems at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is a top-of-the-line Apple iPod that fetches $349 before tax. It comes with a money-back guarantee, and it doesn’t drop from anywhere.

A sophisticated robotic arm gently guides the mini-music machine to the buyer’s hands.

“We’ve done about $55,000 in a month in gross sales just for the one on Concourse A,” said Leopold, executive vice-president and owner Business Traveler Services. “This is becoming the future for some high-end products in places like airports where space is at a premium.”

Mark Mullins, Zoom’s executive vice-president, said his company now has machines, which, depending on the location, dispense everything from skin-care products to batteries. They are in more than 300 locations nationwide, including universities, military bases and more than 126 Macy’s stores. Mullins said there are 11 Zoom machines in metro Atlanta.

“We put in some iPods and found we couldn’t keep them in stock,” he said, “We found no customer resistance to swiping a card and buying a $300 item from a machine. We’re selling thousands (of iPods), and the machines at the Atlanta airport are major contributors to that.”

The rise and fall of the PlayStation 3 on eBay is one of the most talked about gaming stories of the year. In order to paint a broader picture, I’ve tracked pricing trends from preorders to Christmas Eve and surveyed retailers to determine just how hard the PS3 grey market has crashed. In the days leading up to the PlayStation 3 launch in mid-November, people all over the country lined up with dollar signs in their eyes, hoping to cash in on what was sure to be the most sought after gift this holiday season. I talked to many people planning on financing college, cars, vacations, and countless other dream items with the fruits of their labor.

A week later those hopes and dreams were crushed, as reports of plummeting eBay prices poured in. Just how fast did the PS3 grey market crash? Take a look for yourself, and feel free to click the graph for a larger version.

Within two days of the system’s launch the going price dropped by over $1000. eBay prospectors across the country were stunned at the rapid depreciation of their investment. While they were still looking at $600 profit on average, it was a far cry from the windfall everyone had been expecting. Read the rest of this entry »

Dolce & Gabanna and Dj Donna D’Cruz have designed incredible Swarovski encrusted Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones set, so if you want to dj with style, you can get one of those soon at Rasamusic.com. These sparkling headphones look gorgeous on the dancefloor and cost $2500.

Here’s one of those products that you tell yourself that could have came up with lickidty split. It’s a solution to dunking your cookies with your drinks without getting too many crumbs in the cup. The dunk mug has a compartment at the bottom to store your biscuits prior to dunking, so you can hold the mug in one hand and and retrieve one biscuit at a time ready for the dunk. The dunk mug is available from Firebox for £14.95.

A new patent pending 360 degree rotating and mobile video billboard can be seen deliverying 30 second moving video clips to thousands of New York, LA, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco citizens. It can be attached to your cab, bus, or your car (if you want to). Some people are calling it “four-sided mobile audio visual advertising on wheels.” We like to call is just pure genius. Thousands upon thousands of onlookers wondering what the hell that techno-pizza-man-topper is doing on top of your car will help generate a little press for your product. It was built by Massachusetts based Al Terrain.

This commercial for the new Apple iPod Shuffle features a pretty interesting look at the variety of ways you can wear the iPod Shuffle and wear you can clip it to your shirt, pants, scarf, or jacket. So “Put Some Music On” with the new iPod Shuffle.

Talk about truely innovative paper. I thought when Xerox developed paper that deleted itself that the company was going to make huge profits marketing this innovative product. Then, I checked out what the crazy people over in Japan were up to. The video below shows a type of liquid developed by a Japanese company that allows things to be submerged into it without getting wet. I’ve seen something similar here in America where someone would dip a cell phone or tv into a liquid and the electronic would be damaged but I never imagined that a liquid could be developed that could handle both ink and paper products. Check it out below!

Someday we might see American children turning into full fledged healthy looking adults. But for now, 16% of American children 12-19 are overweight according to the Center for Disease and Control and Prevention leading to many fitness clubs and health organizations fleeing for an innovative way to bring in our youth.

A company called Overtime Fitness, opening tomorrow in Mountain View, California aims to target this demographic and turn sugary rich coach potatoes into full fledged gadget dieters. The fitness facility features regular workout equipment, a study center filled with internet accessible computers, and a virtual reality dance game much like Dance Dance Revolution. There’s also a resistance rod which turns the real world of working out into the virtual world of entertainment. One game, called “Kilowatt Sport” is very similar to Madden 2006 for the Xbox. The game involves resistance training where if you lean against the equipments resistance rod you can break through tackles and break the defensive line. The only thing that still lingers in my mind is how parents will react when faced with a $60 per month membership fee?

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The Drinkers Beer Belt was recently developed by United Kingdom based “The Donkeys Stable” to promote their idea of the ultimate pub companion.

The belt, able to strap around your waist like any belt, “immediately makes you feel like the King of the Bar.” I don’t know about any of you out there, but if I were to wear this around the bar I would probably get my face pushed in by a couple of drunkard jocks. I think this thing will be the “kick my butt” flashing sign that the fanny-pack once evoked in the 1980s.

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Watch out Wild-E-Coyote! Want to hit the airport with guns a blazin’, miss your flight, and be put in jail! We’ll a new travel bag developed by Urban Outfitters might have your answer. “Guns Wheel Away Case” will help you hit the roads with guns a blazing. The suitcase comes embroidered with guns on the exterior sides. I can just imagine TSA Agents ripping this bag apart. Even at 30% off I would still rather buy a Marilyn Manson T-Shirt and receive better treatment at the airport. Very bad product development Urban, very bad. (please note some of the sarcasm)

For all you hippies and tree huggers out there, Xerox has developed a “transient document” paper that deletes content after a period of time and will then be ready for use again. “Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specifically prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours. Further research is being undertaken to give the option of subsequently preserving the content if the user desires, which might literally involve warminig up old data through the heating of the paper.”

The paper has a “photochromic compoud that changes from a clear state to a coloured state under ultra-violet light.” The print face will then fade with time. I really wish we could develop a paper that we could specify how long it takes to clear, but I suppose Xerox is still working on that one. Xerox told PC Pro Magazine that “further research is being undertaken to give the option of subsequently preserving the content if the user desires, which might literally involve warming up old data through the heating of paper.” PC Pro Magazine

Having sold 10 million iPod Shuffles, Apple announced they will be releasing a new model the size of the iPod radio remote with 1GB of capacity. The shiny new aluminum cast body comes with a clip for easy belt buckle attachment. Apparently, the new iPod Shuffle will be the “world’s smallest MP3 player” known to man. It’s available for preorder now and expected to be released for sale in October for a measily $79.00. Talk abotu affordable!

This is Asahi, a beer pouring robot from Japan. It can refrigerate up to six cans of beer, two mugs, and with a simple push of a button it will pour a beer into the mug with perfect head every time. It gets even better too, this thing is free! Kind of. You have to collect 36 seals found on specially marked Asahi beer, but I wouldn t have a problem with that. Now if I could only teach it to make me a sandwich and cuddle.

Another truly innovative product of cross branding and product development courtesy of Apple and ZMP Inch. After the onslaught of Apple vs. PC Commercials we are dealt everyday, Apple has stepped it up by pushing the iPod Music Player to the extreme-ly weird.

A new Japanese robot Miuro is turning heads as it turns an iPod music player into a dancing boombox on wheels. The 14 inch machine from ZMP Inc. blares music as it jives through your living room. Apple’s iPod player locks on the top of the Miuro robot and comes in black, red, or yellow.

The cost of the Miruo? A staggering $930. The 11 pound Miruo has a gentle look unlike many of the newer robotics emerging from large corporations. The robot went on sale officially on Thursday in Japan and is expected to become available overseas at the end of 2007. ZMP is hoping to sell 10,000 Miuros the first year. Another fun thing you can do with the Miruo is add a camera and sensors to the robot to help it remember routes throughout your house. Creepy and cool all in the same bundle!

If you’re me and without an iPod or MP3 digital player alternative then this is for you. Monday, SanDisk introduced a new digital music player that stores 2 TIMES as many songs as the iPod Nano for the same price. A perfect buy this holiday season. The SanDisk player has an amazing 8 gigabytes of storage capacity or 2,000 songs worth of music. The cost? Only $249.00! “The most costly ingredient in a flash-based (music) player is the flash memory,” said Eric Bone, director of audio/video product marketing at SanDisk. “Since we make the flash memory, we essentially remove the middleman and pass that savings directly to the consumer.”