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Money for Old Rubber: Tread Gadget Bags Made from Old Tires 11 November 2008 at 4:03 am by admin

tread.jpg


Tread is a brand which sells recycled bags fashioned from old truck tire inner-tubes. It’s not the only company to be making these things — the combination of almost indestructible rubber and cheap raw materials means its big business. It is, however, the only company making rubber gadget bags that is owned Better Energy Systems, which also owns solar-powered bag company Solio.

We would seriously dig a rubber bag with a solar panel for gadget-charging, both for convenience and for the double-green credentials, but right now you’ll need to buy both a Solio charger and a Tread sleeve if you want this. The bags range from the rather corporate-looking Flippy iPhone case (left, $30) through the rather teen-friendly Solio Urban (right, $25) to the frankly splendid Sleeve notebook case (center, $130).

And there lies the rub. $130 is a lot of money for any bag, but especially for one made out of old tires bought from Columbian car repair shops. But then, we doubt you’d ever need to buy another bag again. Unless, of course, Tread finally comes up with a rubber bag with a built in solar cell.

Product page [Tread. Thanks, Mark!]

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+ IPhone Outsells RAZR, The Most Inexplicably Popular Phone Ever By admin 11 November 2008 at 3:41 am and have No Comments

razr.jpgThe parallels are striking. Back in 2003, the Motorola RAZR shot out of the gate and became hugely popular (or not) despite an $800 off-contract price tag. The glass and metal looked great, and as prices dropped it became almost the default handset for new contract sign-ups.

A few years later, the iPhone took off, again with a crazy off-contract price tag, and again with the glass and metal. But Apple’s smartphone could never catch up to Moto’s Christmas-cracker giveaway, right? After all, just a year ago we carried this headline here at Gadget Lab: “RAZR V3 Wiping Floor With iPhone, Everyone“.

Well, yes. The iPhone now outsells the RAZR, despite the fact that LetsTalk will actually pay you $30 to take one. Here are the top five seling phones in the third quarter of this year, according to NPD group

Apple iPhone 3G

Motorola RAZR V3 (all models)

RIM Blackberry Curve (all models)

LG Rumor

LG enV2

The RAZR was always a good looking phone, and that alone probably accounted for its popularity. Now, though, the fashion conscious have an even cooler phone to buy, and it has one huge added bonus: It doesn’t contain Motorola’s sucky operating system, an OS which is so frustrating that, in combination with the handset’s sharp edges, makes it a potentially lethal weapon.

That said, the RAZR has been a moneymaker for Moto, topping the charts on and off for eight years. Maybe its about time Motorola had another idea?

iPhone 3G Leads U.S. Consumer Mobile Phone Purchases in the Third Quarter of 2008 [NPD]

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+ Steve Case’s face-saving merger [Revolution Health] By admin 03 October 2008 at 12:00 am and have No Comments

The health-website bubble, inflated by purchased search-engine traffic, is deflating. As rumored for weeks, Waterfront Media, an operator of health websites, is buying Revolution Health in a $300 million deal. Waterfront’s network reaches 14.7 million visitors a month; Revolution, 11.3 million. WebMD, the largest operator of health websites has 17.3 million. Yet the combination won’t displace WebMD, one industry insider says: “This really is 2 + 2 = 3.” Where the deal does add up: Case, as a Waterfront board member, will be free to take credit for whatever success Waterfront realizes.


+ Sexy Sony Vaio TZ Is About To Be TT? [Rumor] By admin 21 September 2008 at 4:30 pm and have No Comments

Sony Insider is reporting a well-founded rumor that the Vaio team will announce a new notebook tomorrow, a replacement to the super-sweet TZ, now to be called TT. I don’t know if that’s an Audi reference or a boobie reference, but what I do know is that it will likely have wireless-N, Bluetooth and an EVDO option—no mention of HSDPA—and will be a full-powered Vista notebook with the same 11.1-inch screen as the lightweight TZ. Catchy name or not, this combination of features should make it a pretty hot item, so let’s all keep an eye out for the real news. [Sony Insider]