E-Mail notification lamp
This beautiful blue email notification light recalls how people imagined e-mail would be before it became widespread, when its instantaneous nature was so exciting we didn't quite realize the consequences of it being free of charge to send them.
In this vision, one would receive an electronic message from a friend or colleague once in a while, see the light, and excitedly seat oneself at the machine to read it. Now, of course, such a device would be, some 80 percent of the time, a spam notification light. And it would end up being hurled at the wall.
It's $17, from Brando.
USB Webmail Notifier [Brando via Foolish Gadgets]

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Brawndo's got what plants crave!
Oh, Brando. Never mind.
it's very pretty and yeah, would definitely be thrown out the window within its first hour on my desk.
I wonder about the software driving it. The post summarizes nicely why I'd never use this for email, nevermind the fact that I have a feeling its not smart enough to integrate with gmail.
But I wonder if its triggerable from other sources, maybe by a nice little commandline app? Could then use it as a visual alarm, or maybe make it dance to music, or could connect a relay to it and have a cheap USB relay board.