The original "T-Amp" from Sonic Impact made quite a splash a few years ago as an inexpensive amplifier that did one thing but well: push two speakers to provide clear stereo sound. Now there's a new model—the "Gen 2"—and while it's twice as expensive as the previous model at $70, it's also also capable of driving larger speakers.

That's it. It's just an amp. But supposedly a very good one.

Catalog Page [Thinkgeek.com via Gizmodo]

It is taking an act of will not to purchase this gorgeous AM/FM radio from German design haus Troika. It plucks every connective cord that resonates between my design lobe and my wallet—a smattering of silver knobs, a giant exposed speaker driver, held in wood like an electric ice cream sandwich. And it's tiny—just a five-inch square. Oh, my heart! This is my Aesthetic's Heel.

You know, screw it. It's only $75. It must be mine. Please excuse my rapture. I don't even listen to the radio!

The Trokia Boom Box can be bought at Seattle's Blackbird store for men or online at DesignStore.com (where I just purchased mine so you bastards can't keep me from my little love idol).

I confessed my post-purchase guilt to Gadget Lab's Rob Beschizza, who told me, "That is a radio to keep forever and give to a grandchild. 'All you'll hear is static, sonny—they sold the frequency off 10 years after I bought it, to AT&T Featuring Google. But we used to dance to the Macarana with this.'"

[via Monoscope]

I love this kit from Bird Electron which makes it dead simple to turn the hard plastic case of the iPod nano into a simple portable speaker. It's about $20 and appears to just slip right in—you'd just need to drill a hole for the miniJack.

Product Page (Japanese) [Bird-Electronic.co.jp via Trends in Japan via ITMedia.co.jp via Gizmodo]

Stephen Fry reviews the Eco Media Player, the video and audio player that is powered by a hand crank. Other reviews have not been so broadly positive in the past, but I suspect Fry is considering the Eco player as a device unto itself rather than a competitor to the iPod et al. I can't imagine using it for video, with only a 1.8-inch screen, but you could add a crank to a treadmill and I'd probably squeal about your ingenuity.

There is also a switch that allows the crank to discharge its power not internally to the device’s own Lithium Ion battery but out through the mini-USB into a mobile phone, charging it with up to two minutes of talk time. A selection of popular phone connections is included. Very handy in an emergency, though I found it couldn’t deliver enough kick to start up a phone whose battery was drained. Still, it’s yet another pleasing extra. And did I mention that there’s a speaker so you can listen, in mono admittedly, without earphones? Eat Trevor’s dust, Apple. Only the iPhone can match that. No iPod can.

Eco Media Player Cranks up the volume [StephenFry.com]

This wooden radio, designed by Indonesian designer Singgih S. Kartono, is made from the scrap lumber generated from the production of Java ebony. It's only 18 centimeters wide and quite lovely. I don't listen to radio, really, but I would love to have one of the hand-made units around just to look at or use as a case for another project.

The radio is available for sale in Japan for around $155.

Product Page (Machine Translated) [VShopU.com via LikeCool.com]

Crystal pushers Swarovski and electronics maker Philips have teamed up to offer some glamtastic, $178, 1-gig USB keys, one of which is shaped like a heart. Some fetching earphones "enhanced with a dome of faceted crystal" for digital music players here, too -- $79 a pair. Link to "active-crystals.com." -- XJ (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

There's not much this Cambridge SoundWorks i765 radio can't do. It's an iPod dock. It's a clock radio with alarm. Its slot-loading CD player also plays DVDs to an attached TV. It looks like a nice all-in-one solution for small apartments or dorms.

But here's the thing: it's $500. And that's before you buy a little LCD panel to go along with the DVD player. While I'm sure it sounds better than a laptop's speakers, it seems like it would be almost as cheap to buy a little laptop and some nice speakers. You'd only lose the AM/FM radio, but you'd gain, you know, a computer.

Ah well. It should get much cheaper in a year or so. These sorts of dock/radios always drop to more realistic prices surprisingly quickly.

Cambridge SoundWorks i765: The ultimate all-in-one tabletop AV system? [Crave.CNET.com]

While Complex is too high-falutin' for these some-assembly-required speakers from JVC-Victor, I think the presumably modest effort it would take to build your own set of wood cone speakers would be fun. It's not like you're winding your own wire or filling each sub-tweeter with quartz sand or anything*.

The kit's almost 400 bucks, though, so hopefully they sound nice after you've put them together.

JVC-Victor SX-WD1KT Wood Cone Speaker Kit [AcquireMag.com]

* I don't actually know how speakers work.

This "Sound Asleep Pillow," which has a small speaker inside that is supposedly audible only to the person whose head is resting on it, would be the perfect thing to buy to subconsciously reprogram a loved one via nighttime mental impregnation. They'll thank you for their new productive life of service—because you told them to.

It's £20, but seems like an easy project for a maker-crafter.

Catalog Page [IWantOneOfThose.com via Gizmodo via Random-Good-Stuff.com]

My initial experience with my flash-based 8GB Zune 2 isn't very positive—I'm considering not even taking it with me on a trip to San Francisco this week—but the upcoming "Zune Originals" program that will be launching tomorrow is great. For a limited time, you can order your Zune 2 from the site and choose an inscribed background based on one of several pieces of art that Microsoft has commissioned. Your Zune will be in monotone line art, but they'll also send along a full-color poster of the design.

Almost all of the designs are great; varied in style, too. Not so much I can imagine it will lure many to the platform, but for those already convinced, it's a lovely bonus.

Cool Hunting has an interview with the Zune Originals project lead, as well as a run down of each of the designs.

Zune Originals: Interview with Chris Stephenson [Cool Hunting]

My Zune 2 review unit just showed up in the mail. Why Vista doesn't have Zune drivers built-in I don't know, but after inserting the included disc, this was my first experience with the Zune 2. Golly.

Red from the Red Ferret Journal got his hands on a demo of "Haptikos," a haptics touch feedback system from Nokia that makes typing on a touchscreen keyboard feel something like the real thing.

The problem in perfecting the tech – codenamed Haptikos, meaning ‘to touch’ – lies in how our fingers experience a key press. We actually feel two movements, in and out, and these movements and the associated audio have to be perfectly attuned to the speed and responsiveness of a real keyboard. In use, the touch feedback on the demo device was near on perfect. Each press of a key returned a clunky click and tactile snap on the touchscreen, which made typing feel incredibly responsive and very usable on the smooth screen surface. In fact it was hard to remember that you were using a touchscreen keyboard.

The Haptikos technology will be first available to customers in the upcoming iPhone-fighting "Touch" phone from Nokia, but if it's as transformative as Red implies, I'd expect to see it in most mid- to high-end Nokia phones soon.

Relatedly, Crave.CNET.co.uk is claiming they've confirmed that Apple is building a tablet PC. Presuming that's true, I wonder if an Apple tablet will forgoe a keyboard entirely for something similar. Apple has already filed a patent for a similar system, although theirs actually involves manipulating the physical surface of a display.

Nokia perfects the clicky tactile touchscreen - iPhone gnashes teeth, swears revenge [RedFerret.net]

The Oakley Thump was never an awful idea—stashing an MP3 player in a set of sunglasses makes some sense. They're already on your head, right next to your ears... But they've an obvious downside, too: you have to have your sunglasses on any time you want to listen to music. That alone should be enough to convince Oakley to price them as a niche oddity, perfect for landscapers and vampire hunters.

But they're still selling them for ridiculous prices! The new "Split Thump," which isn't quite out yet, is $400 for a 2GB player. Since sunglasses are basically disposable goods and should never be sold for more than $20—even sunglasses manufactured from "O Matter" and "Plutonite" with "High Definition Optics"—that puts the MP3 player at around $380 by my estimation. And a 2GB MP3 player is worth about, oh... $50 these days (and that's with a strong tailwind.)

On the upside, these Thumps don't look quite as embarrassing as the previous models. That's something.

Product Page [Oakley.com via Gadget Lab via Gizmodo]

Guitar Hero and Rock Band developers Harmonix have released a new game for the new iPod nano and iPod classic (and 5G iPod). Called "Phase," it's quite a bit like a simplified version of Guitar Hero that uses your own music as the source tracks, challenging you to press buttons in sequence.

Since the rhythms are probably selected somewhat at random—it might get the tempo right, but I doubt it's picking out actual melody lines, for instance—I doubt it's quite as involved as full-fledged rhythm games, but it's only $5, so...

It's looks fun, but where are the offical iPhone/Touch games? (There is a free game called "Tap Tap Revolution" that is pretty great, if you want a similar experience on your hacked iPhone.)

MTV/Harmonix Phase [iLounge]