These minimal analog watches have a little secret. Using some clever optical trickery, the current hour gradually appears and disappears from view.

You see, that hour hand isn’t really a hand at all. It’s actually a cutout in a solid round disc covering the face of the watch. As the disc turns, the hour gradually comes into view, then vanishes as the next hour emerges.

Designer Ross McBride’s Extra Normal is one of several watches in his Normal Timepieces series. Featuring a brushed stainless steel case and either a black or white leather band, you can find the Extra Normal watch from Nova68 for $199 each.

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While there’s still no official word from Nintendo on anything but white Wii-motes, there is now a third-party option for those of you bored with the standard-issue models.

Snakebyte is one of the first companies to offer a third-party substitute for the Wii-mote (called the Riimote), and will be offering them in colors not offered by Nintendo. Functionally, these controllers look pretty much identical to the authentic Wii-motes, although the button designs are a little more modern in styling. The initial models will come in either a gloss black or a dramatic bright purple, which really jumped out at me when I first saw it. They should be available for purchase early in February.

Unfortunately, it looks like Snakebyte hasn’t been able to get their costs down to what Nintendo has since they’re not producing as many, so the price of €39.99 (appx. $59 USD), is a bit hard to stomach. That’s too bad, since they do look really cool.

[via Wii News Daily via Play Gadgets]

[UPDATE: Nintendo Wii Fanboy has posted a number of additional photos of the Riimote and matching Nunchuks.]

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Whether you’re outfitting your media room with a Grauman’s Chinese Theater motif, or you just like scaly reptilians, these dragon speakers are sure to make a dramatic statement in your home.

Designed by UK studio Axelsson Design, these awesome dragon speakers look like something that belong in the villain’s lair in a John Woo film. The 2-way speakers are made from sturdy polyurethane plastic cabinets, and bass is actually ported through the mouth of each dragon (no fire breathing, however). Both the 1-inch tweeter and 4-inch woofer are provided by respected audio manufacturer Peerless.

The speakers measure about 15.4-inches tall, and are available in gloss black, white or candy apple red finishes. Axelsson also says they’ll embellish them in a color of your choice if you have something else in mind (how about something really off the wall, like a GREEN dragon?)

A pair of Axelsson’s dragon speakers will set you back $940 USD.

[via Home Theater Blog]

 quotationweb

These minimal analog watches have a little secret. Using some clever optical trickery, the current hour gradually appears and disappears from view.

You see, that hour hand isn’t really a hand at all. It’s actually a cutout in a solid round disc covering the face of the watch. As the disc turns, the hour gradually comes into view, then vanishes as the next hour emerges.

Designer Ross McBride’s Extra Normal is one of several watches in his Normal Timepieces series. Featuring a brushed stainless steel case and either a black or white leather band, you can find the Extra Normal watch from Nova68 for $199 each. 

quotationweb 

Firmly parked at the intersection of Geek Street and Park Avenue, Gucci has entered the digital age with these modern watches which let your friends know that you’ve truly arrived (or that you’re just independently wealthy).

Part of Gucci’s appropriately named iGucci series, these luxury LCD watches feature a cool round white-on-black display, set behind a sturdy sapphire crystal. The LCD combines a small dot-matrix display showing the current mode, and a pair of segmented displays which can show the time in two time zones simultaneously. I especially like the alternate display mode which shows the time using virtual analog hands. 

It’s all set into a substantial stainless steel body that’s water resistant to 3-atmospheres (appx. 100-feet). You’ve got your choice of either a black or red rubber wristband, which of course features the inimitable GUCCI logotype.

Of course, all this upper-crusty goodness comes at a price. List price for the watches is around $1300 each, but I was able to find them over on eBay for under $1000. Such a deal.

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It’s been a while since I’ve seen speakers that looked quite this strange. Designed to be your “little dead desktop buddy”, they look like something that your neighborhood dominatrix might have sitting next to her computer.

The oddly-named Dutch Dead Bbudd speaker system looks like some sort of naugahyde-wrapped dude with his eyes X’d out. The speakers are embedded into his feet, pumping out the tunes as he sits on your desk.

As Bbudd is a dead guy, it only makes sense that he’s a passive (non-amplified) speaker system. So if you like your speakers a little on the kinky side, you can grab the little dead guy over at Kado-Fix for €24,95 (appx. $38 USD).

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It’s been a while since I brought you guys any cool new watches. It’s not for lack of trying, but there just hasn’t been much that’s hit my desk that really caught my eye. So I was pleased when I came across these, the latest analog timepiece from the guys over at Nixon.

The Nixon Murf takes a 1970s-style dial watch, and puts a decidedly modern spin on the design. The watch features rotating hour and minute wheels that rotates behind a fixed-position indicator. In addition the the minimal black and stainless design shown above, the Murf comes in several other color-ways ranging from the sublime to the surreal.

The watches are all powered by a direct drive quartz movement, and feature LED illumination for ease of nighttime viewing. Prices for the Murf range from $300 to $350. Check out the full collection here.

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This modern backpack is sure to draw attention as you walk down the street — especially if you’ve got the volume cranked up. You see those big black patches? They’re loudspeakers.

Created by industrial design student Joonas Saaranen, the Reppo II backpack features a built in pair of full-range speakers and an amplifier, so you can kick out the jams as you walk down the street. The only thing better would be if that big black patch were a subwoofer. Of course, that might shatter your vertebrae if you turned up the volume too much.

Saaranen’s concept design has gotten as far as a functional prototype at this point, but he hasn’t revealed if he’ll ever have them produced en masse. In the mean time, if you happen to be in Berlin, Germany (where Joonas currently resides) and hear someone coming down the street wearing this bad boy, offer up the mad props he deserves.

[via Square]

This cool fabric curtain may look like a tree from afar, but once you’re up close, you’ll see that it’s made of tens of thousands of tiny ASCII characters.

Created by Dutch designer Nienke Sybrandy, the huge (18′ x 11′) curtain panel was digitally printed with dot matrix characters to give the impression of intricate tree branches from a distance.

Now if only I could get her to make me one with some real ASCII art on it, I’d hang ‘em all over my house.

[via NOTCOT]