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We all know that making anything iPod Touch and iPhone related adds a few degrees of coolness (and a few dollars) to it but the Gorenje iPod fridge is definitely a turn up for the books.

Adding an iPod / iPhone dock to a fridge is what we call thinking outside of the box (please somebody tell me that you got that joke). The Gorenje iPod fridge is more than just a fridge with an iPod dock attached. You can actually control your fridge from your iPod Touch / iPhone and in fact can control any Gorenje appliance from washing machines to ovens and that’s pretty impressive. What’s even more impressive is that this is an official Apple licensed partnership so Gorenje must have friends in all the right places over at Apple HQ.

An application imaginatively title the iGorenj allows you to control the fridge and other Gorenje appliances from you iPod Touch / iPhone but not wanting to put all their eggs in one basket, the application can actually run on any web device so you can remotely access your fridge from elsewhere (technology eh, makes laziness so easy…).

No wording on price or release yet so don’t expect to see one of these Gorenje refrigerators in Best-Buy just yet….

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The Philips CinemaOne neatly combines an iPod dock, HD DVD player and sound system into a strange looking gadget that look like a step-up aid.

Phillips revealed the multi-purpose CinemaOne at the IFA and has designed it to plug into your television via HDMI and is also DivX compatible which is a nod to the internet download generation. Hidden under the minimalist exterior lies 5 DSP powered speakers and nifty 4 inch sub-woofer.

No price details yet but we’re guessing that like the Sountina nsa-pf1, the Philips CinemaOne is not aimed at those on a budget…

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Cowon’s new portable media player looks a beauty. No it’s not going to be an iPod killer but it’s definitely raising the bar in the media player style stakes.

The Cowon S9 Curve PMP’s curved back and rounded corners indicates that it’s trying to live up to its name and it looks pretty good doing so. Under the bonnet it hides a 16 million color 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen, 500 MHz CPU, T-DMB, Bluetooth connectivity, media player functions and an electronic dictionary app.

All this sounds good but the proof will be when it finally goes on general release sometime this year. Other PMP’s better step their games up….

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Did the iPod kill the Walkman? Don’t think so, it was pretty much dead and dying before the iPod came along but in a show of generosity the iPod is helping to revive it’s deceased predecessor.

Well, not really but this cassette player with iPod face is pretty cool anyway. This looks more like a mod than a concept (who would bring back cassette players now?) and is essentially your traditional Walkman-like cassette player with what looks to be a more or less fully functioning iPod face-plate, complete with a rather bright LED.

If cassette players had looked like this back in the day maybe the would still be around. Then again, given what a nightmare it was when your tapes got tangles, maybe not. Rather than getting a mod for your cassette player, you would be better of getting a mod for your iPhone…..

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Microphone Check 1-2, 1-2

Pod-caster, rapper or just an like the sound of your own voice? Well Belkin have the goodies for you the shape of the GoStudio iPod recording dock. The GoStudio Dock is designed for the iPod 5G Classic and the 2G/3G Nano (every other iPod will have to wait).
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You can record 16-bit 44.1kHz audio using a standard 1/4 inch microphone or the built in stereo mics. You can upload the output directly onto iTunes. It seems a bit pricy for $119 but for iPod lovers and wannabe MC’s the GoStudio iPod recording dock may be up your street…

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All things Apple are cool at the moment and with the impending release of the new iPhone, the temperature is about to drop some more (if you want the new iPhone for free and before everyone else gets it, GadgetHeat has the perfect solution).
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Jumping whole-heartedly on this bandwagon is the iPod USB by boysstuff. You can get this in a 2GB or 4GB versions for $40 and $50 respectively and what do you get for your money? A cutesy USB with a squeezy cover and a greater affiliation to what is possibly the gadget of the century, iPod (saying that though, you should check out our current gadget of the year, the R2D2 DVD projector).
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The iPod USB stick is USB 2 compatible for speedy transfers and it’s pretty cutesy so what more do you want eh?


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Porsche By Design

When it comes to cars, Porsche is one of the kings of the road (well in suburbs where you can safely show-off without getting car-jacked) and now they have turned their attention (and brand name) to the audio market with the release of the new P’9120 Porsche Design Eton Stereo system with separate iPod dock (I thought that Eton was a posh boys school in England?).
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The P’9120 Porsche Design Eton Stereo system is rather striking to look at and the stereo design gives a hint as to the power that lies beneath which is what GadgetHeat would expect from all things Porsche. Three speakers on the aluminium outside (flashy) hide a sub-woofer underneath to give you bumping bass just when you need it.
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The P’9120 also comes with AM/FM radio as well as DAB. The OLED display on the stereo is stylish but small and the ‘different’ style of the remote control makes sure that you will never lose it and if you lose anything else, the remote control can help you find it as it comes with a torch (yay Porsche for thinking about things that we don’t really need but are cool to have anyway). The iPod dock is nothing spectacular and if you are in the market for a dock, you may want to check out this wooden iPod Dock or the Twin Ipod and iPhone dock.
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The tech specifications state something about double wall construction for ‘superior acoustics‘ which just means to us that this is what they are using to justify the $900+ price tag attached to the P’9120 Porsche Design Eton Stereo system (boo Porsche for making us pay way over the odds for your brand name).

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We love a combination of the retro and modern so when we saw this Spirit of St. Louis iPod Boombox we just had to bring it to you. It is essentially an i-Pod dock with extensive retro styling making it look like it is straight out of WW II and is in-fact designed to look just like the ones they used on the battlefield in those gory days.

The Spirit of St. Louis iPod Boombox has an aviation style design radio, alarm clock, CD player and iPod dock looks like an antique classic with all the modern functionality you could want. it has a solid wood exterior exterior and metal finish on the handles and hinges making it look like it would not be out of place on a CEO’s (or an army officer’s) desk.

You can pick up the Spirit of St. Louis i-Pod Boombox from spiritofstlouis.co.uk for about $600 (£299.99).

Apple has become integrated into our very psyche these past 10 years with the explosion of the iPod. So much so that the new range of Apple iPod lamps comes as no surprise to GadgetHeat.

The lamp is integrated with a speaker so that you can have your favourite tunes playing gently in the background whilst being soothed by the reading light. Read the full story

UPDATE - 21/12/2007 - I got a lot of hits from people wanting to get DVD’s onto their SONY NWZA818 or other A80x Walkman so I wrote a quick guide for you guys here - How to get DVD onto SONY NWZA818 / SONY A80* Walkman.

Ok so you got your fancy new iPod Touch, nano, iPhone or iWhatever and it looks great apart from one thing…how do you make and watch your own videos on the thing?? Fret no further as we guide you through this step by step and show you how to convert and encode your DVD’s, .mov, .wmv, mpegs, DivX and whatever else you may need to encode onto your iPod / iPhone.

Before we get started I know that most of you wil be wondering why not just use the facilities offered by iTunes? The menu image can be accessed by going to Advanced > Convert selection for iPod. The short answer is because it’s a bit average and, as we all know, average is the most offensive word in the English language. iTunes simply converts and encodes any video file you select into what it thinks is the most appropriate format but not neccessarily be the best format. For example, when converting mpegs with multiplexed audio files the end product will have no sound. The whole process of converting video files also takes rather longer using iTunes than if you used a third party sowftware application. You can also forget about encoding any videos you downloaded from the iTunes store due to DRM protection or any videos that iTunes already thinks is in the appropriate format but you may want to tweak and improve.

If you need to convert your DVD’s into an iPod ready format one of the best options is 1Click DVD to iPod Converter. This isn’t freeware and comes in at around $39 but as far as ease of use goes it’s on the the best.

Simply insert the DVD and click the start button. The software also automatically knows when you have a DVD with many episodes and converts them into seperate iPod video files. The default settings converts movies with optimal quality (max 20) and a relatively small size. Right clicking anywhere on the application will bring up more options such as resolution and video size but if you want something quick and easy for your DVD’s then this isn’t far off the mark. You can even remove the black bars from wide screen DVD’s by adjusting the zoom options (handy if you are converting to watch on an iPod nano or iPod Classic).

For converting mpegs, wmv’s and all other video media that you may download off the web there are several options, Roxio Crunch being amongst them. Crunch was originally a Mac application but has been ported over to windows. Its key feature is the ability to batch convert many files realtively quickly. Nice as that may sound it also costs $50 and when all is said and done, it is really just a subset of Roxio’s Popcorn application but streamlined to be more user friendly.

We don’t really want you to spend that money so we are going to focus on a freeware application and one of the best is HandBrake which is another orignal Mac application which thankfully has now got a Windows version.

Make sure you have the latest version of Apple Quicktime, download Handbrake for free from here and let’s begin.

When you install the program you may get a prompt telling you that you do not have the correct version of .Net framework installed, If so, just download and install from here. If you have Windows Vista on the machine you have installed HandBrake on then you should make sure that you run Handbrake as an administrator otherwise the DVD scanning process will NOT work. Simply go to the Program Files folder (usually on your C: drive) find the Handbrake exe (should be in the’Handbrake’ folder funnily enough) and right click the Handbrake.exe and click the option ‘Run as administrator’.

Once you have actually got it installed and start it up the Screen you will be presented with is as below (click to enlarge):

There are a lot of bells and whistles here for the more advanced user who wants his image and sound just so but if you’re a novice don’t worry about all the options as were going to go through the streamlined usage.

1. Go to the Source section at the top and select what kind of source you will be browsing to, ‘Folders’ (DVD’s) or ‘Files’ (ISO / TS / Mpeg etc). The default is DVD so you can leave it on the ‘Folder’ option. Either way after clicking the [Browse] button you will see a file open dialogue.

2. With the ‘Files’ option you just need to browse to where you have saved your image, mpeg or whatever and select it. Using the ‘Folders’ option you will see the typical folders selection window that you find in any application. You need to look for the name of your DVD with the drive letter above it. Click on the ‘+’ and the ‘VIDEO_TS’ folder will appear. Select this and press OK.

3. Click OK to the prompt that appears and you will see a DOS window pop up for about 20 seconds (could be quicker or longer depending on your PC and the DVD being scanned). This will dissapear after it’s done.

4. Go to the Title section on the Handbrake GUI and select the DVD title you want to encode (the one you want is usually the one with longest duration). Leave the DVD chapters on auto for now to encode everything. If you want to pick and choose which chapters to encode simply select the range from the Chapters section on the GUI.

5. Go to the Destination section and click [Browse] to choose the location of where you want th finished file saved to, type your file name and click ‘Save’.

6. On the right hand side of the Handbrake GUI there are the preset options. Choose the one you want, either iPod versions or iPhone in this case and click the [Encode Video] button at the bottom of the GUI.

That’s it! You’re done! Make sure you share this article with anyone who needs to know and if you have any feedback you can reach me at saif270@gadgetheat.com

You can also visit the Handbrake forums and read their own userguide here. If you have an iPod, iPhone or iWhatever you can also check out our sister site www.hdtvreviews.org.uk for HD TV Reviews