Icon Buzz - Designs & Arts

Our interest was piqued last fall when we first saw the “world’s smallest� Klipsch Image X10 headphones at a trade show in Denver, but we were decidedly less enthusiastic when we saw their $350 price.

Now Klipsch announces the Image X5, a silver version of the great-sounding and comfortable inside-the-ear-canal style earbuds. They’re a little easier to make because they’re slightly longer and 2mm larger in diameter, so the company lowered the price to $250, available later this month.

Take a look at the gallery below and you’ll see the X5 models compared to their pricier brethren. Klipsch says the high frequencies of these new phones sound even better than the X10s, but a bit of bass is sacrificed to make that price lower. These we gotta hear.

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What do you do when your species unsettles the balance of nature? Create artificial nature to make up the difference, of course. Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Mitsubishi Corp. and Tokki Corp. have developed a prototype solar cell module that realistically takes on the look of a common houseplant. The organic thin-film solar cells are protected by a layer of plastic, allowing the technology to be used in the future for constructs including walls and windows, clothing materials, leisure goods, outdoor products and toys. Hopefully, if we run out of trees in 50 years, these technological wonders will offer reasonably comforting substitutes.

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Silence that keyboard! That clickety-clacking all day long gets annoying, so that’s why these absolutely silent keyboards exist. Not only is the full-sized ReallyCool Keyboard quiet, it’s waterproof, so you can scrub it with soap and water if you’re in an environment where things get too funky to touch. Even more appealing is its backlighting, for, say, typing next to a hospital bed in the middle of the night.

Marketed to medical facilities, these silent keyboards are seeing use in courtrooms, too, where the distracting rat-a-tat-tat of typing tests the temper of judge and jury. According to its maker, the ReallyCool keyboard has tactile keys, giving you a normal-feeling typing experience even though it’s not particularly ergonomic. You’ll have to pay extra for all that ReallyCoolness, though — it’s $199, in your choice of black or cool gray.

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To tide you over until next week, when Apple is rumored to release the new iPhone, we give you the iCooly for the iPod Touch. The iPod holder is designed to look like a mini-iMac for your desktop and the effect, while simple, is a Mac fan’s dream device. Lending to the iMac-like effect is a tiny slot on the side of the unit (where the iMac’s DVD would usually be inserted) accommodating your dock connector and headphones. If you want to know, via miniature scale, what using a touchscreen iMac would be like you can pick your iCooly up for just Â¥4,980 ($47) here.

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Bamboo is showing up in all kinds of new products, and why not? It’s eco-friendly (bamboo grows much faster than typical trees and uses less energy to harvest) and looks damn hot. Claiming to be the world’s first bamboo sink, this round basin takes the trend to the bathroom.

To make it, craftsmen hand-turn each sink on a huge lathe and then rub it for a sateen sheen. The sink is then sealed in waterproof polyurethane that’s said to be “maintenance free” and comes with a 10-year guarantee. Apparently the makers started with a salad bowl and quickly expanded their catalog. The sink’s only drawback is the price: $500. It costs a lot green to be green.

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