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Shake Your Umbrella for a Random Song
thhamm writes "If you happen to see people wildly shaking and dancing with their white umbrellas in the street, don't call them crazy just yet. They might just be controlling their iPod with an iBrella: "The iBrella is a special umbrella that acts as an iPod interface. One can control the iPod just by his physical interactions with the iBrella." Theres a video of it in action, too. The ideal gadget to use while driving your motorized couch maybe?"
This is old. This was invented by Mary Poppins years ago.
r ypcover.jpg
http://clubdi.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/ma
From the pic, you can tell that it was powered by linux.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I pledge allegiance to the united "gahhhh, stop hurting my brain by being so stupid" foundation, that if I ever see someone with one of these I will take it from them, insert it into their... dirty orifice, and open the umbrella.
It's one thing to invent a neat tech gadget or even a bizarre tech gadget with no real purpose... but an iPod-brella is niether neat nor bizarre... they've come out with so many stupid iPod accessories that this is just another piece of crap. Worse than Segway-polo!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
If you happen to see people wildly shaking and dancing with their white umbrellas in the street, don't call them crazy just yet. They might just be controlling their iPod with an iBrella.
Whether or not one is controlling their iPod while doing this, I still believe they can be safely categorized as "fucking nuts."
So now it's bad luck to listen to your iPod indoors, is it?
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
So slashdot is posting fake "news" now?
If this is real then I have lost all faith in humanity.
I hear this product works very well, but unfortunately it currently only plays "Singing in the Rain."
It's just another silly ipod accessory. As much as I love my ipod nano, I wouldn't be caught dead with an umbrella with which to control it. Can we just quit the stupid accessories already and put that energy into improving battery life or something? Jeez.
because I don't think anyone is going to have enough rain to actually use this thing. At least here in the states.
My humor is probably your flamebait
and the next game is Dance Dance Umbrella Revolution.
I'm sure on a technical level, this is a great idea, but how many days of the month does anyone use their umbrella? I doubt this will succeed commercially.
You have to turn around to adjust volume. How in the heck is that useful? "Oops, sorry hun, my music is too loud, looks like I'm going to have to turn around and go back to work."
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Ho-bloody-ray. Obviously news is pretty slow today. I really couldnt give a flying f... if some idiots are using umbrellas to control their iPods. One born every min.
Forget Heath Ledger as the Joker. It's going be the Penguin blasting William Hung songs out of his umbrella all the way.
Where were you when the voynix came?
This has less validity than a Darl McBride's claims about Linux. What moron thought this was news?
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Apple has cool, clean designs. Microsoft has messy crazy jibberish. I'd call this a Microsoft product.
+1 Agree -1 Disagree
This looks impractical. It might be useful to buy the umbrella and cut the handle away from the rest of it. The idea of an interface device like that is cool, but the attached umbrella is obtrusive. Maybe if they made an iPod glove that not only controlled the scroll wheel but could also control the pod with hand gestures...
....about sining in the rain [ HERE ]
Crunch!
Unless John Cleese is holding it.
Thank you, baby Jesus!
Yeah, yeah... I like to drive my car from the back seat using rope, duct tape and a broomstick.
I'd totally buy it if they just put in regular control buttons in the umbrella handle.
I can see a lot of the accessoires for the iPod being useful. Belt clips, other ear plugs, uh... did we have Belt clips already?
But an umbrella? Let's be serious here, there's only so much you can milk out of an iPod enthusiast, no matter how much he loves Apple and their style. It would have been sufficient to actually print the logo on the umbrella so he can show his corporate identity perfectly matched to his iPod, but controling it with the umbrella is just plain silly.
There is only so much you can slap a brand image on, and I wonder if Apple isn't jumping the shark with that move, I wonder if it won't do more harm than good. I wouldn't be surprised if people would now start to wonder whether those gadgets they got with the Apple iPod logo, whether those gadgets are all so cool and nifty, or whether this all isn't starting to go WAY overboard now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When will the iPod accessory madness end?
It astounds me that there are so many accessories. What next? iPod remote control in your shoes? I see how explaining why you are tapdancing down the street may be amusing, though.
As if the little white headphones were not obvious enough to thieves. Now I have a giant umbrella saying "I have an iPod, steal me".
I can't imagine anyone wanting to but this. It's not good for walking indoors with, and even in the UK it doesn't rain enough to justify it's use. There are situation this is not going to work. I can see peoples eyes being poked out by someone trying to skip a track while on the tube.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
"You have to turn around to adjust volume"
I think the portable music player business has more than matured if they come out with a device where you control it by doing the Hokey Pokey.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I think I'll hang on to my preferred umbrella. Purchased in Montreal a couple of years ago, it is of a bright rainslicker yellow and proclaims in large block letters, MERDE, IL PLEUT. I can retire beneath it to listen to my iPod or do whatever else I feel like doing. Much better.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
So it wasn't a signal to shoot after all.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
i LOVE the writing on teh intarweb!
Next comes the steering wheel iPod interface! The next time you see someone swerving over the road, they're not drunk, they're just changing songs!
Obviously, the people have not run out of novel ideas, including myself. Therefore, I propose a new iPod interface:
The iPod Shopping bag.
Never again will the choice of paper or plastic be boring with the new iPod shopping bag. It comes in two style, paper and plastic, and a built in speaker to allow the other customers to know you are cool.
Speaker and Power Specs:
Paper:
-- 8" Paper sub cone to really drive the deep bass, down firing, makets your food groove too!
-- 1" Paper directional tweeter cone that makes those highs so sweet, they destroy the lc circuits in the register laser scanners.
-- Powered by two potates and one lemon
Plastic:
-- 4" Electrostatic diaphram so clear that you forget where your car is while dancing to the latest tune
-- Powered by just a single lemon
Millionaire here I come!
Best for listening to iDRM data would be a "retractable baton", as suggested for the MPAA/RIAA by some.
So if you shake it more than three times, does it scold you for "playing with it"?
You can change country songs while picking off Mexicans crossing the border. Yeee Haaaaw!
You must be new here.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Some enterprising geek showed some impressive technical skills and ingenuity and put together a fun little hack that's cool, but not really useful. What's with all these posts talking about how this is overbranding on steroids, how stupid the idea is, and how no one is going to want to use it. I don't think the guy who made this is trying to become a millionaire off his idea, I think he just had a funny idea and decided to see if he could pull it off. People should be: A.) Laughing a bit. B.) Congratulating his cleverness. It just seems like the amount of general negativity just keeps rising in the world.
"From the pic, you can tell that it was powered by linux."
p pins3.jpg
Here's a shot from the pic (motion picture) that proves the Linux involvement with Mary Poppins: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/cinema/4756/po
Where were you when the voynix came?
iBrator!
Unfortunately it doesn't really exist and it's not an iPod interface, but I could see someone hacking such a device into existance. And it selling well.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
...the iPod crowd couldn't get any sadder.
Seriously, this may be the most stupid invention in the history of time.
For the person who loves to sing in the shower, attach your iPod to the new iShower shower head. By switching from stream to massage you can control your iPod and listen to music through the mono 6 inch waterproof speaker embedded in the shower head. Includes ziploc bag for iPod storage during showering. Don't wait, order today!
News for nerds, or stuff that matters? I really don't think that an IPod umbrella is what us nerds need, as we're normally indoors anyways. I also highly doubt this is mission critical in a world sense. It must be a slow news day or /.'s datacenter increased their prices again...
Warning: Corny karma killing post above.
Silly? Of course.
Unnecessary? Definitely.
Madness? Possibly, but unlikely...
Impractical? No kidding.
Why does it matter?
Here's a group of guys who decided to geek out and make a ridiculous little interface to a ubiquitous gadget for the hell of it. Does the fact that it's for the iPod make it any worse than, say, any of the toys we see on ThinkGeek?
If it takes being silly to come up with an idea (which, if you think about it, isn't really a bad I/F -- just a silly implementation of it), then I say go for it... Come on, slashdotters... don't you remember being young and stupid and the goofy things you coded/built back in the day?
(I know you do...)
The iBrella...for when the click wheel is just too convenient.
As Monkey said: Silly? Of course. Unnecessary? Definitely. Madness? Possibly, but unlikely... Impractical? No kidding. Anyways, it plays "Singing in the Rain" as the first song when you power/open your umbrella.
Hi.
Maybe they'll get struck by lightning... and then they'll dance just like Bono and wear horrible sunglasses. Or die. Pick your poison.
I will forever be a student.
This must be an invention of the ASU, the American Streetrobbers Union: apparently too many of 'm have bad eyesight and complained they 'missed opportunities': the iPod's white earbuds aren't visible enough. The iBrella cures that...
next you'll see guys itching their crotches... dont worry, their just changing the song they are listening to in the new ijock.
What would you say if this umbrela was also a solar battery? Of-course it would work better if the umbrella was used against the sun, the in the rain, but its area is big enough to make an iPod run even in stormy weather. Now, why would you want umbrella to play music at all, that's a totally different category of a story.
You can't handle the truth.
Seriously how many more of these things do we need? we have them for jackets, car stereos, pants, chairs, hats and cellphones.
Next thing we'll see, is Ipod shoes, Ipod ipods (yes for that double ipod audio) and Ipod codpiece, for when your getting it on with your lady and need to hear "Oh Yeah", and ipod nose puppy.
Seriously people, the Ipod is cool and sleak, your products are not!
ahh finally a device a trully freethinking-treehuggin-starbucksdrinkin-ipodsheep can have that will set fianlly set him self apart from all lthe umbrellatoting-freethinking-treehuggin-starbucksdr inkin-ipodsheep
oh wait a minute......
people forget that your nolonger an individual if you look like the next yuppie.
but at least we can spot them easier.
just remember i had an mp3 player before you know what an ipod was
Dance Dance Immolation is "Dance Dance Revolution. With Flamethrowers. Pointed at you." (See the DDI URL for a picture by Kristen Ankiewicz.) I saw it at The Crucible's recent Fire Arts Exhibition. You don't get flamed every time you miss - it's more like every N times or so, and might depend on whether you or the other person you're playing against is ahead. (Oh, and you do get to wear a fireproof suit...)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is a perfect example of the old saying "Just becuase you could doesn't mean you should!!!!!!!!!!!) This alsmost as bad as the Toaster/Radio I say At JCPenny the other day.
Timothy, of course. Retarded editor from hell.
Come on. The iPod is a great product, but for people who don't want to deal with Apples DRM, the Creative Zen Vision M is the "killer app". You can get everything from your toaster to your dog outfitted with an iPod zip connector, but I can't get crap for my Zen Vision. That's just not fair! At least release the specs for the Zen Vision connector so I can try to make or convert something to use with it! Before you make another "dog shaped speaker with blinky lights" for the iPod, how about making something useful for us red-headed step children with Zen's?
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuppppppiiiiiiiidddddd!
http://www.ibuzz.co.uk/
...
No need for a full PlayStation 2 and Rez Trance Vibrator to have that "buzzy" feeling anymore
I checked the calendar, it is not April 1st but this still looks fake to me. Unless someone shows me one in a store I am not going to believe this to be anything more than a joke. Take a look at that "award" on the front page...."Winner of the Award 2005". Winner of what award?
It's fake.
Who the hell spends enough time walking in the rain to make buying one worthwhile? And are there really enough said people to warrent marketing such a product?
Gaah!! The stupidity is leaping off the screen and burrowing into my brain!!!!
Apple interfaces just got stranger.
Great Intellect...
If I tap my shoes hard enough against eachother; my player might fall out of my pocket and it'll press STOP or FORWARD automatically; beat that ;)
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The difference in this interface and the umbrella is
I always have shoes on me when outside; but never an umbrella !
Would be bad anyways to learn/have a seperate interface when the sun shines, when its raining, when skating, when driving,
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..