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The Keydex iPad stand follows its own aesthetic vision

The only part of the Sanwa Keydex iPad stand that won’t melt your eyes due to its sheer ugliness is the keyboard — and that’s because it doesn’t come with one. Instead, you have to supply your own iPad Keyboard Dock. And that’s where the pointlessness of this accessory starts to become clear. To fully appreciate this piece of whimsical nonsense, watch this promotional video:

Where to begin? Perhaps with the speakers that are actually a separate piece, complete with extra cable mess? Or with the ridiculous press-n-roll button at the front, which makes it easy to move the iPad and stand backwards and forwards with a single touch (which can’t be done with any other stand, of course). Or maybe the fact that you need to already have the Apple keyboard stand/dock to prop up the tablet?

Perhaps the best “feature” is the one that lets you lay the iPad back at a shallow angle to type on its virtual keyboard, while the the actual physical keyboard lies below it with glorious redundancy. What on Earth were they thinking?

There is actually one other feature that almost justifies the otherwise unfathomable existence of the Keydex: its price. At just ¥3,480, or $43, it isn’t too expensive, especially as those speaker probably sound just awesome.

Keydex product page [Sanwa via Akihabara news]

See Also:

• Lens Guard, The Ugly Duckling of Protective Covers
• Ugly Bluetooth Headset Transforms into Even Uglier Wristwatch …
• Ugly Flip-Like Camcorder Records Beautiful Sound

Don’t pay any attention to rumors and the lack of lines at Verizon and Apple stores at launch. Verizon’s CEO Daniel S. Mead is going on the record to tell you that the Verizon iPhone sold well. Real well. How well? He’s not really saying. The carrier is refusing to release any numbers (a rare thing for a briskly selling Apple product), but Mead went on record over at The Wall Street Journal to state that the handset had the biggest launch in carrier history.

Innovation isn’t dead among laptops. Check out the Lenovo Power Hub Transformer. It’s a 65-watt transformer for most current ThinkPad laptops. But’s also a 4+1 port USB hub. Four of the USB jacks work like any other USB expansion hub, providing signal and power to devices. The fifth, with white markings on the jack, is always on when the transformer is plugged in, letting you recharge a cellphone or iPod when the laptop itself isn’t on. Brilliant! It’s $75 direct and marginally bulkier and heavier than the standard ThinkPad transformer.

To provide the USB signal, the transformer/hub also plugs into an open USB slot on your notebook, so the net gain is plus-three USB jacks, plus that charging jack.

Though we played with ASUS’ Android-powered Eee Pad MeMO back at CES, the company spilled a couple new secrets here at CeBIT today: first, it’ll be running Honeycomb by the time it launches in June — current prototypes are running Gingerbread — and second, certain MeMO bundles will include the MeMic, a separate Bluetooth handset that lets you take calls without holding a giant tablet to your face (it’s pronounced “me-mike,” by the way). Interestingly, the MeMic features a translucent LCD that we’re told will make it to the production units; unfortunately, the units on display were running very early alpha software that had “given out” by the time we arrived at the booth, so we couldn’t get a sense of viewability. In addition to making calls, the MeMic will let you stream music, control media, and perform a few other basic tasks that make sense for a tablet remote.

On the Honeycomb side, ASUS tells us the delay is simple — as it stands, a commercial-grade Honeycomb port doesn’t exist for Qualcomm hardware, which is what the Eee Pad MeMO is running (the Xoom — the only released Honeycomb tablet so far — is running Tegra 2). The company’s confident that it’ll be ready by the time the MeMO’s slated for release in June, however. Follow the break for video!

Continue reading ASUS Eee Pad MeMO and MeMic hands-on (video)

ASUS Eee Pad MeMO and MeMic hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you given up on the ridiculous saga of the white iPhone 4? It’s probably safe to say we’ll never see Apple’s embarrassing white elephant, but fear not: We have a new white iDevice rumor to replace it. Behold: the white iPad.

The rumor comes courtesy of iFixYouri, last seen leaking photos of the entire iPad 2 screen. Now the gadget-repair company has gotten hold of this white iPad 2 screen digitizer.

It looks like it could be the real thing. Or could it? Let’s assume for a moment that Apple has finally figured out how to get a satisfactory white finish on the bezel, and look at the rest of the design.

Here’s the problem: Where is the camera hole? I see a small hole up top, but that’s the exact same hole I have in my current iPad, to let the ambient-light sensor see out.

Perhaps the two functions can peek through the same hole, or perhaps the light sensor has been ditched, as it doesn’t really work so well (not on my iPad, anyway).

Whatever the truth, we’ll find out Wednesday when the iPad 2 is unveiled at the official Apple event. What do y’all think? Bunk, or the real thing? Answers, as always, in the comments.

iPad 2: also comes in white? [9to5Mac]

Photos: iFixYouri

See Also:

• Rumor: iPad 2 Has Bigger Speaker, Flat Back, Smaller Body
• Photos: iPad 2 Display Leaked
• White iPhone 4 Delayed Again … or Forever?
• White iPhone Delay Explained by Lucky Owner