UPDATED 08:49 EDT / NOVEMBER 13 2012

Not Just Another Black Friday: 2012 Tech Wonders

Maybe you’ve noticed, the holiday season is once again upon us. And what Thanksgiving or Christmas would be complete without Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, especially for lovers of tech? Shopping online was once a novelty, believe it or not. Today however, just about anything you could want is just on the other side of your LED screen there. So let’s look at some of this year’s coolest gadgets and accessories.

dCS Vivaldi Upsampler

In case you never saw a dCS Vivaldi Upsampler before this Black Friday

Mobile Marketing Mahem

As fate, and/or marketing would have it, the biggest news for 2012 in smartphones may not even be more than a rumor. That’s right, if leaked photos of a supposed Sony Yuga bear fruit (this season?) we may see a myth become a reality. Suggested as the flagship of once dominant Sony, the Yuga is said to sport a 5 inch plus display, 13 MP camera & Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core processing. As legends and myths go, this one makes a pretty ominous hand held one.

If the rumors are true then Sony is intent on engaging Samsung Galaxy Note II, which would seem to disqualify the mythical device as a phone at all. Mini tablet – toy – thingy might be more appropriate  However, for those out there who would love a phone half the size of iPad (like me), Sony could snatch a few hundred million on this one. That is, with the traditional Sony smartness built in. The mashup below shows a relative Yuga to other Sony devices.

A Yuga comparison - courtesy Mobile Indian

A Yuga comparison – courtesy Mobile Indian

Just Plain Mental Tech Gifts

CES 2012 saw a vast array of innovation, and some rehashing of old tech too. But for sheer crazy looks into the future, few products show could measure up to Chaotic Moon Labs’

Chaotic Moon Labs’ Board of Imagination from Chaotic Moon Studios on Vimeo.

Kinect-controlled skateboard. In case you never heard of this gadget, you read that correctly. You don’t have to wait until “one day” to move things around with your brain power – or waves in this case. The latest wonder board from Chaotic Moon is called the Board of Imagination. And yes, it does actually use your brainwaves to transport the rider. Just imagine where you want to go, think how fast you need to be there, and this 21st Century skateboard takes you there, under power no less.

 

With the use of a so called Emotiv EPOC headset, neural signals received by the wireless headset are processed and sent to the motorized chassis of the board. The video above does a good job of showing how this all works.

Sonus faber Homage Collection

Sonus faber Homage Collection – for the sound of your life

What’s Cooking Elsewhere

Okay, not every super cool gadget is for talking, watching, playing, or listening to. What about all those cool kitchen products coming, not to mention lamps, gadget accessories, and especially luxury items Circuit City and some other electronics spots don’t carry on or offline? Black Friday can be about everyday gadgets, all be it high quality ones we want to do stuff like – well, like last, for one thing. Name brands like KitchenAid, TurboChef, La Cornue, and yes, stuff you listen to too such as Sonus faber (image below). This holiday season you may be surprised at the Black Friday deals at even the luxurious outlets online.

Watching Stuff

The New LG OLED Cinema 3D TVWonder smart tablets and mini variants aside, we all love big screen flowing imagery. Of all the gadgets to come out in 2012, arguable the new LG 55-inch 3D OLED HD TV sports a paper thin thickness of 4mm, and a bezel only 1mm thick. The end result ends up looking like your motion picture has melted into an “edge-to-edge” feature. Talk about flowing media. On the tech side of things, it seems important to note the new LG model is the world’s biggest OLED TV. Testers claim it is wickedly bright and clear as well. The set was the choice of CES 2012 too winning Best of Show, but for all the specs the best place to check out the tube is at LG.

Udder Tech Coolness

I did not spell that wrong. In the category of other fantastically cool stuff for sale this Black Friday, for some, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga can be summed up – Wow! While flexibility and the idea of a so called Ultrabook may not be for everyone, stuff that does a lot of stuff is just cool. The latest Lenovo innovation does its share of flipping, flexing, and making use of Windows 8 too. Yoga 13 is in effect a big, happy Ultrabook™, that’s also a super tablet. While the new gadget may not be the easiest tablet to tote, nobody can say it hasn’t got power and appeal. The screen flips into four different modes, but that’s just the begging of functionality here. the touch experience of a tablet, taking full advantage of the Windows 8 functionality.

Lenovo's Yoga 13

The screen flips a full 360 degrees into four modes that make it easy to create, share, or consume content. Combine those with its long battery life, and the Yoga 13 provides ultimate versatility. Powered by either Intel® Core™ i7-3517U, Core™ i5-3317U, or Core™ i3-3217U processors, the device weilds a 13.3″ HD+IPS capacitive multitouch display, AND 3.4 lbs of purse snatcher close in weapons capability. Compared to iPad2 at 1.33 pounds, a Yoga on the top of an assailant’s head would put any in a trance. All tongue in cheek stuff aside, this gadget contorts like a gymnast. I found maybe the best Black Friday deal on same here at Logic Buy.

Image Credits: LG OLEG TV – courtesy LG Electronics, Yoga 13 – courtesy Lenovo, Yuga mashup – courtesy Mobile Indian, Sonas faber image – courtesy the Italian manufacturer of fine components, and finally the dCS Vivaldi – courtesy dCS UK.

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