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Practice safe dialing with "Skins"
In this harsh, dirty, unforgiving world we all call home, damaged and destroyed mobiles are a reality we can't easily escape -- unless you have 75 microns of latex between your phone and its surroundings, that is. Innovalife of The Netherlands is marketing "Skins," a tube-shaped rubbery apparatus designed to be rolled around your phone to provide near-total protection from "water, dirt, mud, paint, sweat, blood, snow and much more." Apparently, there is a slight loss in sound quality, but the phone remains otherwise completely functional. The Skins are available in a variety of colors for the kind of stylish protection today's youngsters, butchers, and painters demand -- yes, butchers and painters are a major part of Skins' target demographic. Unfortunately, we're going to have to roll the dice with our naked phones; we're guessing clamshells aren't invited to the party, and we don't think we get splashed with enough blood to encase our beautiful devices in thick, impersonal rubber anyway. [Via The Register]
Video: XBMC MC360 "blades" looking sharp
The 360 would be so much cooler if Xbox Media Center wasn't around to remind you of the next-gen console's crippled potential. In this video, Seth and Sean from ActionCorp show off Team Blackbolt's MC360 skin, a slick reproduction of the recently updated dashboard we all know and love. XBMC just keeps getting better. More info and high-res trailers here.
Slingbox released in UK
Because you can never have convenient enough access to all that great BBC programming, Sling Media has just released a version of their popular Slingbox for British TV junkies. The UK model has been tweaked a bit for European viewing, with PAL tuners replacing the NTSC versions found in US boxes, and a DVB-T tuner thrown in for placeshifting that sweet, sweet OTA Freeview content. In conjunction with the UK rollout, the folks at Sling also announced an updated version of the SlingPlayer PC software, whose main upgrades include widescreen 16:9 support and a skinnable client. Slingbox: UK will initially be available exclusively at PC World's website and retail locations -- and at Currys stores in four to six weeks -- for £180, VAT included.
VLC 0.8.5 released with Intel Mac, Growl support, many improvements
The most excellent jack-of-many-formats VLC media player has just reached version 0.8.5, and boy does it pack a whallop - just check out the release notes. The biggest new additions to write home about are Universal Binary support, Growl notifications, a statistics system, new skin support including skins from Winamp 2 (for those who just can't let go), new video filters, support for downloading updates (possibly due to Sparkle?) and a whole lot more.VLC is a feature-packed media player with support for a boatload of media formats, and is available free for many OSs from VideoLAN.
The Iconfactory releases new iPulse jackets
What fun are your utilities if you can't dress them up, right? The Iconfactory has released four new skins (or "jackets") for iPulse, their system monitoring tool (I personally like Scarab). With iPulse, you can monitor disk usage, CPU usage, system load, motherboard temperature and a lot more. Plus, it just looks cool.iPulse requires Mac OS 10.3 or better, is universal and costs $12.95US for a single license.
Matrix skins for the Xbox 360
The Matrix movie sequels and games may have sucked, but a Matrix skin for your Xbox 360 case gives your console that sense of late 90s Keanu kool and hopefully doesn't remind you too much of that ridiculous rave scene in Reloaded. There are a couple different versions out there. I looks like the one pictured above can be found on Ebay, but this one looks slicker.[Thanks Nick M.]
