The makers of the Chumby, a hand-held, cuddly computer in a beanbag, are finally starting to ship out retail units to the earliest of adopters. Though still in low numbers, it’s a promising bit of news for a gadget we’ve been frothing at the mouth to get a hold of. Featuring a spiffy little touchscreen with an accelerometer built-in, the Chumby is a widget ‘toy’ with an open development environment, allowing hackers and companies to create nifty little, internet-connected (via wifi), widgets that can sit at your bedside.

There are already a handful of hot widgets available to play with, from the eBay auction to Flickr stream widgets. My Chumby (should it ever be mass-available), will be used as an internet-aware alarm clock, syncing with time servers worldwide and streaming my music of choice to gently prod me awake. Developers, get on it.

When money isn’t an object, a toilet is an object you’re too good to touch. Thankfully Toto comes to the rescue, with their luxury model toilet, the Washlet S400. Featuring a remote open and close lid AND remote flush, built-in air purifier, 5 types of ‘cleansing’ modes, heated seat(!), warm air dryer (oh!) and a built-in air purifier, the S400 gives the discerning user the peace of mind one needs when entering a bathroom. I haven’t found any price points yet, but, if you’re honestly considering a purchase, I doubt that matters much to you anyways.

Read more: Toto Washlet S400

Italian furniture designer Lago has come through with one of the most exciting additions to my wishlist in awhile. Dubbed the “Fluttula”, this ‘floating bed’ is propped up by one central leg (which can be adjusted for height) and mounted to the wall, giving the illusion that your bed is floating in air and you’re sleeping on a cloud. Naturally such an illusion isn’t cheap, with the retail price for the Fluttula floating around the $1500 USD mark.

See more: Fluttula, ‘floating’ bed

It’s been awhile since I was into cute little rubber covers for my house keys, but damn if I’m not thinking of getting back into it. Courtesy of Goldie Garage, a great biker shop (!?) in Japan, come the skull/heart key covers for everything from your hog’s ignition key to your Honda’s gas cap. Even while looking tough, Japanese design still looks so damn cute.

Read more?: Skull key covers (In Japanese)

Are you, or do you know a sleepyhead that constantly misses school, meetings or doctors appointments? Then a Clocky is all you need. An awesome little wheeled robotic nuisance, Clocky is an alarm clock for your bedside table, only, it’s on wheels. Clocky gives you one chance to wake up when it’s alarm goes off, if you snooze, it takes off, wheeling around your bedroom bumping into things and causing havoc while still blaring the latest horrible single from Fergie. That is, until you wake up and stop it, either by catching it and turning off the alarm, or hitting it with a golf club.

Read more: Clocky

Admittedly I’m no expert in the mobile industry, but I have to say, I’m feeling the iPhone. Beautifully designed, packed with features, it’s *almost* everything I’ve wanted in a mobile device (I say this as I cancel my order for the Nokia E61/E62). I’m a little bit disappointed with the lack of AGPS/GPS and/or UMTS and I’d have preferred a $399/$499 price point, but I quickly get over that disappointment the minute I take a look at OS X running on that beautiful wide screen. Apple has really done it again and if the execs over at RIM, Palm, Microsoft and every smart phone manufacturer aren’t muttering a few “uh-ohs” under their breathe, they’re living on another planet.

Now I ask the question, was Microsoft mistaken to not converge the Zune with a mobile phone? I’d think yes. The age of carrying a personal media player and a mobile phone are over, the age of hand-held mobile computer is coming and it seems Apple is ushering this in and Microsoft is left missing the boat (does the UMPC still exist?). To all the new Zune owners, I almost joined you, but a month later, I’m thanking myself for not taking that leap. Seems my near-death iPod Mini will have to last until June.

See the beauty that is iPhone after the jump…

Read more of ”Apple iPhone everything the Zune could have and should have been“

I’m surprised at the amount of people who just hate when their different foods are touching on their dinner plate. Me, I just toss everything on top of each other, let the flavors mix and so on. BUT, you always have that 1 friend who’s invited for dinner. Well, now you can please them and look damn stylish while doing so. The Dish Up series from designer Chaiyut Plypetch is a beautifully etched series of dishes, which are stylishly cut to separate your servings as well as fit nicely together in a unified form. You can even stack them vertically in your cupboard, clearing you some space to fit more Dish Up pieces into your collection!!

Buy more: Dish Up series

Though this kit is mainly for artists (a shame), I can think up some extremely fun and mischievious uses for this DIY RFID kit. For those who don’t know, RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is an automatic identification method relying on storing and remotely retrieving data from special RFID tags or transponders wirelessly. This kit allows you to program and tag 10 RFID tags (included) to display a certain video when the tag is registered on the special RFID video player (also included), allowing artists to create personalized video installations for different viewers. The software allows one to program the tags via Mac OS X and includes sample videos and tutorials for the low price of 349 EUR. I can imagine a group of enterprising hackers could easily hack this apart to create some mighty interesting projects, which I’d in no way encourage.

Read more: DIY RFID Kit