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Geeks everywhere are going giddy! A Twitter-based marriage proposal has made the rounds.

Old-school personalities would probably frown on this. After all, shouldn’t there be a bended knee, with a risk of total humiliation for the sake of getting someone to live with and love you for the rest of your life? Here’s something else I’ve considered: if I proposed to a girl over Twitter, and a few years down the road, Twitter closes down, wouldn’t I lose a record of what’s obviously an important event in my life?

Yes, the conservative side of my personality rails against so-called novel approaches to romance and life in general. After all, I’d really want to do something like a marriage proposal in person. But the writer who maintains this blog is open to another possibility: the tools we use to capture significant moments in our life are just changing. So are the people who use them.

In other words, we will probably see more Twitter proposals in the future because micro-blogging represents a new way of doing things, of socialization. To the point that some consider them weighty enough for the stuff that really matters. An obvious example is the woman who accepted the proposal—with a tweet of her own.

On top of that, if you really think about, the old methods of recording events for posterity—photographs, video recordings, etc.—are as fragile as items within an online service’s database. Pictures can fade and be destroyed, while video encoded in older formats can break down. The same is true even if they’re digitized and stored on a computer. Just ask anyone who has suffered through a hard disk crash and failed to maintain backups.

Of course, you can argue that at least you own your photos and the like. Again, what happens to an online service like Twitter is mostly beyond our control. But what really matters about the important times in our life is our memory of them. Our collective remembrance of what happens can be more durable than even the most advanced form of storage and medium. Better yet, it can be expressed through any sort of technology, since the tools we use evolve to suit our needs.

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Enter this bulletproof polo shirt from Colombian Miguel Caballero, made out of bulletproof fabric. Clients include a Spanish prince and a Venezuelan president. Of course, assuming this works like your typical bulletproof wear, the hurt will still be there, even if the bullet was kept from tearing through your vulnerable body. Bulletproof pants are also available, but what about headshots? Rakishly confident male model sold seperately (dvice.com)

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Check it out: CNK Promotions is pimping a flash disk that seems full of beer. Available in 128MB to 8GB variants, such a geeky gimmick does carry its own set of potential problems. As this thumbdrive is meant for distribution as a giveaway for events or promotions, what if an unsuspecting user pries it open to drink the liquid inside? Worse, what if said liquid isn’t actually beer? (everythingusb.com)

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On a recent trip to Singapore, I kept a watchful eye for a Bluetooth mouse. Eventually I settled on a black Razer Pro|Click Mobile, which was buried in a bargain bin.

The relatively low price notwithstanding ($40), this Bluetooth mouse seems like a good buy so far. Within the box were two AA Duracell batteries, so I was using the mouse within minutes after unboxing. Pairing the mouse with my Windows XP laptop was a snap.

Build-quality is great all-around, with the buttons feeling solid click, and the middle mousewheel striking a good balance between snapiness and softness.

Of course, like any Bluetooth mouse, the Pro|Click Mobile’s weakness is its reliance on batteries that you need to change every so often.That represents additional spending for owners, unless rechargeable batteries are used.

On top of that, this circa-2007 mouse is showing its age. The optical sensor has a hard time tracking on certain surfaces and textures—the same ones that proved no problem for my older (not as brand-new) wired optical mouse.

Still, the compact size and relative affordability of the Razer Pro|Click Mobile is well worth your money. Amazon’s currently selling it for less than $44.

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The price hikes include $5.70 per month for the Digital Classic package, and $3.70 for standard cable service.

The increases are necessary because Comcast is hurt by the economy, too, spokesman Jeff Alexander said.

He cited gas prices, health care costs, increased programming costs, and improvements in the company’s technology and service.

As reader Carl noted when passing the news along, Comcast may have set a bad precedent for other service providers to follow. Can we expect companies to start charging higher monthly fees, and point the finger at the poorly performing economy?

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The folks over at geeksugar may have their own issues with Conof’s USB Desk Lamp, but as an avid laptop user myself, it’s a great addition to my home laptop ops center. When I’m in the mood for some desktop-laptop action, I currently plug in my XPS to the HP w2228h. The USB desk lamp is a great add-on to this setup.

It’s reasonable to assume that the lamp will make plagiarizing reading those hard copies a lot easier, especially since the light swivels 270 degrees (this allows the presumably blinding light to be faced away from the poor user as well). The desk lamp also doubles as an iPod dock, which makes the gadget slightly more useful. Let’s hope Conof’s marketing people don’t decide to price the lamp out of the average consumer’s reach!

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I do apologize if I’m perpetuating racial stereotypes. Just try to understand this Asian mongrel’s wonder at meeting a full-blooded Scandanavian woman in person for the first time. Nokia’s Tuula Rytilä-Uotila was literally a larger-than-life figure. It’s rare for my six-footer self to talk to a woman without looking down.

Rytilä-Uotila was perhaps known throughout the web as the PR voice behind the Nokia 6630 Music Edition, when it came out way back in 2005. She was the director, Imaging EMEA. Looks like she’s moved up the corporate ladder since then, as she was introduced as the Vice President for Live, GoToMarket during the 5800 XpressMusic launch.

Will we see more of her in the future? Perhaps as Nokia continues shifting some of its focus to applications and services, we will see Tuula rallying to media masses with her commanding voice. A writer friend who accompanied me to Singapore for the 5800 launch only had this to say about her: “I want my music LOUDER!”, mimicking the authority with which she pointed the 5800’s loud speakers. Music-oriented services and features seem to play a big part in Tuula’s corporate career at Nokia. That’s why I’m sure she’ll be at the forefront of Nokia’s offensive to maintain its relevance in the increasingly convergent world.

by Rico Mossesgeld

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Aside from “Would you pay $130 for a wired keyboard with an iPod dock built-in?”, the other question we have for the Razer Pro|Type Keyboard is “Why does it only come in white?”

Razer’s probably assuming that future owners will probably hook this baby up to their iMac. But where does that leave the Mac Pro owners, not to mention those who use non-white iPods and computers—like a PC?

Full details here.

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To make a long story short, the Coosh earphones are a worthy buy at $20.

For starters, our first impressions regarding the comfort-level lasted. Again, since there’s padding on the actual earphones themselves, covering the usually sharp seam between the metal grill and the earphone plastic, these earphones can spend the whole day in your ears.

On top of that, the soft plastic “arms” that wrap around your outer ears, so again the earphones can spend the whole day in your ears, because they’re securely fastened. Another feature we like was the bent earphone jack. Aside from being another opportunity for brand showcasing, this construction means you won’t have earphone jacks sticking out the side of your gadget.

The earphones are nowhere close to the audio quality of full-fledged headphones, especially in the bass department. But Coosh’s offering do a decent job. At the very least, you aren’t stuck with tin cans in your ears!

The only issue we have with the Coosh earphones is how those arms make you more visible than usual, especially in public. People will probably notice the white supports around your ears and do a double-take. This unfortunately may include thieves scoping out for a mark. Perhaps Coosh could make future versions have transparent arms?

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A bit late on the uptake are we, but The Gadgenista recently featured the Applepod case for the iPod Shuffle:

Hahaha, a bit redundant but amusingly funny! I mean seriously, you just have to love what Apple fanboys come up with.

And can I just say I really love the rainbow colors? Hehehe. Look pretty cute as a buttoniere, too!

Each Applepod case is custom-made so you can actually pick the colors that you want. The case also has slots for the shuffle clip and for the headphones.

Got $12 to spend? Feeling a bit creative? Order and customization details available from here.

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Stay tuned for updates: apparently by disabling on-drive compression, the read-write process can go a lot faster. (jkkmobile.blogspot.com)

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More videos available.

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Well, it’s not like details about the upcoming “Tube” were a sealed secret. Turns out the leaked details were a bit off though. Continue reading to see the updated specs and some of the slides Nokia’s reps used in a presentation secretly held a few hours ago.

Click on the thumbnails below to view the full slides of the pertinent details:

So, combining, the slides, the notes we took, and the word on the street, here are the updated specs:

• A 640 x 360 (16:9) 3.2″ 16-million color display
• the Symbian S60 OS, 5th Edition
• An accelerometer for auto screen rotation
• A 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl-Zeiss lens dual LED flash
• WiFi (b/g)
• Bluetooth 2.0
• HSDPA
• GPS
• a 3.5mm jack for audio and video output (includes TV-out!)
• 140MB of internal memory
• a microSD slot that accepts up to 16GB (SDHC)
• 1320mAh of battery power via the Nokia BL-5J
• a length of 115mm, width of 52mm, thickness of 14.55mm, and a weight of 104 grams

Noteworthy tidbits revealed during the presentation were Nokia’s claimed music playback time of 35 hours, support for TV-out [which was used to demonstrate the phones abilities on an HDTV], and the use of a standard 3.5mm jack for audio and video output. Then of course, you’ve got the pricing and availability info, which we’ll spell out for emphasis’ sake:

• “Basic edition: consumer retail price 279 euros before subsidies and taxes”
• “3G version available in Q4 2008 in several big youth markets, worldwide in Q1 2009″
• “850 [Mhz] & 2G version available in Q1 2009″

The 5th edition of S60 was packaged as the 3rd edition with low-level support for touch-driven interfaces. Nokia also promised that each 5800 will be shipped with an 8GB microSD bundled.

Lastly, the manufacturer also promised a well-stocked app store, revealing that they made the SDK available to select developers over two weeks ago. We’ll be making some pertinent videos available as soon as uploading’s complete!

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We recently got our grubby hands on a set of Coosh headphones, and so far so good. We’re really amenable with the tagline “Stays On. Feels Good.”, because the headphones do stay on and do feel good. It’s less of the circular support and more about the padding hugging the usually sharp edge of the actual in-ear assembly. We’ve spent the whole day listening to Phoenix’s Napoleon Says and ended up irritated—from listening from the same song over and over again, while our ears hardly felt any discomfort. A short review to follow soon!

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Nice ATI! You’ll probably steal some thunder from NVIDIA when you release the Radeon HD 4550 and 4350 this October. Both video cards will feature support for DirectX 10.1, compatiblity with HDMI displays like the HP w2228h, and even 7.1 audio!

The 4550 will be $16 more expensive than the 4350 thanks to its 512MB of DDR3 RAM, compared to half that for the latter. Both cards run at 96 gigaflops, for those who are interested. (boingboing.net)

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NewEgg.com is currently offering a Kingston 4GB SD for around $8! The lowest price I’ve seen so far, and shipping’s free if you select the 3-7 day option. Just click on the picture above or the link below to get that much-needed item for your digital camera or handheld computer!

Kingston 4GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card

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Carbon Diem’s inventors claim that, by using GPS to measure the speed and pattern of movement, their algorithm can identify the mode of transport being used. It can therefore calculate the amount of carbon dioxide that a journey has emitted into the atmosphere – without any need for input from the traveller.

A pretty simple approach that apparently works… unless the owner can break the sound barrier by just running. (textually.org)

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Some new technology down under lets users see a reflection of themselves, and manipulate virtual clothes over their body so that they can see how they look like in a snap. Pricing and availability info are displayed on top, and users can have pictures of their virtual outfits sent to their mobile phones for later perusal.

It’s understandable that retail shops want to make things easier for guys who apparently don’t like to try clothes. After all, making shopping as easy possible means more potential for profit. But the gesture-driven interface already looked clumsy in the above video, and user experience expert Jakob Nielsen once asserted that:

Many user interfaces designed for the movies feature gestural input and 3D data visualizations. Immersive environments and fly-through navigation look good, and allow for more dramatic interaction than clicking on a linear list of 10 items. But, despite being a staple of computer conference demos for decades, 3D almost never makes it into shipping products. The reason? 2D works better than 3D for the vast majority of practical things that users want to do.

To be honest, the virtual changing room seems more like novelty than convenience.

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