15 most original iPhone cases

I'm surprised I never thought about this before. The iBottle iPhone case combines two of the modern man's most used tools—his phone and a bottle opener—in one. This way, you'll always know where your phone is when you drink.

It's 20 bucks at baronbob for the iPhone 3G/3GS version. The iPhone 4 version is available for pre-order (for the same price) and coming this month. Hope that glass back can take the stress! [baronbob]

I’m not that much of an iPhone case guy because I think it is a device that is too beautiful to be hidden in a case or in a sleeve. However, I have to admit I have a thing for some of these. This article covers 15 extremely creative and original iPhone cases.

Word Lens Translates Words Inside of Images. Yes Really.

Ever been confused at a restaurant in a foreign country and wish you could just scan your menu with your iPhone and get an instant translation? Well as of today you are one step closer thanks to Word Lens from QuestVisual.

The iPhone app, which hit iTunes last night, is the culmination of 2 1/2 years of work from founders Otavio Good and John DeWeese. The paid app, which currently offers only English to Spanish and Spanish to English translation for $4.99, uses Optical Character Recognition technology to execute something which might as well be magic. This is what the future, literally, looks like.

Founder Good explains the app’s process simply, “It tries to find out what the letters are and then looks in the dictionary. Then it draws the words back on the screen in translation.” Right now the app is mostly word for word translation, useful if you’re looking to get the gist of something like a dish on a menu or what a road sign says.

At the moment the only existing services even remotely like this are Pleco, a Chinese learning app and a feature on Google Goggles where you can snap a stillshot and send that in for translation. Word Lens is currently self-funded.

Good says that the obvious steps for Word Lens’ future is to get more languages in. He’s planning on incorporating major European languages and is also thinking about other potential uses including a reader for the blind, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we did French next, Italian and since my mom is Brazilian, Portuguese.”

Says Good, modestly, “The translation isn’t perfect, but it gets the point across.” You can try it out for yourself here.

iRecord Music – and I’m not going to jail

Gone are the days where you could fill up your iPod with huge amounts of free content found, however illegally, on websites like the old Napster or Limewire.

Fast forward to the future, where you need to look over your shoulder if you are not paying the exorbitant fees required to load up your handheld devices. I for one don’t need the stress of “sharing” my files with the unknown masses, or wondering when my computer will crash from doing the naughty song stealing I shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.


Well, now there is another option, iRecord Music, brought to you by the same people who brought you the iPad compatible, iRecord Pro. iRecord Music is the only multifunction USB device that can directly record to an iPhone 4 and other iPhones, all iPods including iPod touch and other portable media players with a touch of a button. No computer or complicated software required.

The iRecord Music can also record from CD players, internet radio, cassette players, TV and even computers. It will allow you to digitize your old collections or grab new content from almost anywhere. The iRecord Music will also function as a live recorder using its built in microphone or as a basic MP3 player. And for $79.95 it all but pays for itself.

How cool is that?