junk

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on junk:

In Case You Didn’t Already Get Enough Spam, Google Will Deliver Ads To Your Gmail Inbox

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I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time deleting spam messages from my inbox — despite using a junk mail filter. But the issue is about to get a whole lot worse, with Google gearing up to deliver adverts to our Gmail inboxes. The messages will appear under the new Promotions tab that was recently introduced in a Gmail update, and Google is testing them on a small number of users now.

Smartphone Coasters: I Hate Them Already

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Today, I bring you news of the Smartphone Coaster, an innovation that is clearly set to take the world by storm. Well, the world of promotional marketing, at least.

What is it? The Smartphone Coaster is a steel kickstand which can be branded with your company’s logo, thus spreading your corporate message to the world whilst simultaneously depleting our precious Earth’s limited supply of minerals. Congratulations: you hate the future.

Hasselblad Puts Sony NEX-7 Guts Into ‘Luxury’ Case, Demands $6,500

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Hasselblad plans to make the ugliest camera, like, ever.
Hasselblad plans to make the ugliest camera, like, ever.

Hasselblad is planning to take a Sony NEX-7, replace its tiny, well designed body with a hideous blob of precious metal and rare wood, and sell it for around $6,500.

Yes, Hasselblad is trying to become the Vertu of cameras, a company that confuses “luxury” materials with actual quality. And it’s all the more sad, as Hasselblad made the cameras that went to the moon.

New Polaroid Camera Is Little More Than A Cellphone And Printer In A Box

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Polaroid. So sad.

Ahh, Polaroid – how far you have fallen. Once a true icon, an essential tool for photographers and a medium for many artists, as well as being the only way to take dirty photos without getting arrested at the processing lab.

Now you are stuck licensing your name and Logo to any cowboy who wants to stick a crappy ZINK (zero-ink) printer inside a box with a cellphone camera.

Finally! A Microfiber Cloth Printed With Classic Artworks

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Wipe your iPad clean with a Van Gogh, just as the post-impressionist ear-chopper intended.

It seems that there can be no corner of the niche product universe that can’t be mined and exploited with tasteless “luxury” versions of regular, plain ol’ tools. Today’s example: the Lynktec ArtCloths, which show your “appreciation” for great art in the same way that the tinny ringtone snippet belching from your cellphone shows your appreciation of music.

We Want This Cardboard IKEA Camera

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The instructions on this camera look easier to follow that the usual IKEA manuals
The instructions on this camera look easier to follow than the usual IKEA manuals

Is IKEA getting into the camera market? After all, it already announced that it’s going to sell TVs. Or is this cardboard camera just another piece of set dressing, like the fake books, fake computers and fake meatballs found in the Swedish giant’s labyrinthine stores?

Make Your Own iPad Stylus From Household Junk [How-To]

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If you care nothing for aesthetics, you can make a stylus in a couple minutes. Photo CNET
If you care nothing for aesthetics, you can make a stylus in a couple minutes. Photo CNET

So, you just spent $800 on a shiny new iPad so you could write, paint and draw on the go. But — inexplicably — you’re still too cheap to spend $20 on a stylus to help you do it. And if you’re this tight with your money, it’s likely that you have been hoarding the very ingredients you need to make your own stylus right now. So go grab the detritus lingering at the bottom of your fruit bowl or junk drawer and follow along.

Curly-Wired Handset Turns iPhone Into Retro CB Radio

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Oh, man. If you use this thing, the laydeez will totally love you
Oh, man. If you use this thing, the laydeez will totally love you

I thought it was impossible to do anything dorkier than wearing a Bluetooth headset all day long, because you’re, like, so important that you’ll be getting a call any minute now. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. Check out the Tomko Transceiver for iPhone, a plug-in handset that makes your iPhone work like a CB radio.

Add-On Monitor Hangs Off Your MacBook’s Screen

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Hanger-on. This USB display works with your Mac, iPhone or even your camera

Ever struggled to juggle apps around your MacBook Air’s small screen as you work? And have you ever taken a look at that screen and though how much better it would be if there was another LED panel hanging off the side like an errant dust-jacket flapping in the breeze? If your answer to these two questions is “yes” and you have around £120 ($190) to waste spend, then the GeChic On-Lap Dual Monitor 1301 could be just the thing for you.

ZTE Tablets Show Why Everyone Is Buying iPads [MWC 2012]

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Zzzzz. ZTE's PF100 starts with a dull name and then goes downhill from there
Zzzzz. ZTE's PF100 starts with a dull name and then goes downhill from there

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — One of the big stories at this year’s Mobile World Congress is Android tablets. If last year saw the things popping out like maggots from a rotting wound, this year they are skittering across the floor like a carpet of startled cockroaches. And like cockroaches, they all look pretty much the same. So let’s take a look at a couple of them: ZTE’s PF100 and T98.