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It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

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The iPond Combines iPod Shape, Fish Abuse in One Package

Ipond Wideweb  470X310,0

I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of stupid crap vaguely inspired by the iPod. The best of these in recent memory is the iPond, an Australian product that crams a really tiny fish tank — and a Siamese fighting fish — into a weird package that looks sort of like an iPod (and more like a 1G Zune). Oh, and it plays music through a really crummy speaker.

The best part of all of this? The iPond is virtually guaranteed to kill any fish unfortunate enough to get put into the iPond. Fighting fish need 10 liters to live, and the iPond is .65 liters. Oops. The Sydney Morning Herald has the story:

Studies proved fish had memories well beyond a few seconds and were social creatures that experienced pain and boredom, he said.

“The fish in this thing does not look like it has very long to live and it can barely move,” he said.

“Even if it does live it’s not [a] life worth living … it’s really just a torture box.”

Even better? The sound from the speaker leaks inside the tank. So it’s a really loud torture box. I know it’s a little late, but how do I get this on my wishlist?

Via Gizmodo.

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

Email the author | Read more posts by Pete Mortensen.

3 comments

    Stuff like this really makes me mad! Even if it is a hoax or a bad joke, but it’s even worse that similar things actually exist.

    [...] Mortenson of Cult of Mac doesn’t think he’ll "ever get sick of stupid crap vaguely inspired by the iPod," and offers up a particularly cruel and uninviting example: a tiny iPod-derived fishtank in [...]

    About the iPond… I’ve had several fighting fish (also called betas), and they can live in just about anything. They certainly don’t need 10 liters of water. My roommate broke my 1 liter fish bowl when I was out of town and the fish lived in a drinking glass that was only about a quarter full of water for a week until i got back. That little trooper went on to live for 3 more years. On an unrelated note, my roommate was a slob.

    It’s still a stupid product though.

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