For every product out there in the marketplace, a similar product stands by its side jockeying for the same consumer dollars. Coke has its Pepsi, McDonald's has its Burger King and the United States has its Canada. Yes, good-natured competition is what makes our economy go 'round. But, in the world of consumer electronics, some companies fight dirty, plagiarizing the designs and ideas of direct competitors. In some cases, the copying is outright theft -- particularly in China, where American patent lawsuits are largely unsuccessful. For your entertainment pleasure, Switched presents this list of the 10 greatest copycat gadgets.
Meizu miniOne
No sooner than two weeks after Steve Jobs officially put the cell phone world on notice with the unveiling of the iPhone did this doppelganger on the left creep out of China. If the Meizu miniOne somehow slips past Apple's stable of lawyers, it's said to be on track to launch at the end of 2007 in China. It'll be stacked with a 720 x 480 display, a three-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS. And unlike the iPhone, the miniOne will run on ultra-fast 3G cellular data networks.

The phone's maker, Meizu -- guilty of ripping off Apple designs in the past -- claims to have announced its own touchscreen super-phone days before the iPhone announcement. But as Engadget reported, the miniOne -- originally known as the M8 -- was a very different looking phone at the time of the announcement, and was subsequently given a quick nip/tuck to transform it into this flagrant iPhone clone.

Spotted at Engadget

Last week, we linked to CrunchGear's hilarious compilation of the 12 ugliest gadgets ever made, which included the ridiculous 360-degree immersion helmet by Toshiba pictured here.

"We've found the ugliest gadgets ever made, so you don't have to," the article proclaimed. Only, we here at Switched think there are plenty of criminal acts against good taste that weren't mentioned. So, inspired by CrunchGear, we present our nominees for the tech design hall of shame.

Microsoft Xbox

Forget the fact that it was heavier than a cinder block. Overlook the reality that you needed Paul Bunyan-sized hands to properly grip the controller. Forgive Microsoft for the hideous font it chose to use for the logo (a variation of which Sony now inexplicably uses for the PS3). Ignore all of these design boo-boos and you're still left with the awful black and lime-green color scheme. It's so offensive, we'd hate it if we were blind.

Remember the old Stephen King flick 'Maximum Overdrive,' in which all machines suddenly go berserk and start murdering humans? While we're not quite there yet, lots of casual technology users are paying a very high price for the modern conveniences that their gadgets afford them: Their health, and, in some cases, even their lives, are in jeopardy. The next time you visit the doc (or a mortician) for one of the following ailments, you may discover it's your electronics that are to blame.

Sore Thumbs

The condition: The diminutive keyboards on BlackBerrys, Treos, Sidekicks and other QWERTY phones can wreak havoc on one's ability to signal approval with a good old "thumbs up." Pain, numbness, swelling and tendinitis are all symptoms of what the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) officially recognizes as "BlackBerry Thumb," caused by overworking the one digit that separates us from the apes.

How to prevent or cure it: Avoid BlackBerry Thumb by typing with your fingers instead of your thumbs, and not typing for more than few minutes at once. If you're already stricken with the ailment, several massage therapists now offer massages specifically for the treatment of BlackBerry Thumb. Engadget founder Pete Rojas went for one, which he chronicles here. Pete's assessment: "I don't think a single massage can remedy years of abuse!"

You may not have heard of the name Mark Mancina, but you've definitely heard one of his scores. Mancina has been tickling the ears of moviegoers for years, composing the soundtracks for such blockbusters as 'Training Day,' 'Bad Boys,' 'Con Air,' 'Twister' and 'Tarzan.' He's won three Grammy awards for some of his work and even dabbles in Broadway musicals where he's picked up a Tony award and co-written many of the songs for The Lion King musical. With his latest work on the film 'August Rush' set to debut next month, we caught up with Mancina for a chat about tech.

What gadgets do you always bring with you to the set for down-time?
MacBook and iPhone.

What cell phone do you have right now and what do you love/hate about it?
iPhone. Love it, but there's no GPS and I have a bad sense of direction.

Who's the last person you sent a text message to and what was it about?
John Ondrasik. "Let's meet for coffee." He's written songs for the upcoming film 'August Rush,' and I wrote the score.

What site or service do you head to pretty much every time you get online?
Teach12.com. I'm a Teaching Company lectures addict. I'm currently listening to Robert Greenberg's "Bach & the High Baroque." He's amazing. Check him out.

Name one thing you wish one of your gadgets could do that it doesn't do now?
I wish my iPhone was international. I wish my iPod had higher sample rate.

What upcoming gadget can you not wait to get your hands on?
iPhone 3!

You're stranded on a desert island: What gadget do you bring?
My classical guitar.

What's the most-played song or artist on your iPod?
It's a toss-up between Stravinsky and Keane.

Are you a Mac or PC person?
I'm a composer and I'm completely Mac-based, which is a great place to be.

Thermaltake DeskCool
Though not yet available on the market, this knick-knack was recently unveiled by a company called Nuventix. Kind of like a cold version of the bathroom hand-dryer, the DeskCool is aimed at gamers who get sweaty palms from intense gaming sessions (and from being in the vicinity of the opposite sex). As we all know, a moist mouse hand is killer on you precision. What saddens us the most about the DeskCool is that it's a pretty dumb application of a potentially great technology. The unit apparently generates airflow from a vibrating membrane on the inside -- there's no fan. We'd rather see this system being used in computers, video-game consoles and everything else that requires a noisy internal fan.

USB Fragrance Oil Drive
Need a little relaxation break during work? The employee lounge is for suckers. Simply dim your monitor brightness, spin up a Kenny G disc and insert this aromatherapy device into a free USB port. Using your computer's power to heat itself up, the $7 gizmo has a little X-shaped hole on it for you to drop fragrance oil into. You can choose between rose, peppermint, jasmine and lavendar -- three to five drops of which will take you through the day. Your coworkers will thank you with wedgies!

For me, it was the sound of a llama being flogged. That was my baptism into the world of digital music -- a world that, for a brief moment in time there in the '90s, was like one of those Toys 'R' Us shopping sprees they used to advertise on TV where some lucky kid got to run up and down the aisles filling up his shopping basket with freebies. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since I first installed Winamp on my dorm room computer, pressed play and was introduced to the MP3 by Winamp's mysterious, "It really whips the llama's ass" jingle.

Though Winamp has since faded into a fond memory for many of us as a result of our iPod dependencies, the player is hoping to reclaim some its former glory. Today, on anniversary number 10 on 10/10, Winamp is launching a new player that's been completely re-built from the ground up. Is Winamp 5.5 enough to coax an iTunes-addicted public back into the llama's arms? Let's take a tour.

First, a little disclosure: 1) AOL is the corporate papa to both Winamp and Switched.com. This didn't affect my review no matter how many times I was bullied by my bosses. 2) Though I used a PC to test Winamp, I'm a Mac user and an iTunes user. I'm no iTunes zealot; I just find it convenient since it's already on my computer and works seamlessly with my iPod.

First Impressions
The most immediate change in 5.5 is that Winamp is now one big window with different, configurable panels within (see the gallery below for a look-see). Gone are the separate windows for the player, the playlist, the visualizer and any of the other plug-ins you could download. Some people found the separate windows annoying, but I kind of liked them. Then again, as I start to organize my music and personal settings in 5.5, it's obvious that one window is the way to go. As for the rest of the appearance, Winamp is still completely skinnable and it now displays album art.

Playlists
Besides a shamefully underutilized exercise mix, I'm not much of a playlist person. But for those who are, you can create playlists in Winamp with as little or as much criteria as you want. Are you in the mood for country songs from the '80s that are all under 3:00 minutes long? Winamp will scour your library for them. If you happen to be handy with database query languages, you can actually use those to formulate your own super-nerdy, super-custom lists.

Discovery
For discovering new music, there's easy access to Winamp's user-generated Shoutcast Radio network -- though this really isn't any more helpful or entertaining than the Internet radio I can already get through iTunes. What is helpful and entertaining, however, is the free XM Satellite Radio I can listen to through Winamp thanks to a cozy relationship between XM and AOL. Additionally, there's a Web browser built into Winamp. Use it to browse your favorite MP3 blogs, and any links to music files are automatically cataloged in a list for convenient listening or downloading.

Portability
All of this is great for playing music on a PC (and not a Mac), but it's Winamp's new proficiencies in taking music off of the computer that might tempt the iTunes faithful. First, it's definitely worth noting that the player is now compatible with the iPod and every other digital media player out there. Of course, that excludes your copy-protected tracks purchased from the iTunes Store.

The big addition to Winamp 5.5 is Winamp Remote. Through this Web interface you can access your home music library no matter where you are. All that's required is a Web browser, which means Remote works with Macs as well as with the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. Best of all, it works on Web-enabled phones too -- and it works quite well.

Verdict
So, is Winamp a viable alternative to iTunes? In the end it'll come down to preference. For some people, the differences between Winamp and iTunes won't be compelling enough to make the switch. For me, Winamp Remote would definitely seal the deal if I were a regular PC user. Hearing that llama being punished over my cell phone's tinny speaker for the first time was like Quantum Leaping right back to my college dorm room ... minus my roommate's questionable collection of black light posters.

Get Winamp here.



Related Links:

• Woman to Appeal $220,000 Music Sharing Verdict
• iPod Lights Man's Pants on Fire
• Just Tell Me What to Get: Home Theater

Points to Toyota for bludgeoning two birds with one stone in its new ad for the Tacoma truck. On its surface, the spot is simply a spoof of the insanely popular online role-playing game, 'World of Warcraft.' A group of player characters is standing around voice chatting about their plans for an upcoming battle when, suddenly, one of the players is sitting behind the wheel of a digitized Tacoma. This yahoo tears off in his pickup truck to go slay a dragon while the other players give chase, whining about how there are no pickup trucks allowed in the game.

Funny. But, it gets even better. For anyone who spends a lot of time trawling blogs and YouTube in search of entertainment, this little scenario might sound very familiar. The commercial is, in fact, a faithful send-up to a viral video known as 'Leeroy Jenkins' (watch the video here). In the Leeroy Jenkins video -- as in the ad -- a bunch of player avatars are standing around discussing their plan of attack for an upcoming battle. Suddenly, a player who hasn't listened to a word of the discussion yells, "Alright chums, let's do this! LEEEROOOOOOYYY JEEEENNNNKIINNSS!!" and jumps into battle. As in the Tacoma ad, the other players give chase, only this time they're whining about what an idiot Leeroy Jenkins is. Even Leeroy's "Let's do this!" battle cry makes it into the ad.

The 'Star Wars' kid never had it this good ...

From Boing Boing

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Danny Williams' taste in music is so wretched, his own iPod tried to kill him. Very recently, the Douglasville, Ga., native looked down to find his pants pocket engulfed in flames. The culprit: his year-old iPod Nano.

Williams walked away from the incident uninjured thanks to a piece of glossy paper in his pocket, which he believes spared him from being badly burned. But, as if having your iPod try to immolate you isn't frightening enough, consider where this episode took place: Williams works at a kiosk at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As Williams said himself:

"If TSA had come by and seen me smoking, they could have honestly thought I was a terrorist."

This fire is just the latest in a series of recent lithium-ion battery flame-ups. After smoke and flames were reported by consumers last August, Sony has since been forced to recall more than seven million laptop batteries it made for its own computers as well as for Dell, Apple, Gateway, Toshiba and several others. This summer, a Chinese man was killed when his cell phone battery exploded in his chest pocket, sending a broken rib tearing into his heart.

The lithium-ion battery has become ubiquitous due to its small size and ability to hold a charge, making it the perfect power supply for our increasingly mobile world. Unfortunately -- while very rare -- it is more likely than other types of batteries to light on fire or even explode.

As for this latest incident, Apple has pledged to replace Williams' iPod, but wouldn't comment further. As a result, we are unable to tell you which batch of iPod Nanos are affected and how widespread the problem might be.

Hey Apple, we're all very aware that you came out with some shiny new iPods last month. But, resorting to these scare tactics to convince us to upgrade? That's a new low.

From Geek Sugar

Related Links:

• Another Dell Laptop Explodes
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We're asked all the time what constitutes a great, but affordable home theater package. Unfortunately, 'affordable' can mean very different things to different people. So, we've put together two excellent home theater set-ups for two different budgets, both of which are still firmly planted in the realm of reality. In other words, you probably won't need a winning lottery ticket to afford the payments on them.

For the budget-conscious buyer:

VIZIO VX37L 37-inch LCD TV
At just $799 for a top-notch LCD, you really can't beat VIZIO. Though you might not be familiar with the name, the company has been making some noise lately for offering high-quality sets priced with real people in mind. On this LCD, you get two HDMI inputs for connecting video sources with just one cable for picture and sound -- a nice feature at such a low price. The resolution tops out at 720p, but at this size that's all you'll need for HDTV broadcasts, DVDs and gaming. (More on 720p versus 1080p here.)


Panasonic SC-PT950 Wireless Home Theater
When putting together a home theater, hardcore audiophiles will tell you to handpick your components and speakers separately. But, that quickly gets expensive and time-consuming. All-in-one systems, or HTIBs (Home Theater In a Box), on the other hand, give you everything you need in one convenient package – like this Panasonic kit, which includes a receiver, amplifier, five-disc DVD changer and speakers. In addition to an included iPod dock and the ability to up-convert DVDs to true 1080p resolution, the $440 system also boasts the convenience and easy setup of a wireless back speaker.

TOTAL: $1,240