The Kobo Touch eReader will be stocked across 750 WHSmith stores from Monday 17th October at a starting price of £89.

The Kobo Touch come in a range of four colours with a quilted back. It weighs 185g, E-ink screen and Wi-Fi connection to browse the eBook store.

The touchscreen version retails at £109.99.

The device can hold up to 1,000 books (with expandable storage up to 30,000 books). The Kobo ebook catalogue has over 2.5 million books, newspapers and magazines to choose from, including one million free contemporary and classic titles – like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Unlike Amazon’s popular Kindle e-reader, the Kobo has an ‘open book’ policy, which means users can shop from ‘open’ eBook retailers, such as Google eBooks which launched in the UK in October this year.

“Kobo proudly supports electronic publishing and encourages our users to read a Kobo-purchased eBook on their smartphone, laptop, Kobo eReader (other eReaders using open standards), or other popular devices they choose. Kobo is dedicated to an open cloud-based platform, enabling users to read on any device, and with open standards that give users the freedom to build their lifetime libraries as they choose,” said Kobo.

Kobo is dedicated to an open cloud-based platform, enabling users to read on any device, and with open standards that give users the freedom to build their lifetime libraries as they choose

Considering WHSmith has been struggling in face of demand for online books and magazines, this could give it the boost its business needs.

It would be cool if you could walk into ‘Smiths, have a gander at the books in the paper-flesh and then scan (perhaps using NFC/RFID tags on your phone linked to a WHSmith Wallet service) and download the book onto your reader in-store.

The techie stuff:
With Kobo, users can read ePUB, PDF and MOBI format eBooks; view JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF images; review TXT, HTML and RTF materials; and enjoy CBZ and CBR comic book formats.  Consumers can also easily borrow and read eBooks from the local public library.

The Marshall Bergman range is a collection of bags, claiming to have the ‘First lady of cool’ look – whatever that is.

The handbag designs are made from Italian leather and include lots of pockets and dividers to fit in a range of Apple products.

The bags are available from Apple UK online from 7th October 2011, priced from £65.

Other of my favourite designer accessories include Liberty London’s Betsy business bag, Orla Kiely’s car park tall tote and Paul Smith’s rose print iPhone 4 case.

Last week, Amazon launched an attack on the tablet market with its new Kindle Fire tablet. Alongside the release of new versions of its Kindle e-book reader, the seven-inch Kindle Fire tablet has a colour touch screen, can play videos and runs on a custom version of Google’s Android operating system (OS).

So what are the pros and cons of Amazon’s first tablet device?

Pros

The price

It’s retailing at $199, which is very cheap compared to Apple and other Android competitors. The price is set to shake up the market in so far as other Android tablet manufacturers will have to lower prices significantly to compete with Amazon.

The Silky browser

I know, another browser. But I think this is the most interesting part of Amazon’s announcement. Its new ‘Amazon Silk’ web browser is going to speed up web browsing by using Amazon’s EC2 cloud services to power web searches by caching pages.

The Amazon content

Kindle Fire users will benefit from Amazon’s wealth of content, including books, music, video and magazines. It’s what Amazon does best.

If you have a Kindle, you’ll know how easy it is to upload new books using Amazon’s wireless Whispernet technology. Using the same technology, tablet users will benefit from Amazon’s wealth of content, including books, music, video and magazines (let’s hope publishers have used responsive design to cope with another screen size for its content). It’s what Amazon does best.

Cons

Amazon lockdown

There’s been a lot of talk about Apple locking-down its iOS operating system to its App Store and iTunes platform so users can only run Apple-approved content.

With only 8GB of storage, it looks like Amazon is locking down tablets users in a different way.Users will make use of Amazon’s cloud storage to access content.

In addition, users may be tied to apps from Amazon Appstore. It’s still unclear if the tablet will be able to run Android apps from Google’s Market or just Amazon’s Android Appstore. While you could still run Angry Birds, it might be a version of Angry Birds created especially for Amazon users, which means some Android apps won’t make it into Amazon’s Appstore.

Lack of productivity

It’s going to be especially good for e-books and video content. But, compared to the Apple iPad, its seven-inch screen is going to limit the ability to create content

This tablet is all about media consumption. It’s going to be especially good for e-books and video content. But, compared to the Apple iPad, it’ seven-inch screen is going to limit the ability to create content. It even lacks a microphone and camera – as well as 3G connectivity.

The UK

While the US release date is set for 19th November 2011, few UK release dates and details have been announced yet. Some services, like Amazon’s Instant Video service, which will power video streaming on the tablet, is only currently available in the US. Therefore, the UK version of the tablet might have limited content offerings when it’s first released. It could also be more expensive.

Have a look at the videos below. I love the light-up Cheerios. Technology will no doubt change food advertising in the next few years.

But I think I could find space on my limited kitchen work tops for this beauty: the Breville VTT296 toaster-come-radio.

This swish matt-finish toaster is also a radio. Genius. The perfect breakfast gadget.

It also features an auxiliary input, so you can hook it up to your iPod when Radio 4’s You and Yours has ended.

However, while the toaster has an almost 1950s-esqe, retro vibe, the tech is also a little outdated. I’m quite disappointed it doesn’t have DAB (digital audio broadcast) radio.

Ok, so we have to settle for FM/AM stations and forego internet radio stations (sorry BBC 6 music), but there is another looming problem. The government have been considering turning off FM radio signal and switching national FM radio stations to digital ones, leaving only local stations behind on the FM radio waves.

The initial date for switchover was 2015, which could leave the humble toaster/radio with only local radio stations in four years’ time.

Perhaps the toaster should butter up the toast too to make up for the technical limitations…

Toaster features: Two slice, defrost, reheat, mid-cycle cancel, high lift, removable crumb tray, cord storage, bread thickness adjustment ability

Radio features: FM/AM radio, illuminated digital display, preset graphic equaliser, 10 preset radio channels

Price: £49.99 from Argos or Amazon

Image used courtesy of D’Arcy Norman via Flickr under Creative Commons Licensing.

To enter the competition, simply do the following:

1. Follow our new Twitter account, @Witch_Tech

2. Tweet: ‘RT to win: I’ve entered the @Witch_Tech competition to win an iPad/iPhone 4 skin’ [choose which one you want]

The deadline to apply is Monday 31st January 2011 at 10pm.

A winner will be selected at random and will be contacted via Twitter. If I don’t hear back from the winner a week after being contacted, I will choose someone else at random.

The designs for the skins are as shown in the images.

Good luck!

Gadget Glamour is Witch Tech’s website of the week. Having proved popular in the US, Gadget Glamour has finally launched in the UK. The skins for Apple’s iPads, iPhones, iPods and Macs have matching downloadable wallpapers and come in a range of 30 artwork designs. Designs can even be custom-made.

The adhesive skins are made from vinyl and come with a matte or gloss finish. This protects your gadgets from scratches too, which is a godsend for my poor iPhone, which always ends up at the bottom of my handbag.

Prices start from £10 for an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 skin.

VERDICT: Witch Tech got sent a couple of skins to try out. I’m always a little wary of sticking stickers on my preciousgadgets. Not only am I completely clumsy and anticipate to make a bodge job of glamming up my stuff, what if I change my mind about the design?

What’s good about Gadget Glamour’s stuff is it comes with idiot-instructions on how to apply them. The vinyl skin actually does more than look good, it protects gadgets from scratches (which is a godsend for my poor iPhone that always ends up atthe bottom of my handbag).  AND, the skins peel off beautifully so they won’t leave a sticky, gluey residue behind when you want to change it up again.

I reckon Gadget Glamour should extend beyond Apple products, though.

COMPETITION TIME: Witch Tech is giving away one iPad and one iPhone skin from Gadget Glamour. Details on how to enter will be posted on Friday 21st January 2011.

At this year’s 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Polaroid have unveiled its Polaroid Grey Label, co-designed by the one and only, Lady Gaga.

Polaroid Grey Label Line includes the GL10 instant mobile printer, GL30 instant digital camera and GL20 camera glass.

“I consider myself to be a visionary, not just a songwriter and a singer. I am an artist,” said Lady Gaga, Polaroid’s creative director.

“I brought my vision and love of fashion, technology and obsession with the future into all my work with Polaroid.”

“Polaroid has put a pair of Lady Gaga’s trendy big pants over its sagging bottom in the hope that fresh young faces will grab for its vintage product”

Polaroid said the product line stems from “griege goods”, a fashion-industry term for fabric in its purest form. The company said the line encompasses Polaroid’s heritage of delivering simplicity with the style, wit and sensibility of Lady Gaga.

The glasses are my favourite. My favourite comment is from YouTube user Amalgamation25, which reads, “Polaroid is a dead technology just like lady Gag.” Something to ponder.

Polaroid has put a Lady Gaga’s trendy big pants over its sagging bottom in the hope that fresh young faces will grab for its vintage product.

My bet is for Lady Gaga’s next shocker outfit to be made from retro Polaroid cameras while she sings an adapted version of Paparazzi.

We are the crowd, we’re c-coming out
Got my [Polaroid] flash [unit] on it’s true, need that picture of you
It’s so magical, We’d be so fantastico
Grey Label Line, garage glamorous
Not sure what it means but this photo of us
It don’t have a price, ready for those flashing lights
Cause you know that baby I

I’m your biggest fan
I’ll follow you until you love me, Pola-polaroid
Baby, there’s no other superstar
You know that I’ll be your Pola-polaroid
Promise I’ll be kind, but I won’t stop until that boy is mine
Baby you’ll be famous, chase you down until you love me Pola-polaroid.

See a video of Lady Gaga’s announcement at CES 2011 below.

See here for a photo gallery of the development process. Product photos and reviews to be published on Witch Tech soon.

Lead image sourced from Maximum PC.

Sound Asleep Pillow

If you like to listen to music, audio books or are trying to hypnotise yourself before you go to sleep, Sound Asleep’s pillow is a good idea. For £15, you get a speaker built into a hollow fibre pillow (or £30 memory foam pillow) allowing you to connect your mp3 player up and listen to audio by merely resting your head – no earphones to dig in or fall out.

For starters, the hollow fibre pillow is particularly snug. Better still, you can’t feel the speaker through the pillow when you lay on it. After connecting my iPod up, I could hear my music well and surprisingly clearly.

If you sleep next to someone who’s using this as an alternative to earphones , you can still hear the audio faintly if you listen for it. But no where near as loud as I anticipated.

One use I found was plugging my alarm clock into the pillow. Instead of waking my boyfriend up at 6am with my alarm, the alarm clock bells on my mobile phone could be heard mainly by me. I wouldn’t recommend for heavy sleepers, however.

After using this pillow for a week, it felt like it made my head hot. It could’ve been psychological but I checked a few comments on Amazon that said the same thing.

All in all, I was happy to return to my traditional pillow. While it’s a great idea and works well within its limitations, it’s not entirely practical. For one, you can’t shove a tech-pillow in the wash. I could also envisage the cable getting pushed up into the pillow, never to be connected up to my iPod again.

There are other sorts of pillow speakers out there that are more viable – ones that are designed to rest under your pillow and do the same job.

Good for occasional use but I wouldn’t chuck your old pillow out just yet.

Sound Asleep travel pillow

While I found the Sound Asleep bed pillow intriguing and with its uses, I couldn’t fathom how this would be useful. Similar to the other pillow, the £12 travel pillow has speakers built into a travel pillow. The cable to connect your mp3 player is stored in the side of the pillow in a zip compartment.

Great. I thought. Trying to sleep with earphones in on a plane or train is awful; a pillow with speakers is perfect. Firstly, the pillow itself is not a great travel pillow. It’s unsupportive and the speakers on each side seemed far away from my ears.

Secondly, in order to be able to hear the music, you have to have the volume quite loud. If someone is sitting next to you, they can hear it too. In fact, if you were on a train or plane, or travelling in a car or bus, most people in your vicinity would be able to share your power ballad greatest hits album with you – and that surely defeats the point of building speakers into the pillow?

It would be an improvement to incorporate a larger storage compartment, large enough to put your mp3 player inside the pillow as well as the cable. If you’re taking this on a plane in your hand luggage, it’s pretty awkward to carry and harder to squeeze into a bag like other travel pillows on the market.

But, ultimately, I can’t think of a situation when an non-comfy travel pillow that plays music like a loud speaker would be usable. Unless the people you travel with don’t mind listening to your taste in music.

This is the Katie Price of digital cameras. If you’ve always wished you were more photogenic (and, well, more perfect), now you can be with a click of Casio’s new Elixim digital camera, launched today. Casio’s new camera airbrushes images, enhancing skin tones and sharpening features such as eyes, hair and eyelashes without reaching for Photoshop. With 12 different make-up mode levels, you can set how clear your skin looks and decide how fake you want to go. Jeez. Madness.

Perfect for drunken nights out, this camera could mask your mid-night out clubbing face complete with panda eyes, shiny forehead and greasy hair (or perhaps that’s just me?) and make Facebook de-tagging a thing of the past. Hey presto! From minger to Barbie doll in one push of a button.

It features 10x optical Zoom, wide angle lens and long battery life – promising 1000 shots per charge – and is available in black, silver and pink for £242 from today on www.qvcuk.com

We haven’t seen any comparative imagery yet in the form of a before and abracadabra-after (I’m expecting miracles) but we’ll post something as soon as we can. Now all we need is that airbrushing mirror…