Material 6

The first of two groups we’re taking a peek at here is the group known as Material 6, these guys offering up wood backs that range from $89 USD all the way up to $99 USD, with the option of adding your very own custom engraving for $5 USD. In this set of backs, you’ll get options in Walnut, Lacewood, Maple, and a few artist series backs, these pre-cut masterpieces being the ones that cost the extra $10. It’s the customizable back that you make yourself that makes this group all the more worthwhile – download your own template and go wild! Available now in their online shop.

Have a peek at the process you’ll be going through with each different iPhone wooden back replacement kit here, courtesy of Material 6:

Monolith

The other option you’ve got here is Monolith’s $55 back panel, available in Oak, Teak, or Walnut. You’ll also be able to get these backs in iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S models, each of them looking just fabulous in their natural state. Monolith also goes so far as to show off their packaging which, you must appreciate, looks rather nice. The Monolith Solid Wood iPhone Back Panel will be available in early February 2012 via their online shop.

The Senator was more than 3,500 years old when he passed. The bald cypress’ death and collapse happened after its hollowed-out center was affected by a “curious confluence of natural events.” These events may very well, they said, have been started several weeks ago when a lightening strike hit, it then smoldering until combustion occurred only this week. Another idea is that friction caused by buffeting winds made a tiny spark which then erupted into the flames that swallowed our old friend.

This tree was older than Egypt’s Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV,) pre-dated the Trojan War, and popped up right at about the time the Bible says Moses was speaking to the burning bush. Now Longwood’s number 1 attraction is no more. All things must pass, and this market that pre-American residents used as a compass, Calvin Coolidge dedicated a bronze plaque to, and Senator Moses Oscar Overstreet donated 11 surrounding acres to the state as parkland for in 1927, is now collapsed. We hope everyone who got the chance to see this 18-foot wide beast remembers him well!

[via The Daily, image from Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT]

So your little munchkin is teething, yes? And she loves to watch television because it’s bright and gigantically flashy – and she somehow figured out that the remote control was was made the visions of euphoria switch between one another. What do you do? You hand her the Baby Wood toy remote control, of course! She can dribble all over that simple block of wood with no repercussions save for much quicker cutting of those chompers. Of course, good luck to you watching TV while she’s actually pushing the teeth through. There will be yelling, so very much yelling.

On top of the remote control, there’s a Nintendo controller (in classic NES rectangle configuration with all the buttons and whatnot cut directly into the wood,) and a brand new smartphone that’ll have your baby think he’s iPhone tapping all day long. Of course you might have a bit of a time explaining the wooden nature of the device once he learns to speak, but that’s a long time away, right? Have a peek at these devices in the creator’s online store now: only $12 USD a pop!

Also don’t forget to check out our 2011 Holiday Gift Guide for a giant handful of additional selections!

Take a peek at this video and learn from the man himself how to create this masterpiece (actually, it turns out this is version number three!) If I’m not mistaken, the actual hardcore rules for Jenga (depending on what sort of a hardcore player you might be) say you’ve got to use your fingers and no tools, but I’d love to have a match where you were only allowed to use guns (and knives?) That’d be just lovely.

[Via OhGizmo!]

When we say “the details”, we really do mean all of them.  Buckner drew all of the screws, all of the keyboard markings, everything on-screen, all by hand onto the white painted wood.  While it obviously won’t be much use for mobile computing, the wooden MacBook does have something the real version lacks: pull the tab in the center, and a great long splurge of dock unfurls.

The piece was created in response to a school project challenging students to create a “bookart”.  Now all Kyle needs to do is hollow out the casing and stuff the guts of a Hackint0sh MSI Wind inside, for his own unique Apple netbook.

The case has two sections: inside the upper, primarily ebony part is a J&W Mini-ITX motherboard, AMD Radeon HD 4850 graphics card, AMD Phenom X4 9350e processor, OCZ So-DIMM DDR2 RAM and Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB hard drive.  The lower, meanwhile, hides the power supply and DVD drive.  Each side of the top cube is 30cm, making the end product on the large side for something Mini-ITX based.

While the end result looks fantastic, the build itself is well worth reading through.  Rather than go for the easier options in cutting the wood and finishing off the joints, Nick put the effort in to make sure they were high quality. 

[via Hack N Mod]

A 1,500mAh battery is good for 3hrs of solid gameplay, and recharges in just 60 minutes.  Meanwhile, the case itself is solid cherry and birch, with some pleasingly smoothed-off edges and a joyously retro volume slider. 

The finished product went up for sale with a $500+shipping tag, and sold seemingly within a day.  How long before we see a Steampunk portable NES, do you think?

[via iTechNewsNet]

Personally I think both of these notebook look simply amazing, however word on the streets is that wood isn’t the most lightweight component you can make something out of, so I don’t want desktop replacement weight with Eee like performance just for the sake of what looks good. Also, that green keyboard and trackpad is rather ghastly.

The bamboo design that Asus has was along the right idea as I hear that wood is extremely lightweight. Maybe Fujitsu should look to them for guidance, but if Fujitsu can fit a decent laptop inside a wooden shell for a remotely reasonable price I’m sure they’d sell like hotcakes.

[via geekologie]

Best of all they have interchangeable bezels from Silver/Black lines to wood to White/Black lines. The lowest end model starts at $139, an affordable price for a digital picture frame.

They all come with 256MB of integrated memory, CF, and SD/MMC/XD/MS card readers, as well as a USB port for plugging in a flash drive if you choose. They also support a plethora of file formats including JPEG, BMP, Motion JPEG, MPEG 1, MPEG4, and MP3.

[via ViewSonic]

Obviously they are actually metal, but the casing around the jacks isn’t molded plastic, they are wood. The best part is that they used all sorts of different types of wood which makes this wooden radio stand out from the rest.

They even used what looks like Jute twine to tie the cables into bundles instead of those little wire bread tie things. Yes, you can use your iPod with it, that would be what the auxiliary input is for, and I really hope this thing sounds half as good as it looks, especially if you are going to throw down $220 on it.

[via unplggd]

The cool part is the analog portion of the clock where it slowly and simultaneously raises and/or lowers the necessary pieces to make the next digit in the time that’s coming up. So one or more pieces is always moving and making up the new time.

It’s all white, as you can no doubt tell from the pictures, and its powered by custom circuitry and servo motors. It looks amazing, and I want one now, I mean could you imagine flush mounting a large on of these high up on a white wall in your house so your guests think your wall is coming alive to tell the time? So much awesomeness coming from the mind of Alvin Aronson.

[via technabob]

It appears to have a 15.4” screen, and look like a standard laptop, just with extra coatings of bamboo. No word on details of the specs, anywhere, but I have seen guess of a ULV processor, and others say it uses Core 2 Duo, the latter seems more likely.

So, like I said, I can’t find any more details on this notebook anywhere, but, as soon as I get them, I’ll let you know. For now, just gawk at the amazing beauty.

Then you place the product on some sore of backdrop (some sort of white padding in this picture) and shine a halogen light on the exterior of the trash can. The light passes through without causing a glare and it gives you nearly the perfect product shot.

Judging from the looks of the picture, the originator took it a step further and added an angled camera mount allowing you to get a stable, more centered shot with little to no effort. If you want to give it a go, you’ll have to get the wood, nuts, bolts, and L brackets from somewhere else as well as the white pad, but the trashcan is from Ikea and is the FNISS Wastepaper Basket for $2.

[via CrunchGear]

It’s not ergonomically designed, nor is it wireless but I must say it’s beautiful. It comes in mahogany and black walnut so you can try to match it to your desk.

The mahogany mouse will cost you $40 and the black walnut will cost $38. It’s probably not the best mouse you could buy but I’m sure some will like it.

[via Chip Chick]

I mean, there are houses built out of wood that last for hundreds of years, why couldn’t it work with a car too? As you can see from the picture, they are planning on making the whole of the exterior wooden, but there will likely be wood inside as well, and under the hood the chassis and suspension get wood complements as well.

There is also talk of a 600hp V8 (something about that big of an engine being surrounded by kindling scares me). They even managed to design wheels that can hold the 2500 pound body, and the wheels are made with wood too. Understandably, they did have to move some things around as far as the exhaust is concerned in order to keep things from catching on fire, but I like the look of it.

Splinter: Wooden supercar (not Ninja-guiding rat thing) [via shinyshiny]

It looks like most of the actual work went into painting it, other than that it appears to just be some fancy ply-wood work with some better wood for the buttons. It looks nice though, and for $300 if they were ever to mass produce them they’d probably sell pretty well.

Then again they’d have to make some profit, and international shipping is pricey for something that large, so by the time it got here it’d probably be considerably pricier. Regardless, its unavailable for purchase, but I am sure with just a little bit of effort, and an NES controller to use as a model, you could probably make your own or stuff some other stuff inside the case, my personally favorite would be to see a pair of turntables and some mixers stuffed inside a case like this like a DJ coffin.

Cool PC Mods – Giant NES Controller PC Case [via gadgettastic]

There also appears to be a rather large tweeter on the side too. The efficiency of this speaker is amazing at 100dB/1watt/1meter and the amplifier outputs a mere 15 watts.

If you want the full dimensions of this behemoth, its 90.5x59x51.2 inches and weighs in at 1364 pounds each. You can get the horns in your choice of automotive finishes, and you can buy them for an astronomical $387,700 right now. Trust me, if I were a millionaire, I’d have a pair of these in my gaming/computer room.

Sphaeron Excalibur: Raising limits of dimension and variability [via bornrich]

Their biggest selling point is the wood enclosure, not because it looks cool, but for what it does for the sound coming out of the system. I honestly think the only music that doesn’t benefit from the sound improvements offered by wood enclosures might be Techno/Trance and stuff of that sort, which is good music, but due to the nature of it, it doesn’t sound better from the softening and smoothness that a wood enclosure offers.

Sure, the driver and cone make up a large part of the sound, but a wood enclosure just softens a lot of the edges in the sound and makes it seem to flow more smoothly. Andy you don’t have to worry about hearing a rattle or other noise coming from the enclosure like you might with a lightweight plastic or something of that sort. The Model M is $499 but it offers up a 14” wide cabinet, a slot loading CD player, 4 speakers, and a 100 watt digital amp as well as a 3.5mm auxiliary input. On the side, there is a floor stand you can get if you are too good to use a table, it’ll cost you an extra buck-twenty ($120).

Geneva Model M Gives Your iPod Some Wood [via gizmodo]

I am no mathematician, but if I had to guess, that TV won’t even last a tenth of the time it will take to grow a large enough tree to make another. Anyways, these wooden TV’s will be sold in the UK at Curry’s and Dixon’s, well, the 19-inch models will be.

The 19-inchers aren’t full HD, but Swedx sells screens up to 46-inches diagonal that are full HD or 1080p. They also make an entire line of computer equipment if you like the look of wood on electronics.

‘Tree-V’ TVs coming out of the woodwork [via Crave]

In fact these look like that house on the corner that used to be condemned but someone came along and threw a new paint job on it and is now selling it for a small fortune. These speakers claim to be of audiophile quality, and it sounds like they are even trying to compare their product to those $400 Bose PC speakers, but they look quite cheap.

Sure, they have various finishes including real wood for the boisterous price of $559, oh, and the subwoofer, which will cost you extra, a $179 extra. I have yet to hear or even see this speakers in real life, so they may actually be worth it, but for now, if I get close to $700 to spend on a PC speaker system, I am going to the closest place that retails Klipsch or Polk Audio products, not some company in Canada that I’ve never even heard of.

Axiom Audiobyte: The Bentley of PC speakers [via news]

Other features include DMB-TV, a two-megapixel camera, MP3 player, Bluetooth (hopefully with A2DP support), and an Electronic Dictionary. That’s a pretty good list of features for a clamshell.

If you are on the LG Telecom network, you’ll be able to get one for about $520 real soon. The rest of us get to either import it for a slightly higher price, or do without entirely, oh well.

LG Shine Wood LB2500H handset [via fareastgizmos]

Well they are giving it another go with kits this time. That’s right, you get a discount of about $110 off of that $400 price tag, but the catch is you have to put it together yourself.

The new kits will be $290 each and should be available soon in Japan. Personally, if I have to do work to build my own keyboard, I’d rather it be a steam punk one, so make a kit for that and I might buy it.

Wooden keyboards, assembly required [via Crave]

You can tell from the pictures, everything except the buttons and screen has been replaced with wood. I am sure that if the creator has some way of fitting all that tiny font on those small pieces of wood for the keypad he probably would have replaced those too.

The wood probably makes the phone more rugged than plastic, but likely far less waterproof. Its quite a great and well thought out design, I truly like it, too bad they aren’t for sale in the US.

Russian wooden phone [via MAKE]