Boynq's Cutesy Webcam

Webcams.  There's a lens of some sort, a chassis to house it that hopefully fixes sturdily (but removable) to your laptop or desktop screen, perhaps a microphone with vaguely dodgy sound quality and that's about it.  Yeah, you can pay more for a better lens or higher megapixel count, but at the end of the day if you're only using it to occasionally flaunt your underpants on an IM video chat then it's all compressed to heckery anyway.  But would you rather have a big rubbery cylinder on your desk instead?

The Boynq Alibi webcam is unwieldy, sits on your desk, has an uni-directional microphone of unknown location (making it difficult to aim in that uni-direction), and what is likely a lacklustre speaker in the bottom.  It costs $69, or at least will when it's launched in the US over the next few months.  So given it checks off few of the above factors, why do I want it so much?  I guess the idea of having a webcam pop out of the top is enough to endear me, and after all we generally enjoy anthropomorphising our tech and Boynq have made it very easy to do in the Alibi's case.

Boynq Alibi Webcam made me scream kawaiii like a little schoolgirl [Gizmodo]