The BAR1000 Deluxe Edition Crystal Weather Station uses the crystals to mark out different weather icons, which light up depending on the forecast. The LCD display will show both indoor and outdoor temperatures, while a built-in light sensor will adjust the display’s brightness depending on ambient light.

The Swarovski studded weather station will cost $199.99 when it hits shelves. There’s no logical reason why anyone would need to buy one, but when it comes to Swarovski, I’m not sure logic has much of a say…

[Oregon Scientific]

Offered through Goldgenie (read: not Apple), Elton’s personalised iPod nanos complete with his Rocket Man: The Definitive Hits CD pre-installed can be yours for $US565 (8GB) or $US640 (16GB). We realise that sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that 12.5% of each purchase goes back to the the Elton John AIDS Foundation—or $US45 (8GB) and $US51 (16GB). Only 100 of each colour will be puked on with a mixture of crystals and adhesive.

Like most of the reasonable public, I’d pay 50 or so bucks not to carry one of these iPods, so maybe I should just mail in my cheque and have it done with. [Goldgenie via ShinyShiny]

Style hurts, my friends. And sometimes it even punctures the skin. (Unless you’re Superman, in which case it just rides up your crack a bit.) [de zeen via core77]

Dr Sánchez-Dehesa told BBC News that 200 layers of this material, formed by arrays of tiny cylinders, will shield an object from any noise, while thinner implementations will achieve insulation from certain frequencies.

At this stage, it’s still too early to tell when we will see practical applications of this discovery, which has a precedent in microwave invisibility cloaks. It may find its way into military applications first, like making submarines completely silent. [BBC News]

Visual Quality
I watched lots of snowboarding videos on both setups. Both sets have the same resolution, but the screens look bigger and with less ambient light and distracting reflection in the Zeiss. It’s supposed to simulate a 45 inch screen at 6 feet away, but all I know is that it’s a lot more in your face than the Myvu. The Zeiss and Myvu’s brightness, contrast and black levels were on par with each other. I do wish they came in 16:9 versions, but the 4:3 ratio is probably more practical. There’s a 3D setting on the Zeiss, which is to be used with clips provided on their website, but as most content isn’t 3D, it didn’t factor into my testing. Update: Eyestrain isn’t bad at all at the 30 minute mark, but I’ll do some more testing today to make sure.

Comfort
The Zeiss has adjustable head pieces, and a large and narrow nose piece. It’s a much heavier set up, however, and so the Myvu is much more comfortable, with its adjustable nosepiece. I’d be more likely to use the Myvu out of the house, given their weight.

Audio
The Zeiss has mounted earbuds on adjustable plastic sticks that don’t actually interface directly with your canals. (They float over them.) The Myvu’s buds go into your ears, isolate a lot more sound and produce better audio, although the dangly wires add to the clutter.

Jordie Factor
The Cinemizers are far uglier than the lighter Myvu Crystals, partially from the bulging faux-eye pieces packed with the eyesight correcting diopter glass (+/-3.5D) and knobs, partially from just being too damn far apart. The Myvus are also a lot easier to walk around with, as you can see easily above and below the screen making driving with these a lot safer. (I kid!)

Controls
The Zeiss has a really nice rubber remote with contrast/brightness settings, volume, FF/RW, Play/Pause buttons and a nice clip. That leads to the battery dock, which holds the iPod and has a power button. The Myvu’s controller has individual brightness and contrast settings, plus volume, but no navigation.

Compatibility and cabling
The Zeiss comes with a number of click in plastic holders for the touch, 3G Nano, Classic 80gb, 5th gen 60/80GB iPod, and Classic 160GB. There’s no case for an iPhone the Classic 160 fit fine. There’s a 1/8th inch jack for audio/video input, but a cable is not included. The Myvu comes in iPod or universal kits, but the universal kit excludes the iPod dock connection. The universal kit has adapters for regular composite jacks, Zune, Gigabeat, Archos, and 5th gen video iPods. The Myvu’s cabling is also a mess, since you’ve got a separate battery/remote jack which interfaces with the iPod through another cable. The Zeiss’s design bundles the battery with the already bulky iPod and so the only spare part is a remote. Very nice.

Battery Life
Both claim 4 hours of life. It’s worth noting that other headsets from Myvu with 320 pixel wide images can do 10 hours of battery life. Both charge via USB, with the Zeiss charging a minimum of 2.5 hours and the Myvu finishing in 4 to 12 hours. (Rated.)

Accessories/Extras
The Zeiss has a really nice case, while the Myvu has a mere bag.

If visual quality is your ultimate requirement, and you’re married to an iPod, the Zeiss makes better sense. But the Myvu’s ability to play with other video sources out of the box and its US$100 cheaper price tag make it a little bit better for the general buyer. Both will give you a charisma penalty of 3-4 points, but you know, we don’t care about that kind of thing around here.

Suspension of disbelief off: I guess there’s a bigger question here of whether or not any of us need such a set up. I can imagine using one on a plane so I don’t have to drain my iPhone’s battery displaying a 3 hour movie on the 3.5 inch LCD; instead, I can avoid neck cramps and stare wherever my anatomy feels I will be most comfortable. Likewise in bed or on a couch. A few years ago, the quality was worse and these headsets were closer to US$500. From here, at US$300, I guess those limited scenarios are a decent value. Ultimately, most of you who decide to take such an advanced plunge will be doing it to bleed at the edge. What’s nice is that going forward these things can only get better and cheaper, and I hope, less imposing to wear. [Zeiss and Myvu]

Much like a gold-encrusted hot dog, this thing is pretty on the outside but doesn’t have the goods on the inside to make it worth the price. Maximum PC reviewed it, finding that the piece of glass that covers the monitor pretty much ruins the experience.

The monitor’s artful exterior looks great on our desktop. If only the picture followed suit. Even after cranking the Crystal’s brightness to the extremes, the 1680×1050-native picture was unable to produce acceptable differences on its dark grayscales during our DisplayMate testing. This translated to a noticeable loss of quality and increased darkness levels in every real-world test we could conjure up: details escaped our pictures and movies; subtle lighting effects smudged together on our games.

This is the fuel behind the Crystal’s fiery glare issue. The display’s tempered glass lends the entire unit a mirror-like quality, more so than any glossy-panel monitor we’ve reviewed. We didn’t notice ourselves when we were working with a brighter scene, but seeing our blatant reflection during darker images, like Sweeney Todd, was more than a mere distraction. It destroyed the picture.

They ended up giving the Crystal LCD a 5 out of 10 rating, and as anybody who’s gone to school knows, getting 50% on a test is a pretty epic fail. [Maximum PC via Boing Boing Gadgets]