Gold posts

Queen Elizabeth Gets Golden Wii

by Terrence O'Brien (RSS feed) — May 22nd 2009 at 10:16AM

So let's say you're a video game company with a new release called "Big Family Games" to promote. You've decided it'd be a great gimmick to send the game to one of the world's most famous big families -- namely, the Royal Family of England. And, more specifically, to its matriarch Queen Elizabeth.

Of course, there is one problem with your plan -- the Queen doesn't have a Nintendo Wii. So, now you'll have to get Her Majesty a royal console, but wandering down to Wal-Mart to pick up the same Wii that every other schmuck has just isn't going to cut it. What to do?

Tags: Big family games, BigFamilyGames, bling, custom, gold, luxury, nintendo, queen elizabeth, QueenElizabeth, royal, royal family, RoyalFamily, thq, top, uk, wii

Cell Phones

Introducing the $2.5 Million iPhone 3G

by Peter Mychalcewycz (RSS feed) — Feb 27th 2009 at 9:01AM

A new iPhone 3G has been unleashed on the world, but before you camp outside your nearest retailer for two weeks in the rain, there's one thing you should know -- it costs $2.5 million.

The King's Button iPhone 3G, designed by Peter Aloissonis, is probably the world's most expensive iPhone for these reasons:

The main button is actually a 6.6 Carat diamond
The casing is made of 18 Carat Yellow Gold, White Gold and Rose Gold
The border around the phone consists of 138 finely cut diamonds.

While we see this as the epitome of excess, we understand it's probably just right for some people. We call them "rappers." For more expensive phones, check out our gallery below. [From: Walyou]

Gallery: Most Expensive Cell Phones

Tags: 3g iphone, 3gIphone, diamonds, excess, gold, iphone, iphone 3g, iphone3g, luxury, ridiculous

Audio/Video

Gilded, Diamond-Encrusted Earphones Go for $5253

by Darren Murph (RSS feed) — Nov 22nd 2008 at 3:53PM

We've definitely seen more expensive earphone covers in our day, but these are certainly amongst the most pricey 'buds out there. A single set of these Casa Gi-designed earbuds are currently being sold in Bristol for £3,499 ($5,253), and all that money goes towards 59 diamonds (per bud) and an 18-carat gold coating. Quite frankly, we tend to feel that these are pretty garish, but we've no doubt whatsoever that someone, somewhere will make the trip over and snatch 'em up. 'Course, we can't say how long they'll remain safely lodged in the owners ears given the gadget crime rate in Britain, but we get the feeling these won't really be used for casual listening, anyway.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Tags: Casa Gi, CasaGi, diamond, diamonds, earbuds, earphones, expensive, gold, headphones, uk

Computers

Pure*Gold PC Is Just What You Think It Is

by Donald Melanson (RSS feed) — Oct 31st 2008 at 8:02AM

It's been a little while since we've seen a full-size gold-plated PC, but it looks like the advent of small form factor PCs is keeping this little bit of excess alive even in these economic hard times, and the folks at Plush Department have even managed to find it in themselves to provide a matching amplifier for its new Pure*Gold PC.

From the looks of it, they've also managed to cram some reasonably high-end specs into the PC, including an unspecified Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT graphics with 512MB of RAM, and a generous eight USB ports and two FireWire ports.

No word on a price, naturally, but, whatever exorbitant amount it is, you can just tell yourself that it's not just a PC, it's an investment. [Via musicradar.com]

Tags: gold, gold-plated, luxury, plush department, PlushDepartment, pure gold, PureGold, puregold pc, PuregoldPc

Cell Phones

Gold iPhone Fetches $6000 on eBay

by Tim Stevens (RSS feed) — May 23rd 2008 at 8:33AM

For most, the slim and dark sophistication of the iPhone is about as good as it gets when it comes to device design. Others, though, need something a little more eye catching, something that will dazzle anyone in the vicinity.

Want both? Check out this custom gold-plated iPhone that recently dropped on eBay. It's a 16-gigabyte model that was taken apart and had its formerly chrome backplate dipped in gold. It was unlocked, too, so you can use it with any carrier you like. But the thin coat of luxurious metal (and a coat of clear protector) comes at a pretty hefty price: $6000 is what this one went for. Better start saving. [Source: eBay, via Crave]

Tags: ebay, gold, iphone

Audio/Video, Computers, iPod

David Beckham Gets Gold-Plated iPod for 100th Game

by Will Safer (RSS feed) — Apr 3rd 2008 at 12:45PM

When you really want to let someone know you care, what's the gift that says it all? How about an iPod? How about a personally inscribed iPod? How about a gold-plated, personally inscribed iPod?

That's what English soccer great and current Los Angeles Galaxy player David Beckham received from his mates on the English national soccer team after participating in his 100th game with the club following a friendly match with the blokes from the French national team in Paris.

It's a mark of honor, really, to do a hundred of anything, and the gadget hounds at Switched applaud the squad from England for pooling together to get the 32-year-old Beckham this special iPod Touch, valued at 600 British pounds, which comes out to about $1,196 in U.S. hard currency.

From The Unofficial Apple Weblog via Engadget via The Telegraph.

Related links:

Tags: Apple, David Beckham, DavidBeckham, English, gift, Gold, iPod Touch, IpodTouch, Soccer

Video Games

The $15,000 Golden Nintendo Cartridge

by Tim Stevens (RSS feed) — Feb 15th 2008 at 12:01PM

If you're old enough to have owned a Nintendo Entertainment System in the 80's, chances are you bought a copy of the original 'The Legend of Zelda' with the luscious golden sheen. Those cartridges are only worth a few bucks today, but a certain golden cartridge for the NES is worth much, much more. $15,000, in fact, at least according to an opening bid price on eBay.

The cartridge, pictured to the right, was a prize given out at the Nintendo World Championships in 1990 to winners and runner-ups. 26 were apparently made with the golden color and they pop up on the global auction clearing house from time to time. The cartridge contained the games used during the competition itself, including 'Super Mario Bros.,' 'Rad Racer,' and 'Tetris.' Each game is worth only a few dollars individually, but bundle them together in a shiny cart and you have quite the collector's item.

An earlier one sold for $6,100 according to Wikipedia and, with them becoming more and more rare as uninformed parents clean out closets and attics, $15,000 just may be achievable.

From Crave

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Tags: Cartridge, Gold, NES, Nintendo

Cell Phones

Guinness Names World's Most Expensive Cell Phone

by Terrence O'Brien (RSS feed) — Jan 29th 2008 at 3:34PM

The most sure-fire way to get the attention of tech blogs everywhere is to declare your device "the most ____ ____ ever" or "the smallest _____ ever," even if the claim is questionable at best. But if you can get your claim verified by the 'Guinness Book of World Records,' you're likely to get a bit less cynicism about your product.

So a tip of the hat to GoldVish, a Swiss company that has designed the Guinness-certified most expensive cell phone in the world. The $1.2 million 'LeMillion' cell phone is cast in 18k white gold and encrusted with 120 carats of diamonds. Otherwise, the 'LeMillion' is a perfectly unexceptional feature phone. Bluetooth, 2-gigabytes of storage, MP3 playback, an FM radio, and, of course, a digital camera.

Check out the gallery for some more absurdly priced (and often gaudy) handsets.

Gallery: Most Expensive Cell Phones

From Textually.org

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Tags: cell phone, CellPhone, diamond, expensive, gold, goldvish, luxury, mobile, most, smallest

Computers

Own a Mac Laptop Dipped in Gold

by Tom Conlon (RSS feed) — Oct 1st 2007 at 4:48PM

Hardcore PC-modding Web site computer-choppers.com has gained notoriety on the Internet with amazing projects like the PC made out of a vintage Marantz stereo and the computerized ode to the Digg.com logo. Today, the guys behind the site are making waves with their latest customization: a MacBook Pro that they've painted up in 24k gold.

And, make no mistake: This isn't a Maaco-style outside spray job. Computer Choppers disassembled the laptop into pieces and have painted everything, including the keyboard, the battery cover, the screen bezel and screen hinge.

Though this started as a one-off "let's see if we can do it" kind of thing, the Computer Choppers site is now offering to give other Macbooks the Trump treatment for between $1,200 and $1,500 a pop depending on the current price of gold. If you'd like to become a goldmember, you can expect to go sans-computer for up to four weeks.

From Geek Sugar

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Tags: gold, macbook, macintosh

Computers

LaCie's New Gold-Covered External Drive

by Tim Stevens (RSS feed) — Sep 13th 2007 at 11:17AM

External hard drives -- those boxes that connect to your PC and store all your excess music, video, and other files -- are usually ugly, or, at best, boring-looking. And though these babies seem boring as devices go in our iPhone-obsessed world, they serve an important purpose.

Increasingly, they're also as much a part of the furniture as our computers are. So it's about time that the manufacturers of these devices started investing in a little design. Seagate last year launched a series of sleek and fashion-forward FreeAgent external drives, for example. We applaud these design initiatives, but we're a little perplexed with LaCie's latest external drive, which is a bit garish. The 500-gigabyte (GB) device is gold-plated, or at least coated with a golden substance that contains a "small percentage of gold metal content," and delivers a shape that looks like molten gold -- assuming molten gold ever took the shape of a box with some waves on top.

It's shape and color were created by Ora-Ïto, a consumer-focused French designer whose work seems to focus on things like artsy-shaped perfume bottles and the aluminum Heineken bottle. His work here on the $189 drive is a little less organic and a bit more de trop, as the French say, but it at least delivers where it counts. Bottom line? This is a designer peripheral thing holds a 500-gigabyte hard disk and stays cool enough to not require a noisy fan.

So, while your drive may look awfully loud, at least it won't sound loud.

From Engadget

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Tags: Design, Gold, Hard Drive, HardDrive, LaCie

Computers

IBM Makes a Microscopic Work of Art

by Tim Stevens (RSS feed) — Sep 12th 2007 at 10:24AM

Looking at the picture of the sun here, you might shrug your shoulders. After all, it's nothing much to look at when compared to the works of art many celebrities are becoming thanks to the wonders of Photoshop. But considering that this picture was printed using 20,000 microscopic blobs of gold -- each just 60-nanometers wide -- and it's suddenly more interesting. To get an idea of just how small those lil' gold nuggest are, consider this:, An average hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide.

Creating tiny, golden works of art may not seem like productive work for a scientist at IBM, but it's got some solid technological and business reasoning behind it. For example, the ability to effectively print such tiny works of art means that IBM can also print other things, like the actual internals of the CPU currently cooking away inside whatever computer you're using right now.

CPUs -- essentially, the computing parts of a computers-- are already marvels of gold and silicon micro-circuitry, but to make them faster, they must have even smaller internal circuits. At these nano-sized levels, the innards of CPUs can be literally "printed," a relatively easy method of mass-producing the circuitry, which will keep production costs down on the ever faster computers of the future. And that's the real beauty of this work of art.

From AOL Money & Finance

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Tags: art, Gold, IBM, Nanotechnology

Audio/Video, Cell Phones, Computers, Slideshows

The World's Most Expensive Tech Toys

by Tom Conlon (RSS feed) — Aug 27th 2007 at 1:26PM

If you happen to be the lucky – and as yet unnamed -- Indiana native who just bought yourself a winning $314 million Powerball ticket, you're in luck: PC World has compiled an excellent photo gallery you might find interesting given your new net worth.

The list of the world's most extravagant technology products is a diverse assortment that includes some pretty cool stuff, as well as some pretty lame stuff. For example, if we were in the market for a new mansion, we'd definitely fill it up with things like a $100,000 projector, a $20,000 media server and that amazing $7,500 per year DirecTV package that would get us every single channel, movie and pay-per-view event.

Of course, then there's the gold-plated, diamond-encrusted garbage that even Donald Trump would have trouble defending the purchase of. The worst offenders on the list are the $18,000 cell phone, the $1 million laptop (which can only be started when you insert a special diamond) and a $30,000 computer mouse (pictured).

Then again, now that you're a millionaire 314 times over, you shouldn't have to point and click like the rest of us little people.

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Tags: diamond, expensive, gold, swarovski, trump

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'Black Friday' Deals to Watch For

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Black Friday' Deals to Watch For

Traditionalists might balk, but the holiday shopping season is already underway. Skeptical? Head to your local department store and you'll be inundated by Christmas trees and ornaments. Bargain hunters, though, know that the real deals are more than a month away.

Black Friday, traditionally, is when retailers truly slash prices. Early birds can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off of their holiday bills. Switched.com checked with a few elves, who gave a sneak peek at what you can expect deal-wise this year.

Blu-ray Players and Movies: Blu-ray is shaping up to be the biggest door buster of this year's Black Friday. de Grandpre expects at least one retailer will offer a Blu-ray player for just $49. Look for bargains on Blu-ray films as well, with last year's hit titles (such as "Iron Man") to fall as low as $5.

Laptops: With the proliferation of Netbooks this year, it's never been easier to find affordable portable computing, but Dan de Grandpre, CEO of DealNews.com says it will get even cheaper on Black Friday. Look for well-equipped Netbooks to sell for $199 – and basic 15" laptops to go for as little as $249.

HDTVs (Pretty big): The holidays are typically the best time to buy a new TV – and Black Friday is the time to do it. If you're looking for a normal sized set, you're in luck. Piper Jaffrey analyst Mitch Kaiser says he expects to see 32-inch LCD sets for as low as $299. GottaDeal.com is estimating 37-inch plasma and LCD sets will fall to $399 or less.

HDTVs (Really big): Need something bigger? How about a 46-47 inch LCD set for $599 – a 25 percent savings? Or a 52-inch LCD for $999? Dealnews says you can expect both. Plasma deals will be a little harder to come by, but a 50-inch set should run roughly $899.

HD Camcorders: You've wanted to shoot your child's school play in HD for a while, but haven't been able to spring for the pricey camcorder. This might be the year. Low-end, flash-based 720p models could drop as low as $60 (though you won't be able to zoom with those). Expect a high quality 1080p HD camcorder for $349.

GPS: While navigation systems have dramatically expanded their reach this year – even making it onto the iPhone – there's still a market for car-based systems. Dealnews predicts you'll be able to find a no-name entry-level system for $49, while a Garmin or Tom-Tom brand will be as low as $69.

Digital Picture Frames: Showcasing your digital pictures consistently gets cheaper. This year, skip the 7-inch screens and focus on the 8- or 9-inch ones, which should be available on Black Friday for as little as $30.

Monitors: Computer monitors might not be the sexiest of gifts, but they're usually welcomed with open arms – and they'll be cheap this year. Name brand 22-inch LCD models may go for as low as $99, while 24-inch models will drop below $150.

Memory: Don't know anyone who needs a monitor? External hard drives are always popular, since they're an easy way to back-up data. Dealnews expects a 1TB drive to fall as low as $49 this year. Gottadeal is looking for 8GB flash drives to hit $15.

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