LiVe LiFe To The FuLLThe world is moving ! Don’t stay behind…

While home phones are slowly but surely dying, once in a while somebody will come up with a really great design that brings a tear to the eye - not because of its unnatural beauty, but more because of the design being “wasted” on something that is fast getting obsolete. Target and Pottery Barn designers have come up with the Alessiphone, and apart from the design, nothing else is new here. You won’t get 3G connectivity,a built-in accelerometer or even a touchscreen display, but it will almost guarantee itself to be the perfect conversation piece whenever guests drop by your pad. No idea on whether this will ever arrive in the market or not, we we think the design would be better used on a VoIP or cell phone instead.

[CES 2009] The trend towards green has been growing slowly but surely these days, and it comes as no surprise since our earth is groaning under the collective weight of industrialization and have seem climate changes over the last 100 years with detrimental effects. The Housekeeper device aims to reverse that trend by starting from the home, as it is a wireless and efficient environmental console that allows you to monitor and control all the appliances in your home with a single click. It will also let you know exactly how much electricity, water and heat you use so that you are more aware, and after seeing the figures it might just jolt yourself into taking a more positive step. The Housekeeper is not only a one stop information center for your home’s energy usage, it also allows you to watch online TV over it, playback MP3s, make IP calls and check emails among others. These new features and updates will be made available for free. As an incentive to pick this up, the manufacturer claims that the Housekeeper is able to reduce your carbon footprint with up to 3.5 tons of CO2 and save you over 500 Euros annually without having you to change your habits. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

If a cellphone can be controlled by a touchscreen and play videos, why can’t your home VoIP phone? Soon it will be. A company called Open Peak is developing a touchscreen VoIP phone powered by Intel’s Atom chip.

Scheduled to be sold through local cable and phone service providers - not found in stores - the digital picture frame-like base unit can be expanded by four-to-six standard candybar extension phones. You can either use Ethernet or WiFi to connect the system to your home network.

Not only will you be able to make VoIP calls, but you can watch movies, search and play YouTube videos, and perform a host of other multimedia content tricks via services provided by whatever provider sells you the phone. In our demo, a Laird Hamilton Maverick surfing video loaded from YouTube in just seconds.

The unit with the wired handset will be sold to hotels and other commercial establishments.

Do you want a bit more from cell phone design? Lupa ditches the standard candybar and clamshell, in favor of a transparent display that slides open to reveal a touchscreen keypad.

Just when you thought that you’ve seen it all, along comes Bang & Olufsen with their new BeoCom2 cordless phone. We think these might be daring in design, but apart from that, it isn’t too practical for everyday use unless you love swatting flies or knock the noggin’ of a thief with your home phone. Each phone is constructed from a single piece of curved aluminum, resulting in a slender yet huge shape that is supposedly easy to pick up, handle and operate with a single hand. Oldies won’t find this to be too appealing though as they’d probably get a heart attack upon looking at the garish design. Bang & Olufsen will make available the BeoCom2 in half a dozen colors, including white, blue, yellow, grey, black and natural aluminum. They’re out in Korea with no word on a Stateside release.

Here’s a Sunday challenge for you — what in tarnation is this thing? The mysterious T-swivel type handset has appeared on a Korean site, presumably signifying its status as a simple concept. Obviously, the device packs a full QWERTY keyboard, a front-mounted camera, a rather sizable display and a swivel contraption to keep things horizontal when texting and the like. Beyond that, your guess is as good as ours here. Any clues on this thing’s origins? We only ask because, you know, we’d love to actually toy around with one.

We’ll be totally honest — we pretty much blew Ruslan Kogan off when he proclaimed that he was about to push out a $199 Android phone by the year’s end. And truthfully, the guy still hasn’t totally delivered, but you won’t find us kvetching about more Googlephones, regardless of MSRP. The Agora (AU$299; US$192) and Agora Pro (AU$399; US$256) are available for pre-order as we speak, though neither one is scheduled to ship out until the end of January. For those unfamiliar with Kogan, it’s an online-only enterprise that has wares built specifically to its dimensions in China, and so far as we can tell, it’s as legit as they come. As for specs, the Agora packs a 2.5-inch touchscreen (320 x 240), 3G networking, a backlit QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth 2.0 and a microSD card slot; the Pro adds in GPS, 2-megapixel camera and WiFi. So, with unsubsidized prices this low, are you willing to take a chance?

Motorola Motorokr EM35 is designed for supreme audio performance both as a mobile device and music player, EM35 delivers an exceptional audio experience for both music and talk.With virtual surround sound and an abundance of top features, the Motorola EM35 is perfect for the consumer looking to receive the highest multimedia and sound performance. When listening with earphones, a unique algorithm enables music to sound as if it is playing in the space around your head, rather than inside of your eardrums, enhancing the way you listen to music. Rokr EM35 is a robust music player with a full suite of dedicated keys to easily launch and control music. Whether listening via the built-in dual speakers, stereo Bluetooth wireless technology or 3.5mm stereo wired headphones, the EM35 rocks.

We’ve got a bone (or three) to pick with this one, so we’ll just get right down to the beating. For starters, anyone who can’t recognize the striking similarity between this handset and Vertu’s Ferrari Ascent Ti is obviously wearing Samsung-tinted glasses. Aside from the complete lack of originality, the Ego GT-S9402 also lacks a 3G radio — an omission that’s simply inexcusable given the estimated €1,200 ($1,513) price tag. Oh sure, there’s a measly 1GB of inbuilt storage, tri-band GSM connectivity, a 5-megapixel camera (with LED flash), an FM radio module, Bluetooth 2.0, dual SIM slots and a microSDHC expansion slot, but for over a G, we expect something more than mid-range specifications in a “liquidmetal” alloy chassis. Color us emphatically unimpressed.