When I think of the word “boombox,” it usually conjures up visions of a massive luggable stereo, powered by 8 “D”-Cell batteries, riding along on the shoulder of some urban youth, while Boogaloo Shrimp does his best poppin’ and lockin’ to the rhythm. My, how times have changed. Here’s the 21st century version of the boom box.

At the front and center of Hyundai’s portable boombox is an oversized 12.1-inch LCD monitor. The spec sheet says the screen is 1280 x 800, but from the pictures I’ve seen, I’m not sure that’s really the case. It’s not like you’re going to be watching Hi-Def video on this thing anyhow. Unlike the classic ghetto blaster, these new compact stereos are all about the image, and not the sound. As a matter of fact, the speakers on this boombox have taken a serious backseat to the screen.

The Hyundai HY-1210 is all about watching movies and TV – not listening to your jamz. The portable has a built-in DVD player, and can play content in VCD, DVD, CD, CD-R, JPEG, MP3, MPEG-4, AVI formats. There’s even a Karaoke feature built-in so you can sing along. And if you don’t have any DVDs lying around, there are USB and SD/MMC/MS slots for watching media stored on digital memory devices. And there’s a VGA connector on the back for some reason too. I can officially say this is the first boombox EVER with a VGA port.

Unfortunately, the TV tuner is analog, so you won’t be able to tune in stations in many parts of the world. At least you can listen to the FM radio when you’re not watching those Harajuku girls on screen. And with a 10-watt per channel stereo amp under the hood, audio actually isn’t that bad. One other technological advancement – this boombox only needs 8 “C”-Cell batteries – so we have made progress in the last 25 years or so. Maybe by 2035, we’ll have OLED boomboxes that run on 8 “AAA” batteries.

The Hyundai HY-1210 boombox can be yours over at ChinaGrabber for $219.99 (USD).

More and more gadgets are starting to turn up in colors besides basic black, white or grey. It was only a matter of time before the good old camcorder got a colorful makeover – in pink.

This cheery pink digital camcorder is perfect for girls (and very confident men) who want to shoot video and are sick of the same old, same old. Just like the big boys, the pink HD cam can shoot 720p high-definition video at up to 30 fps in H.264 format. See, these girls are definitely stoked about those stats…

Girl on right: “Hey, did you know my HD digi-cam can shoot digital video at 1280×720 resolution with a frame rate of 30 frames-per-second and encodes its data using a Quicktime H.264 codec?” Girl on left: “Shut up and take my picture already! Can’t you see I was busy listening to some tunes in Ogg Vorbis format!”

The pink cam has even got a pair of SD slots, each of which can hold 16GB of memory, so you can store up to 32GB of digital video if you load up both slots. In addition to shooting video, the pink cam will take still photos at up to 5-megapixel resolution. Video is displayed on the camera’s large 3-inch touchscreen display. And it’s pink – with ruby-colored sparklies!

Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, but you can check back over on Chinavasion for more information. Think pink!

As far as custom controller go, this particular project isn’t loud (though yeah, bright), it isn’t overdone, and it isn’t sparkling with a bank of flashing lights… and that’s probably why the final effect is so entirely sleek and professional.

Flickr user 4apples posted pictures of this controller project, stating that he completed this (sans the LEDs that he’ll add later) as a gift for his girlfriend, who wanted a “special” controller. Congratulations, unnamed girl. Your man is thoughtful and talented.

But as impressive as the finished project is, I really like this picture of the painted pieces. So many of the custom paint jobs I’ve seen end up looking a little sloppy, or the paint just isn’t quite right. Here, you can really see how nice each individually painted piece looks.

I’ve seen mods for sale that don’t look this nice. Just sayin’.

Image taken on 2006-10-08 00:00:01 by alexindigo.

Image taken on 2006-05-21 11:36:44 by criana.

Image taken on 2005-03-11 10:55:02 by MikeOliveri.

Image taken on 2008-12-25 13:50:15 by letmein.

Image taken on 2006-06-20 17:26:56 by Dave Q.

Image taken on 2006-06-20 16:56:52 by Dave Q.

Image taken on 2006-06-20 16:55:17 by Dave Q.