Breathtaking doesn’t even begin to describe this underwater bedroom.  It’s a stunning display of not only engineering, but nature, and a very rare glimpse at that – something we all take for granted.  But with the right amount of cash, presumably a sh*t load of it, you can sleep in this bedroom of the sea.

This slumber chamber was originally a restaurant.  It’s located at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort.  However, they converted it into private suite, which includes a private champagne dinner for two as well as breakfast in bed. But who can think of eating with a view like this?  A glass case 16 feet below the sea’s surface encloses the bedroom providing a 180 degree view of the aqua habit.

The rest of the resort, which is above sea level, isn’t too shabby either, boasting 50 luxurious water villas, 79 exotic beach villas and 21 fabulous spa water villas with private treatment rooms.

None of it can be cheap, but you can bet your ass that the underwater bedroom will cost 3-5 fold whatever the above water versions costs.

Still trying to find that product to compliment the Liquid Image Scuba diving mask?  Look no further.  The BladeFish Seajet is a personal lightweight rechargeable sea scooter that can propel you up to 4.2kmh, or about 2.2mph.  Yeah, the speed is a bit slow, but instead of kicking and flailing your way to the bottom of the ocean you can calmly cruise to new depths (up to 30m) without running out of oxygen as fast.   It weighs about 10lbs, so it’s light enough to carry in a bag to the beach and one charge will provide up to 40 minutes of underwater fun.  Oddly enough, the orange version is about $150 more expensive than the yellow one, unless of course I’m missing something.

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Bone conduction seems to be of all the rage these days when talking about submersible earphones.  I had a bland experience with the Finis SwiMP3′s and feel that music underwater has yet to be truly conquered.

Thanko of Japan has just announced the new EMP-708LITE Vonia earphones that use bone conduction to transmit the music to your brain in up to 5 meters of depth.  This product is only available in Japan but you can order a pair for around $45.  Any opinions on this technology??

[via NewLaunches]

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Today, I read an article that made me question my own sanity.

I read all about the Liquid Image Scuba Series HD320, and when you hear what this is and connect it to earlier work, then you’re going to have a serious problem yourself.  Because by the time I finish talking about this you’ll wonder the same thing I did:  namely, maybe Thanko’s Underwater USB Camera wasn’t so lunatic after all.

The Liquid Image Scuba Series HD320, you see, is a diving facemask with a side-mounted HD video camera.  All you have to do is line up the crosshairs on the mask with the thing you want to photograph, then press the button on the mask to take the footage.  It’s the equivalent of a five megapixel camera and can go as far down as 115 feet.

You can get one of these beauties via West Marine for just $300, but there are lower cost versions available.

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Oh Thanko…have I told you lately that I love you…r insane brand of gadget lunacy?

The boys and girls out at Thanko have truly done it again.  They’re offering up a waterproof USB camera that will remain waterproof up to 20 meters deep, which is approximately sixty feet.

It’s got four gigs of onboard memory, USB, stores files in AVI at 736X280 resolution at 20 frames per second.  Even better, the battery takes up to two full hours of nonstop running to go blank, so you’ll have plenty of time to learn all its various features.

But yes, you read that right…they’re actually offering up a waterproof diving USB camera.  I admit there are plenty of other possible uses for it, but the fact that you can actually use it as a diving camera strikes me as a bit outlandish.  But if you ever wanted to hunt gold in the Caribbean, and don’t mind shelling out a hundred and forty bucks worth of that gold in advance, this has GOT to be the way to do it.

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Having previously reviewed a few underwater MP3 solutions it was clear to me what I expected from the Finis SwiMP3.  While other incarnations of submersible MP3 players had issues with water always getting in your ears disrupting the flow of sound, the SwiMP3 player had to eliminate that in order to be a plausible contender.

Immediately upon “unboxing”, it was apparent that the SwiMP3 player was exactly that.  Tailored to swimmers, the only way to adorn the product was to attach them to a pair of goggles.  The clips on each earpiece are designed to loosely fit around any pair of goggles and were a bit weird to try and situate them correctly without a mirror.

Once I aligned the earpieces to an optimal place on my head I did some laps.  The first thing I noticed was the “bone conduction” aspect.  While sounding more fancy than it needs to, it basically just means that there are no actual “traditional” earphones that you plug into you ears.  The sound vibrates through the plastic casing, eliminating the water suction problem in past underwater MP3 products.

Does this work?  It totally does, but at the immediate sacrifice of the most imperative aspect inherent in a pair of earphones.  The sound.  The main blemish is the quality.  It sounds very shallow and distant sounding (puns all day) and that you are hearing it from “3 doors down”.

I can say right now that the biggest problem with the Finis SwiMP3 is the volume fluctuations that must be suffered.  The thing is, swimming in water has its own sounds and you must jack up the volume in order to hear the music.  The bad part comes to when you are at rest and taking a break from swimming.  Not only does the music sound shrill, but it’s also searingly loud.  I’m not sure if this could be avoided by a volume toggle button but it’s very harsh to say the least.

As far as controls go, I say don’t futz with them.  At a storage capacity of 256Mbs, I would just make a playlist and swim and try to enjoy the novelty of listening to music underwater.  The swimmer I spoke to at the gym expressed that if the SwiMP3 was priced at under $100 it would be much more appealing, and it would definitely help break up the drudgery of doing laps in the pool.

My take on the product: I’d want it to be more versatile and offer a design that allowed you to use the headphones without a pair of goggles.  Bad sounding music is far better than no music at all and I feel that other sports could benefit from this “bone conduction” technology if you will, as it works far better than similar products in its genre.  The quality of construction could be a bit more heavy duty and it could sure have more memory, up to at least quadruple it’s current size.

Beyond that, the Finis SwiMP3 is an interesting product that should garner the attention of swimmers all over looking to cut up the monotony of doing laps.  While not a stellar underwater MP3 solution at this moment, Finis could make some important strides to improving the SwiMP3 so it is more appealing to its niche’ market.

Note:  For the life of me (from the Verve Pipe’s The Freshman), I could not get my original iMac G5 to recognize the SwiMP3.  Beware as I could also not get it to mount as a disk image on my buddy’s newer Powerbook.

Pros:

• Allows for underwater music sans suction problems of similar products
• Easy to use
• Mildly comfortable

Cons:

• Volume issues
• Memory too small
• Pricey

Buy it for $135 here!

H2Audio has been making some heavy duty underwater iPod cases for some years now and the iDive300 is their first foray into deeper waters.  Designed to hit depths of up to 300 feet deep, the iDive300 is priced at $350 and is an extremely niche product that only seriously bored divers would need.  Sporting watertight controls and over the ear speakers I can’t imagine a large production batch for this item.  Beyond that, the iDive300 has a warranty for your iStuff in case something goes awry once submerged.   What do we think?  Cool or worthless?

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