The Antonio Berardi woman is usually a femme fatale, fitted or zipped into the kind of dress that promises to turn every girl into an Italian bombshell—or Christina Hendricks. For his pre-collection, the designer also offered some knitted tank dresses that raised the body-con thermostat. But he expanded his periphery to include experiments with new volumes, especially a pleated bubble (though it still came attached to a fitted tank top) and skirts with a slight flare. There was a slight clunk to the bubble, which also came through in a jacket sleeve set under a shoulder pad, or a jacket body that was folded into itself (although that could be considered a topical Inception-like effect).

More pleasing was the virginal Catholicism of a dress that was composed from layers of white handkerchief cotton and lace with lace hankies sewn on top. It illuminated a hard/soft dichotomy in the collection, as in a shirt/jacket hybrid where the top half of the piece was sheer lace and chiffon and the bottom half was a solid crepe peplum. Same thing with the colors—the rigor of black and white, the flyaway ice-creaminess of fuchsia, mango, peppermint. The overall feel was that Berardi was toying with contrasting ideas that he will resolve more fully in his Spring collection. In the meantime, a spirit of perverse whimsy dictated that his yellow chiffon caftan summoned from the graveyard of camp the specter of Elizabeth Taylor in Boom!
—Tim Blanks

Why? Because you don't need to spend $200 on jeans - or even $100.

Toshiba has announced the availability of a couple new Blu-ray players in the UK. The Toshiba BDX3100KB is the company’s first ever Blu-ray player to support Blu-ray 3D movie playback. This player provides Full HD 1920x1080p 3D output, creating an outstanding next generation home cinema experience. Blu-ray movies are played back at 24 frames per second, preserving their original atmosphere and quality to provide smooth, cinematic playback exactly how the movie director intended. Additional features include a 3D-capable HDMI port, REGZA-LINK (HDMI-CEC) technology via HDMI, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio Essential.

What’s more, Toshiba UK has also introduced the new BDX1100KB Blu-ray player, which supports full 1920x1080p HD output and upscaling technology for old DVDs. The Toshiba BDX3100KB 3D Blu-ray and BDX1100KB will be available in the UK from October 2010. [TFTS]

Sharp's 10.2-inch parallax barrier display makes us love our 3D glasses (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 01:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Reducing our reliance on non-renewable forms of energy, British designer Matthew Smith has developed a MP3 player concept that harnesses a renewable source of energy. Hailed as “Kinetic MP3 Player,” the futuristic music player, as depicted by its name, runs on kinetic energy generated by the body friction during a jog or even a simple walk. Integrating a joystick to navigate through various menus with ease, the concept MP3 player comes with a built-in kinetic energy generator that converts kinetic energy into electricity for power. Therefore, now you need not to charge the device or change batteries at regular intervals. To add more, the MP3 player includes metal pads on the hand-grip to read your heart rate during workouts.

Via: Ecofriend