Are you an impatient mother who can’t hold onto her diaphragm without worrying if the fetus in her womb will develop sickle-cell anemia? Well no worries, tubby, because Royal Philips Electronics wants to turn those awkward and impersonal ultrasounds into something “much more playful,” says Frank Rettenbacher, a product designer for Philips.

Now, that’s just fucking creepy.  Philips researchers were modeling ultrasound visits after a spa-like experiences.  These weirdos want to cut out the whole lab/doctor routine and outfit your ultrasound experience with ambient lighting and new technologies intended to reduce stress. The ultrasound itself is streamed onto a big, bubble-like screen. These larger, clearer images may help doctors diagnose aberrations early on in the baby’s development, ultimately resulting in earlier treatment. Looks a lot like a night club to me, though. I wonder if Red Bulls will still cost $5…

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I don’t know what Turkish designer Erdem Selek was thinking when creating this, but Big Brother must have been floating around in someone’s mind. What seems like an ordinary pillow is really a space-alien with a digital eye. It’s designed to let newborn mothers watch their children through a webcam when they’re sleeping.

Some would argue it’s lovely, others would claim invasion of privacy. I suppose it depends if your baby is a supporter of the Patriot Act. Either way, it’s just a prototype, so you’ll have to stick to the walkie talkies for now.

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Are you a bit overeager to get your kid launched in the air? Whether it be because you want him to be a pilot like dear old dad, or you really just want to imagine your baby soaring through the skies, the pedal-powered Mustang Plane will keep the little piglet busy for at least five minutes.

Of course, you could always grab someone else’s kid and perform a little football punt to watch a youngin’ float through the sky, but then you’ll more than likely have the child welfare offices, not to mention the FBI, tailing your ass like a prized glazed donut. The Mustang planes are made to order in about 12-20 weeks and will set you back a whopping $1,840.

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Car companies thrive by using a powerful logo to represent the brute force behind their vehicles. Ferrari uses a wild bucking horse. Jaguar uses a huge and powerful raging cat in mid-leap. Lamborghini uses the image of a charging bull. It’s all about the image of pure animalistic power!

Now, imagine if these companies were all of a sudden focused on a new demographic. What if, rather than focusing on men with inferiority complexes and people who love powerful machines, these companies were to focus on the highly-sought after “infant drivers” demographic. The logos would probably change a bit, and perhaps look something like this. (more…)

When I was a baby, as my family traveled the harsh path of the Oregon Trail, contracting dysentery and having our wagon wheels crack on a normal basis, we could hardly afford a booster seat to keep me high enough to reach our dinner of venison. We had to use the Yellow Pages to boost my booty. I remember the paper cuts like it was yesterday.

This plastic Yellow Pages-themed booster seat offers the same asteic as the ghetto booster seat of yore, for those who have the bullion to upgrade. The Yellow Pages Booster is form fitting to the babies rump, lightweight, and washable, so no more fear of leaving a stain or two. Get yours for $19.99. — Andrew Dobrow

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If you’ve ever taken a glance at products released for infants, you’ll see that many include the title “baby’s first…” Kid Kustoms can only be explained as Baby’s First Hot Rod. Donning some of the particulars that make speed demons wet their pants, the Kid Kustoms’ strollers lets you pimp out your kid’s carriage.

Including over-wheel fenders, pearlescent paint jobs, monocoque chassis, and a wide assortment of add-ons and blingage to secure your kid’s place as the first one on the block to own a hot rod. You can customize your kids stroller for prices ranging from $2,000 t0 $3,500, depending on how lux you’re willing to go. (more…)

While the image might suggest that this man is taking violent measures to extract information out of this dummy baby, there is actually a scientific story to go with this awkward image. Though we wish there wasn’t. It would make the picture so much more entertaining.

This $28,200 (€19,000) crash test dummy baby will help scientists better understand the trauma that occurs when infants are shaken, which account for 1,000 baby deaths and another 1,000 brain damage incidents per year. No word on who won the intense fight between fake baby and psycho researcher. At least the dummy doesn’t look like spokesperson bot for NAMBLA. As happy as that might have made us, it sure has hell would have added a element of scariness to the project. — Andrew Dobrow

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Too much time, too many babies, this is a home-made “Gucci” handsfree device posted on Yahoo Taiwan’s auction site. At least this is more original than the Mokia Notorola phones. 3 cents, why not? Baby not bundled. –Sam Chan

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The Japan Acoustic Laboratory is famous for their soft science research, those guys have recently started selling ringtones online that they claimed can calm crying babies. Nikkei has decided to spend a few bucks and try that out on 2 babies. First they downloaded the tone on to their mobile, then they sent it to the alarm clock by muPass. You can have an idea of how the tone actually sounds like here (.avi). No matter how stupid it sounds, Nikkei still reported that it actually worked on two difficult babies, and they both stopped crying within seconds; but over here, we might want to try this on non-Japanese babies first. –Sam Chan

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