milk *an advertising agency

Charge of the Art Geeks – The PANTONE Visa Card

We love art. We love PANTONE. And we love that the brand is cool enough to have its own Platinum Rewards Card. It comes in five hues and there are no annual fees. Check it out.

The Virtual Fitting Room by Fits.me

Online sales are booming, right? But did you know that clothing represents only 8% or all online sales? The obvious reason: you never know if the clothes are going to fit, which leads to the measly eight percent plus huge return rates for retailers. Well, Fits.me, an Estonia-based tech company has a solution. Fits.me (great name, btw) is a virtual fitting room for online clothing retailers. Add Fits.me to your site and its robotic mannequin will take your customers’ body measurements, mimic their shape and allow them to see exactly how your clothing will fit them. Luxury clothier Hawes & Curtis has already adapted the technology and it wouldn’t surprise if other online retailers soon follow. Check it out.

App-etizing – The Best Cooking App

The app experts at Gizmodo have weighed in and Epicurious is their choice for best cooking app for both Apple and Android. It’s particularly useful for the iPad, which can prop up nicely on your prep station. It has a huge library of recipes from Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and other reputable sources and includes a shopping list tool and gorgeous photos. The Android also version features voice search and a recipe-of-the-day widget. We’re Macheads, so we’re including the link to the Apple app. Check it out.

Get Cash For Your Gadgets With Gazelle

Don’t recycle your old gadgets, ReCommerce them with Gazelle, the company that pays you for your old cell phones, laptops and other gadgets. Every item you send Gazelle gets a cash offer and it even sends you a box and pays for shipping. Gazelle extends the lives of items that still have value and responsibly recycles the gadgets that don’t. It’s simple. It’s safe. It’s one of our Green picks of the year. Check it out.

Vegas Calling – The $1,000,000 Phone

Vegas, baby! Vegas! Oh how we love thee. Where else can you find such over-the-top extravagance in a down economy? The designers at GRESSO teamed up with the Luxor to create the Luxor Las Vegas Jackpot phone, which can be yours for a cool Dr. Evil-ish one meeelion dollars. The phone case is pure gold and encrusted with black diamonds, and the back panel features 200-year-old African Blackwood. The keys are made from single sapphire crystals and the people who will buy the phone are made of money. Check it out.

You Must See This

We’re not going to give it away. Just know that it is incredibly cool. Yours, milk. Check it out.

Cool Mousepad, Mr. Lebowski - The MouseRug

Tired of using the mousepad that doubles as one of your vendors promo pieces? Check out MouseRugs. They really bring a desk together. They're made using a Lextra Fiber Graphics process that creates a richly-textured surface--with over seven million individual fibers per MouseRug. They also make WristRugs for your laptop. Do you abide? Check it out.

Just Peachy - Plum Consumer Rewards

We're always looking for new ways to engage consumers and build loyalty, so Plum Rewards caught our eye when we spotted a local sandwich restaurant using it as a frequency program. Plum enables you to send timely coupons and promotions as text messages to your customers on their cell phone while being able to track their visits and coupon redemptions at your business. It works using a PDA-style PlumReward device that consumers enter their cell numbers into every time they visit. You can also include the program in your other marketing efforts as well. Pretty cool. Check it out.

Cluster-F – CrunchPad is Dead

Two weeks prior to launch and the CrunchPad is dead. If you don’t know what CrunchPad is you may have wanted to. Hell, Joe went into a fetal position when he heard the news. We think he’s still under his desk. You see, Joe’s a gadget guy and he wanted to get his hands on this low cost tablet PC designed for web surfing. It looked like a really big iPhone. But as often happens greed and jealousy got in the way. So no CrunchPad…for now. They were too close. We have a feeling we’ll see something similar in the not too distant future. Check it out.

For Your APP-etite

Sorry about the headline. Couldn’t resist. But here are five commuter friendly iPhone apps to try (especially if you’re buzzing around town on your new BRAMMO Enertia). Bike Your Drive is a free app that allows bike commuters to calculate things like how far they’ve biked, how many calories they’ve burned and how much gas money they’ve saved. Transit Maps allows you to store any transit map on your phone. Aha provides real-time traffic info and location searches and even lets you share real-time info with other drivers on the network. Zipcar is a free app that makes being a member of this unique car rental company a snap. You can choose a car to rent, reserve it and even turn it on using your iPhone. Finally, Maps + Compass is a standard app that will help you select the best routes no matter what your mode of travel is. Its bus feature even tells you when the bus will arrive. Check them out. And happy travels!