Keep on rockin' and rollin' with the Oregon Scientific iBall

Oregon Scientific has announced the iBall, a wireless speaker that's the size and shape of a bowling ball (think ten-pin bowling, not pensioners on manicured lawns). Plug your iPod into the transmitter dock, which also acts as a charging station, and your music flows wirelessly to the iBall, which can be up to 30m away. You can leave your iPod in the living room and listen to your tunes to the kitchen, the bedroom or even the garden, without the hassle of stringing cables around the house.

The iBall comprises two speakers and a sub, although they're all packed into the 20cm sphere, so you don't get a lot of stereo separation. Controls on the ball enable you to play, pause, skip through your tracks or adjust the volume. You'll get six to eight hours of music from the rechargeable batteries, or you can plug it into the mains to annoy the neighbours all through the night. The wireless transmission uses frequency hopping to avoid interference from cordless phones, WiFi networks and so on, so the party won't stop when your neighbours pick up the phone to complain (if you're aiming for all-out urban warfare, you should also note that the iBall is made of bullet-proof plastic).

After getting both hands on an iBall at the launch event, Crave can't help feeling that Oregon has missed a trick by not including a handle. Unless you've got exceptionally large paws, wandering through the house with a cup of tea in one hand and the iBall in the other is liable to end with the speaker rolling out of your hands and bouncing down the stairs. Oregon says making the ball smaller would affect the sound, but it's not the size that bothers us, it's the decision to make it large and round and slippery. That said, it does look cool.

Available from October, the iBall will cost £200. -ML

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